This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2009)

Noted comic book creators:
(top row, left to right) Jack Kirby, John Byrne, Frank Miller, Art Adams, Jim Lee, Dave Sim,
(second row) Art Spiegelman, Alan Moore, Mark Millar, Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, David Lloyd,
(third row) Jean "Moebius" Giraud, Milo Manara, Simone Bianchi, Francisco Solano López, Alberto Breccia, Go Nagai,
(bottom row) Kazuki Takahashi, Riyoko Ikeda, Wendy Pini, Louise Simonson, Gail Simone and Valerie D'Orazio

A comic book creator is someone who creates a comic book or graphic novel.

The production of a comic book by one of the major comic book companies in the U.S. can involve a writer, a penciller, an inker, a colorist, and a letterer, typically overseen by an editor.

See also[link]

• Artist
• Women in comics

Comics artists[link]

• Cartoonist
• Colorist
• Comic strip creator
• Inker
• Letterer
• Mangaka
• Penciller

Lists[link]

• List of cartoonists
• List of comic creators
• List of female comics creators

Media[link]

• Comic book
• Graphic novel
• Webcomic

Publishers[link]

• Dark Horse Comics
• DC Comics
• IDW Publishing
• Image Comics
• Marvel Comics
• Oni Press

External links[link]

• BBC Blast - Becoming a comic book artist

This comics-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Twentysix Gasoline Stations, 1963 by Ed Ruscha

Artists' books are works of art realized in the form of a book. They are often published in small editions, though sometimes they are produced as one-of-a-kind objects referred to as "uniques".

Artists' books have employed a wide range of forms, including scrolls, fold-outs, concertinas or loose items contained in a box as well as bound printed sheet. Artists have been active in printing and book production for centuries, but the artist's book is primarily a late 20th century form.

"Artists' books are books or book-like objects over the final appearance of which an artist has had a high degree of control; where the book is intended as a work of art in itself." Stephen Bury^[1]

Early history[link]

Blake's frontispiece for Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Origins of the form: William Blake[link]

Whilst artists have been involved in the production of books in Europe since the early medieval period (such as the Book of Kells and the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry), most writers on the subject cite the English visionary artist and poet William Blake (1757–1827) as the earliest direct antecedent ^[2][3]

Books such as Songs of Innocence and of Experience were written, illustrated, printed, coloured and bound by Blake and his wife Catherine, and the merging of handwritten texts and images created intensely vivid, hermetic works without any obvious precedents. These works would set the tone for later artists' books, connecting self-publishing and self-distribution with the integration of text, image and form. All of these factors have remained key concepts in artists' books up to the present day.

Avant-Garde production 1909–1937[link]

As Europe plunged headlong towards World War I, various groups of avant-garde artists across the continent started to focus on pamphlets, posters, manifestos and books. This was partially as a way to gain publicity within an increasing print-dominated world, but also as a strategy to bypass traditional gallery systems, disseminate ideas and to create affordable work that might (theoretically) be seen by people who would not otherwise enter art galleries.

This move toward radicalism was exemplified by the Italian Futurists, and by Filippo Marinetti (1876–1944) in particular. The publication of the "Futurist Manifesto", 1909, on the front cover of the French daily newspaper Le Figaro was an audacious coup de théâtre that resulted in international notoriety.^[4] Marinetti used the ensuing fame to tour Europe, kickstarting movements across the continent that all veered towards book-making and pamphleteering.

In London, for instance, Marinetti's visit directly precipitated Wyndham Lewis' founding of the Vorticist movement, whose literary magazine BLAST is an early example of a modernist periodical. With regards to the creation of Artists' books, the most influential off-shoot of futurist principles, however, occurred in Russia. Marinetti visited in 1914, proselytizing on behalf of Futurist principles of speed, danger and cacophony.^[5][6]

Russian Futurism, 1910–1917[link]

Centred in Moscow, around the Gileia Group of Transrational (zaum) poets David and Nikolai Burliuk, Elena Guro, Vasili Kamenski and Velimir Khlebnikov, the Russian futurists created a sustained series of artists' books that challenged every assumption of orthodox book production. Whilst some of the books created by this group would be relatively straightforward typeset editions of poetry, many others played with form, structure, materials and content that still seems contemporary.

