Comics A global history, 1968 to the present

Mazur and Danner follow a long tradition of comics practitioners and aficionados who double as historians of the medium; unlike many, they offer a volume that resonates with scholarly authority. What they do best here is contextualize the art, creators, and cultural reception of key and representative works. Their international scope distinguishes this book from most in the field. Furthermore, they focus on literary and artistic high spots rather than popular characters or genres; even their chapter "American Mainstream Comics" substantially addresses only critically acclaimed works on the fringes of the mainstream. The topical approach of individual chapters sometimes confuses the overall chronology, but this richly dense treatise will be best read cover-to-cover anyway, as the authors' contextualizing of works and trends builds firmly throughout the text. Unable to dip in and out of the book profitably, novice students will be frustrated by the very aspects that will make this work so valuable to advanced readers. Perhaps the book's best quality is its provision of hundreds of smartly selected color and black-and-white illustrations, which function as integral aspects of its narrative. --Darby Orcutt, North Carolina State University