Key works such as Worldbackwards (1912), by Khlebnikov and Kruchenykh, Natalia Goncharova, Larionov Rogovin and Tatlin, Transrational Boog (1915) by Aliagrov and Kruchenykh & Olga Rozanova and Universal War (1916) by Kruchenykh used hand-written text, integrated with expressive lithographs and collage elements, creating small editions with dramatic differences between individual copies. Other titles experimented with materials such as wallpaper, printing methods including carbon copying and hectographs, and binding methods including the random sequencing of pages, ensuring no two books would have the same contextual meaning.^[7]

Russian futurism gradually evolved into Constructivism after the Russian Revolution, centred around the key figures of Malevich and Tatlin. Attempting to create a new proletarian art for a new communist epoch, constructivist books would also have a huge impact on other European avant-gardes, with design and text-based works such as El Lissitsky's For The Voice (1922) having a direct impact on groups inspired or directly linked to communism. Dada in Zurich and Berlin, the Bauhaus in Weimar and De Stijl in Holland all printed numerous books, periodicals and theoretical tracts within the newly emerging International Modernist style. Artist's books from this era include Kurt Schwitter's and Kate Steinitz's book The Scarecrow (1925), and Theo van Doesburg's periodical De Stijl.

Dada & Surrealism[link]

Dada was initially started at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zürich), by a group of exiled artists in neutral Switzerland during World War I. Originally influenced by the sound poetry of Wassily Kandinsky, and the Blaue Reiter Almanac that Kandinsky had edited with Marc, artists' books, periodicals, manifestoes and absurdist theatre were central to each of Dada's main incarnations. Berlin Dada in particular, started by Richard Huelsenbeck after leaving Zurich in 1917, would publish a number of incendiary artists' books, such as George Grosz's The Face Of The Dominant Class (1921), a series of politically motivated satirical lithographs about the German Bourgeoisie.

Whilst concerned mainly with poetry and theory, Surrealism created a number of works that continued in the French tradition of the Livre d'Artiste, whilst simultaneously subverting it. Max Ernst's Une Semaine de Bonté (1934), collaging found images from Victorian books, is a famous example, as is Marcel Duchamp's cover for Le Surréalisme' (1947) featuring a tactile three-dimensional pink breast made of rubber.^[8]

One important Russian writer/artist who created artist books was Alexei Remizov.^[9] Drawing on medieval Russian literature, he creatively combined dreams, reality, and pure whimsy in his artist books.

After World War II; post-modernism and pop art[link]

Regrouping the avant-garde[link]

After World War II, many artists in Europe attempted to rebuild links beyond nationalist boundaries, and used the artist's book as a way of experimenting with form, disseminating ideas and forging links with like-minded groups in other countries.

"In the fifties artists in Europe developed an interest in the book, under the influence of modernist theory and in the attempt to rebuild positions destroyed by the war." Dieter Schwarz^[10]

After the war, a number of leading artists and poets started to explore the functions and forms of the book 'in a serious way'^[11] Concrete poets in Brazil such as Augusto and Haroldo De Campos, Cobra artists in Holland and Denmark and the French Lettrists all began to systematically deconstruct the book. A fine example of the latter is Isidore Isou's Le Grand Désordre, (1960), a work that challenges the viewer to reassemble the contents of an envelope back into a semblance of narrative. Two other examples of poet-artists whose work provided models for artists' books include Marcel Broodthaers and Ian Hamilton Finlay.^[12]

Yves Klein in France was similarly challenging Modernist integrity with a series of works such as Yves: Peintures (1954) and Dimanche (1960) which turned on issues of identity and duplicity.^[13] Other examples from this era include Guy Debord and Asger Jorn's two collaborations, Fin de Copenhague (1957) and Mémoires' (1959), two works of Psychogeography created from found magazines of Copenhagen and Paris respectively, collaged and then printed over in unrelated colours.^[14]

Dieter Roth and Ed Ruscha[link]

Often credited with defining the modern artist's book,^[15] Dieter Roth (1930–98), produced a series of works which systematically deconstructed the form of the book throughout the fifties and sixties. These disrupted the codex's authority by creating books with holes in; (Picture Book, 1957, for instance) allowing the viewer to see more than one page at the same time. Roth was also the first artist to re-use found books-comic books, printer's end papers and newspapers, (such as Daily Mirror, 1961^[16] and AC, 1964)^[17] Although originally produced in Iceland in extremely small editions, Roth's books would be produced in increasingly large runs, through numerous publishers in Europe and North America, and would ultimately be reprinted together by the German publisher Hansjörg Mayer in the 1970s, making them more widely available in the last half-century than the work of any other comparable artist.

Almost contemporaneously in USA, Ed Ruscha (1937–present) printed his first book, Twentysix Gasoline Stations, in 1963 in an edition of 400, but had printed almost 4000 copies by the end of the decade.^[18] The book is directly related to American photographic travelogues, such as Robert Frank’s The Americans' (1965), but deals with a banal journey on route 66 between Ruscha's home in LA and his parents' in Oklahoma.^[19] In one of the defining innovations of the genre, Ruscha chose to distribute the original edition in the gasoline stations that he'd photographed, thereby completely bypassing traditional means of dissemination within the artworld. Like Roth, Ruscha created a series of homogenous books throughout the sixties, including Every Building on the Sunset Strip, 1966 and Royal Road Test, 1967.

Fluxus and the Multiple[link]

Growing out of John Cage's Experimental Composition classes from 1957 to 1959 at the New School for Social Research, Fluxus was a loose collective of artists from North America and Europe that centred around George Maciunas (1931–78), who was born in Lithuania. Maciunas set up the AG Gallery in New York, 1961, with the intention of putting on events and selling books and multiples by artists he liked; the gallery closed within a year, apparently having failed to sell a single item.^[20] The collective survived, and featured an ever-changing roster of like-minded artists including George Brecht, Joseph Beuys, Daniel Spoerri, Yoko Ono, Emmett Williams and Nam June Paik.^[21]

Artists' books and multiples^[22] (as well as happenings), were central to Fluxus' ethos disdaining galleries and institutions, replacing them with 'art in the community', and the definition of what was and wasn't a book became increasingly elastic throughout the decade as the two forms collided. Many of the Fluxus editions share characteristics with both; George Brecht's Water Yam (1963), for instance, involves a series of scores collected in a box, whilst similar scores are collected together in a bound book in Yoko Ono's Grapefruit (1964). Another famous example is Literature Sausage by Dieter Roth, one of many artists to be affiliated to fluxus at one or other point in its history; each one was made from a pulped book mixed with onions and spices and stuffed into sausage skin. Literally a book, but utterly unreadable.

"Artists' books began to proliferate in the sixties and seventies in the prevailing climate of social and political activism. Inexpensive, disposable editions were one manifestation of the dematerialization of the art object and the new emphasis on process.... It was at this time too that a number of artist-controlled alternatives began to develop to provide a forum and venue for many artists denied access to the traditional gallery and museum structure. Independent art publishing was one of these alternatives, and artists' books became part of the ferment of experimental forms.' Joan Lyons.^[23]

Conceptual art[link]

The artist's book proved central to the development of conceptual art. Lawrence Weiner, Bruce Nauman and Sol LeWitt in North America, Art & Language in the United Kingdom and Jaroslaw Kozlowski in Poland all used the artist's book as a central part of their art practice. An early example, the exhibition January 5–31, 1969 organised in rented office space in New York by Seth Siegelaub, featured nothing except a stack of artists' books, also called January 5–31, 1969 and featuring predominantly text-based work by Lawrence Weiner, Douglas Huebler Joseph Kosuth and Robert Barry. Sol LeWitt's Brick Wall, (1977), for instance, simply chronicled shadows as they passed across a brick wall, whilst Kozlowski's Reality (1972) took a section of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, removing all of the text, leaving only the punctuation behind. Another example ist the Einbetoniertes Buch^[24], 1971 (book in concrete) by Wolf Vostell.

Proliferation and reintegration into the mainstream[link]

As the form has expanded, many of the original distinctive elements of artists' books have been lost, blurred or transgressed. Artists such as Cy Twombly and Anselm Kiefer routinely make unique, hand crafted books in a deliberate reaction to the small mass produced editions of previous generations; Albert Oehlen, for instance, whilst still keeping artists' books central to his practice, has created a series of works that have more in common with Victorian sketchbooks. A return to the cheap mass-produced aesthetic has been evidenced since the early 90s, with artists such as Mark Pawson (book pictured at right) and Karen Reimer making cheap mass production central to their practice.

Contemporary and post-conceptual artists also made artist's books an important aspect of their practice, notably William Wegman, Bob Cobbing, Martin Kippenberger, Raymond Pettibon, and Suze Rotolo.

Le Livre pauvre[link]

Initiated by Daniel Leuwers les Livres pauvres invite a dialogue between poetry and painting which have already participated Michel Butor, Yves Bonnefoy, Francois Cheng, Bernard Noel, Salah Stétié, Chedid, Nancy Huston, Annie Ernaux, Michel Tournier ... and painters Alechinsky, Gérard Titus-Carmel, Claude Viallat, Jean-Luc Parant, Georges Badin, Beatrice Casadesus, Richard Texier among many others.

Critical reception[link]

In the early 1970s the artist's book began to be recognized as a distinct genre, and with this recognition came the beginnings of critical appreciation of and debate on the subject. Institutions devoted to the study and teaching of the form were founded (The Center for Book Arts in New York, for example); library and art museum collections began to create new rubrics with which to classify and catalog artists' books and also actively began to expand their fledgling collections; new collections were founded (such as Franklin Furnace in New York); and numerous group exhibitions of artist's books were organized in Europe and America (notably one at Moore College of Art in Philadelphia in 1973, the catalog of which, according to Stefan Klima's Artists Books: A Critical Survey of the Literature, is the first place the term "Artist's Book" was used). Bookstores specializing in artists' books were founded, usually by artists, including Ecart in 1968 (Geneva), Other Books and So in 1973 (Amsterdam), Art Metropole in 1974 (Toronto) and Printed Matter in New York (1976). All of these also had publishing programmes over the years, and the latter two are still active today.

In the 1980s this consolidation of the field intensified, with an increasing number of practitioners, greater commercialization, and also the appearance of a number of critical publications devoted to the form. In 1983, for example, Cathy Courtney began a regular column for the London-based Art Monthly (Courtney contributed articles for 17 years, and this feature continues today with different contributors). The Library of Congress adopted the term artists books in 1980 in its list of established subjects.

In the 1980s and 1990s, BA, MA and MFA programs in Book Art were founded, some notable examples of which are the BA at Mills College in California, the MFA at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, the MA at Camberwell College of Art in London, and the BA at the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The Journal of Artists' Books (JAB) was founded in 1994 to "raise the level of critical inquiry about artists' books."

In recent decades the artist's book has been developed, by way of the Artists' record album concept pioneered by Laurie Anderson into new media forms including the artist's CD-ROM and the artist's DVD-ROM.

Critical issues and debate[link]

A number of issues around the artist's book have been vigorously debated. Some of the major themes under examination have been:

1. Definition of the artist's book: distinguishing between the terms 'artist's book', 'book art', 'bookworks', 'livre d'artiste', fine press books, etc.
2. Where the artist's book "should" be situated in relation to Craft and Fine Art traditions.
3. Where to put the apostrophe.
4. When is a magazine a book? Some examples of "artists' books" provided on this page (such as Theo van Doesburg's De Stijl) are magazines and not books at all.

Book Art Photo gallery[link]

• 

  Altered Book Art

• 

  Halfbound book with leather and marbled paper.

• 

  a smaller example of Book Art

• 

  a textured leather book with embellishments

• Reimer Legendary.jpg

  Legendary, Lexical, Loquacious Love by Eve Rhymer (Karen Reimer), 1996, an alphabetical re-ordering of the text in a romance novel

• 

  Gutenberg Bible widely praised for its high aesthetic and artistic qualities^[25]

See also[link]

• Altered book
• Artists books: centers of activity
• Asemic writing
• Bookbinding
• Illuminated manuscript
• Letterpress printing
• List of Centers of book arts activity
• Miniature book
• Zine

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Abt, Jeffrey (1986) The Book Made Art: A Selection of Contemporary Artists' Books
• Alexander, Charles, ed. (1995) Talking the Boundless Book: Art, Language, and the Book Arts
• Bleus, Guy (1990) Art is Books
• Bright, Betty (2005) No Longer Innocent: Book Art in America, 1960-1980
• Bury, Stephen (1995) Artists' Books: The Book As a Work of Art, 1963-1995
• Castleman, Riva (1994) A Century of Artists Books
• Celant, Germano and Tim Guest (1981) Books by Artists
• Celant, Germano, translated from the Italian by Corine Lotz (1972) Book as Artwork, 1960-72
• Johanna Drucker, (1995) The Century of Artists' Books
• Johanna Drucker, (1998) Figuring the Word: Essays on Books, Writing, and Visual Poetics
• Friedman, Julia. Beyond Symbolism and Surrealism: Alexei Remizov's Synthetic Art, Northwestern University Press, 2010. ISBN 0-8101-2617-6 (Trade Cloth)
• Fusco, Maria and Ian Hunt (2006) Put About: A Critical Anthology on Independent Publishing
• Hubert, Rennée Riese, and Judd D. Hubert (1999) The Cutting Edge of Reading: Artists' Books
• Khalfa, Jean (2001) The Dialogue between Painting and Poetry: Livres d'Artistes 1874-1999, Black Apollo Press
• Klima, Stefan (1998) Artists Books: A Critical Survey of the Literature
• Lauf, Cornelia and Clive Phillpot (1998) Artist/Author: Contemporary Artists' Books
• Lippard, Lucy (1973) Six years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972
• Lyons, Joan, ed. (1985) Artists' Books: A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook
• Moeglin-Delcroix, Anne. (1997) Esthétique du livre d’artiste, 1960-1980. Paris: Jean-Michel Place; Biliothèque nationale de France.
• Perrée, Rob (2002) Cover to Cover: The Artist's Book in Perspective
• Smith, Keith (1989) Structure of the Visual Book
• Firshing Brown, Ellen. "Beyond words - Artists' Books in Modernism Magazine (2008)". publishing.yudu.com. http://publishing.yudu.com/Apt5o/MV11N3/resources/56.htm. Retrieved 24 November 2010. 

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (October 2010)

Journals and on-line media covering the field[link]

• Book Arts Website at the CFPR UWE, is a major exponent of all things concerning the Art of the Book, featuring downloadable Newsletters, online exhibitions from the last decade, research projects, events, publications and a comprehensive listing of other sites world wide that feature Artist's books. Edited by Sarah Bodman designed by Jan Mescir.
• Umbrella, founded and edited by Judith Hoffberg, is one of the oldest online periodicals covering artists’ books and other multiple editions. Available online for the years 1978-2005 through the Digital Collections of the IUPUI University Library.
• JAB: The Journal of Artists' Books was created by Brad Freeman in 1994 to develop a critical forum for the discussion of artists' books. JAB publishes articles about artists' books and related fields as well as publishing artists pages and art inserts. The covers of each issue are also commissioned works of art. JAB suspended publication from 2004 to 2006 and then resumed publication in 2007 in association with the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper. That same year, the JAB archive for issues 1-20 (1994–2003) was sold to Yale University. Many of the back issues are available in PDF form on the JAB website.
• Bonefolder, an e-journal on book arts published since 2004 and part of the Book Arts Web, a collection of links and information about book arts, bookbinding, and book artists.
• Colophon Page is a revue of modern and contemporary illustrated books and related works on paper.
• Ex Libris is a website for artist's CD-ROMs, Director projectors, and Hypercard stacks written and designed by artists. Ex Libris also has an area dedicated to Artists Book Dealers which lists dealers from around the world.
• Book Arts at the Open Directory Project
• Sign of the Owl A blog with short articles about artists' books and the artists' book field.
• Artistbook.lt, The Artist's Book Triennial in Vilnius, Lithuania.
• [1], Zybooks artists books online - a free gallery space showcasing artists books from around the world (Gandha Key, site curator and owner)
• Daniel Leuwers's blog

Collections of artists' books[link]

• Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, Erika and Fred Torri Artists' Books Collection
• Virginia Commonwealth University Book Art Collection
• The Victoria and Albert Museum Book Artists' Books Collection
• State Library of Queensland's Artists' Books Collection
• Chelsea College of Art & Design Library Artists' Books Collection
• Tate Britain's Collection of Artists' Books
• Otis College of Art and Design Online Collection
• Women's Studio Workshop Artists' Books Residencies
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Art Library Collection
• Hand Bookbindings from Princeton University Library
• Oberlin College, Clarence Ward Art Library, Artist Book Imagebase
• Digital Collection of Selections from the Kohler Art Library, The University of Wisconsin–Madison
• Cleveland Institute of Art Gund Library Artists' Books Collection
• Damp Flat Books, UK
• Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
• The Ministry of Books, University of Portsmouth, UK
• George Mason University (Fairfax, VA)
• Parisoir Publications, UK

It has been suggested that American comic book be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) Proposed since April 2012.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2007)

The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (August 2010)

Comic book

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A comic book or comicbook,^[1] also called comic paper or comic magazine (often shortened to simply comic or comics) is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog (usually in word balloons, emblematic of the comic book art form) as well as including brief descriptive prose. The first comic book appeared in the United States in 1933, reprinting the earlier newspaper comic strips, which established many of the story-telling devices used in comics. The term "comic book" arose because the first comic books reprinted humor comic strips. Despite their name, comic books are not necessarily humorous in tone; modern comic books tell stories in a variety of genres.

American comic books[link]

Rulah, Jungle Goddess No. 24 (March 1949): An example of a non-superhero jungle-girl character. Cover artist(s) unknown.

Adventures into Darkness: Horror stories

Since the introduction of the comic book format in 1933 with the publication of Famous Funnies, the United States has produced the most titles, with only the British comic and Japanese manga as close competitors in terms of quantity of titles, though manga has many more followers and dwarfs American comics in readership.^{[citation needed]}

Cultural historians divide the career of the comic book in the U.S. into several ages or historical eras:

• Proto-comic books and the Platinum Age
• Golden Age
• Silver Age
• Bronze Age
• Modern Age

Comic book historians continue to debate the exact boundaries of these eras, but they have come to an agreement, the terms for which originated in the fan press. Comics as a print medium have existed in America since the printing of The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck in 1842 in hardcover—making it the first known American prototype comic book. The introduction of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's Superman in 1938 turned comic books into a major industry,^[2] and is the start of the Golden Age of comics. Historians have proposed several names for the Age before Superman, most commonly dubbing it the Platinum Age.^[3]

While the Platinum Age saw the first use of the term "comic book" (The Yellow Kid in McFadden's Flats (1897)), the first known full-color comic (The Blackberries (1901)), and the first monthly comic book (Comics Monthly (1922)), it was not until the Golden Age that the archetype of the superhero would originate.

The Silver Age of comic books is generally considered to date from the first successful revival of the dormant superhero form—the debut of Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino's Flash in Showcase No. 4 (September/October 1956).^[4][5] The Silver Age lasted through the late 1960s or early 1970s, during which time Marvel Comics revolutionized the medium with such naturalistic superheroes as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four and Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's Spider-Man.

The precise beginnings of the Bronze and Copper Ages remain less well-defined. Suggested starting points for the Bronze Age of comics include Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith's Conan No. 1 (October 1970), Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams' Green Lantern/Green Arrow No. 76 (April 1970), or Stan Lee and Gil Kane's The Amazing Spider-Man No. 96 (May 1971; the non-Comics Code issue). The start of the Copper Age (apprx. 1984-2000) has even more potential starting points, but is generally agreed to be the publication of Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore's Watchmen by DC Comics in 1986, as well as the publication of DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths, written by Marv Wolfman with pencils by George Pérez. Another possible starting point is Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars, published in 1984.^{[citation needed]}

The Modern Age is generally accepted^{[by whom?]} as being from 2000 to the Present.^{[citation needed]}

A notable event in the history of the American comic book came with the psychiatrist Fredric Wertham's criticisms of the medium in his book Seduction of the Innocent (1954), which prompted the American Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency to investigate comic books. In response to attention from the government and from the media, the U.S. comic book industry set up the Comics Code Authority in 1954 and drafted the "Comics Code" in the same year.

Underground comic books[link]

In the late 1960s and early 1970s a surge of creativity emerged in what became known as underground comics. Published and distributed independently of the established comics industry, most of such comics reflected the youth counterculture and drug culture of the time. Many had an uninhibited, often irreverent style; their frank depictions of nudity, sex, profanity, and politics had no parallel outside their precursors, the pornographic and even more obscure "Tijuana bibles". Underground comics were almost never sold at news stands, but rather in such youth-oriented outlets as head shops and record stores, as well as by mail order.

Frank Stack's The Adventures of Jesus, published under the name Foolbert Sturgeon,^[6][7] has been credited as the first underground comic.^[6][7]

Alternative comics[link]

The rise of comic book specialty stores in the late 1970s created/paralleled a dedicated market for "independent" or "alternative comics" in the U.S. The first such comics included the anthology series Star Reach, published by comic book writer Mike Friedrich from 1974 to 1979, and Harvey Pekar's American Splendor, which continued sporadic publication into the 21st century and which Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini adapted into a 2003 film. Some independent comics continued in the tradition of underground comics, though their content was generally less explicit, and others resembled the output of mainstream publishers in format and genre but were published by smaller artist-owned companies or by single artists. A few (notably RAW) were experimental attempts to bring comics closer to the status of fine art.

During the 1970s the "small press" culture grew and diversified. By the 1980s, several independent publishers, such as Pacific, Eclipse, First, Comico, and Fantagraphics had started releasing a wide range of styles and formats—from color superhero, detective, and science fiction comic books to black-and-white magazine-format stories of Latin American magical realism.

A number of small publishers in the 1990s changed the format and distribution of their comics to more closely resemble non-comics publishing. The "minicomics" form, an extremely informal version of self-publishing, arose in the 1980s and became increasingly popular among artists in the 1990s, despite reaching an even more limited audience than the small press.

As of 2009^[update] small publishers regularly releasing titles include Avatar Comics, Hyperwerks, Raytoons, and Terminal Press, buoyed by such advances in printing technology as digital print-on-demand.

Graphic novels[link]

In 1964, Richard Kyle coined the term "graphic novel" to distinguish newly translated European works from genre-driven subject matter common in American comics. Precursors of the form existed by the 1920s, which saw a revival of the medieval woodcut tradition by Belgian Frans Masereel,^[8] American Lynd Ward and others. In 1950, St. John Publications produced the digest-sized, adult-oriented "picture novel" It Rhymes with Lust, a 128-page digest by pseudonymous writer "Drake Waller" (Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller), penciler Matt Baker and inker Ray Osrin, touted as "an original full-length novel" on its cover. In 1971, writer-artist Gil Kane and collaborators devised the paperback "comics novel" Blackmark. Will Eisner popularized the term "graphic novel" when he used it on the cover of the paperback edition of his work A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories in 1978.

Digital graphic novels[link]

Comic book collecting[link]

This section requires expansion.

The rarest^{[citation needed]} comic books include copies of the unreleased Motion Picture Funnies Weekly No. 1 from 1939. Eight copies, plus one without a cover, emerged in the estate of the deceased publisher in 1974. The "Pay Copy" of this book sold for $43,125 in a 2005 Heritage auction.^[9]

The most valuable American comics have combined rarity and quality with the first appearances of popular and enduring characters. Four comic books to have sold for over $1 million USD as of December 2010, including two examples of Action Comics No. 1, the first appearance of Superman,^[10][11] both sold privately through online dealer ComicConnect.com in 2010, and Detective Comics No. 27, the first appearance of Batman, via public auction.

Misprints, promotional comic-dealer incentive printings, and similar issues with extremely low distribution also generally have scarcity value. The rarest modern comic books include the original press run of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen No. 5, which DC executive Paul Levitz recalled and pulped due to the appearance of a vintage Victorian era advertisement for "Marvel Douche", which the publisher considered offensive;^[12] only 100 copies exist, most of which have been CGC graded. (See Recalled comics for more pulped, recalled, and erroneous comics.)

In 2000, a company named CGC began to "slab" comics, encasing them in a thick plastic and giving them a numeric grade.

European comics[link]

Franco-Belgian comics[link]

France and Belgium have a long tradition in comics and comic books, called BDs (an abbreviation of bande dessinées) in French and strips in Dutch. Belgian comic books originally written in Dutch show the influence of the Francophone "Franco-Belgian" comics, but have their own distinct style.

The name la bande dessinée derives from the original description of the art form as drawn strips (the phrase literally translates as "the drawn strip"), analogous to the sequence of images in a film strip. As in its English equivalent, the word "bande" can be applied to both film and comics. Significantly, the French-language term contains no indication of subject-matter, unlike the American terms "comics" and "funnies", which imply an art form not to be taken seriously. The distinction of comics as le neuvième art (literally, "the ninth art") is prevalent in French scholarship on the form, as is the concept of comics criticism and scholarship itself. Relative to the respective size of their populations, the innumerable authors in France and Belgium publish a high volume of comic books. In North America, the more serious Franco-Belgian comics are often seen as equivalent to graphic novels, but whether they are long or short, bound or in magazine format, in Europe there is no need for a more sophisticated term, as the art's name does not itself imply something frivolous.

In France, authors control the publication of most comics. The author works within a self-appointed time-frame, and it is common for readers to wait six months or as long as two years between installments. Most books first appear in print as a hardcover book, typically with 48, 56, or 64 pages.

British comics[link]

Originally the same size as a usual comic book in the U.S. (although lacking the glossy cover), the British comic has adopted a magazine size, with The Beano and The Dandy the last to adopt this size (in the 1980s). Although the British generally speak of "a comic" or of "a comic magazine", and they also historically spoke of "a comic paper". Some comics, such as Judge Dredd and other 2000 AD titles, have been published in a tabloid form.

Although Ally Sloper's Half Holiday (1884), the first comic published in Britain, was aimed at an adult market, publishers quickly targeted a younger market, which has led to most publications being for children and created an association in the public's mind of comics as somewhat juvenile.

Popular titles within the UK have included The Beano, The Dandy, The Eagle, 2000 AD, and Viz. Underground comics and "small press" titles have also been published within the UK, notably Oz and Escape Magazine.

The content of Action, another title aimed at children and launched in the mid-1970s, became the subject of discussion in the House of Commons. Although on a smaller scale than similar investigations in the U.S., such concerns led to a moderation of content published within British comics. Such moderation never became formalized to the extent of promulgating a code, nor did it last long.

The UK has also established a healthy market in the reprinting and repackaging of material, notably material originating in the U.S. The lack of reliable supplies of American comic books led to a variety of black-and-white reprints, including Marvel's monster comics of the 1950s, Fawcett's Captain Marvel, and other characters such as Sheena, Mandrake the Magician, and the Phantom. Several reprint companies were involved in repackaging American material for the British market, notably the importer and distributor Thorpe & Porter.

Marvel Comics established a UK office in 1972. DC Comics and Dark Horse Comics also opened offices in the 1990s. The repackaging of European material has occurred less frequently, although the Tintin and Asterix serials have been successfully translated and repackaged in softcover books.

At Christmas time, publishers repackage and commission material for comic annuals, printed and bound as hardcover A4-size books; Rupert supplies a famous example of the British comic annual. DC Thomson also repackages The Broons and Oor Wullie strips in softcover A4-size books for the holiday season.

On 19 March 2012, the British postal service, the Royal Mail, released a set of stamps depicting British comic-book characters and series.^[13] The collection featured The Beano, The Dandy, Eagle, The Topper, Roy of the Rovers, Bunty, Buster, Valiant, Twinkle and 2000 AD.

Italian comics[link]

In Italy, comics (known in Italian as fumetti) made their debut as humor strips at the end of the 19th century, and later evolved into adventure stories inspired by those coming from the U.S.^{[citation needed]} After World War II, however, artists like Hugo Pratt and Guido Crepax exposed Italian comics to an international audience. "Author" comics^{[clarification needed]} contain often strong erotic contents. Popular comic books such as Diabolik or the Bonelli line—namely Tex Willer or Dylan Dog—remain best-sellers.

Mainstream comics are usually published on a monthly basis, in a black-and-white digest size format, with approximately 100 to 132 pages. Collections of classic material for the most famous characters, usually with more than 200 pages, are also common. Author comics are published in the French BD format, with an example being Pratt's Corto Maltese.

Italian cartoonists show the influence of comics from other countries, including France, Belgium, Spain, and Argentina. Italy is also famous for being one of the foremost producers of Walt Disney comic stories outside the U.S. Donald Duck's superhero alter ego, Paperinik, known in English as Superduck, was created in Italy.

Japanese comics[link]

This article may not properly summarize the main article. Specific concerns can be found on the Talk page. Please improve this article if you can.

The first comic books in Japan appeared during the 18th century in the form of woodblock-printed booklets containing short stories drawn from folk tales, legends, and historical accounts, told in a simple visual-verbal idiom. Known as "red books" (赤本, akahon^?), "black books" (黒本, kurobon^?), and "blue books" (青本, aohon^?), these were written primarily for less literate readers. However, with the publication in 1775 of Koikawa Harumachi's comic book Master Flashgold's Splendiferous Dream (金々先生栄花の夢, Kinkin sensei eiga no yume^?), an adult form of comic book originated, which required greater literacy and cultural sophistication. This was known as the kibyōshi (黄表紙^?, lit. yellow cover). Published in thousands (possibly^{[original research?]} tens of thousands) of copies, the kibyōshi may have been the earliest fully realized comic book for adults in world literary history. Approximately 2,000 titles remain extant.

Modern comic books in Japan developed from a mixture of these earlier comic books and of woodblock prints ukiyo-e (浮世絵^?) with Western styles of drawing. They took their current^[update] form shortly after World War II. They are usually published in black-and-white, except for the covers, which are usually printed in four colors, although occasionally, the first few pages may also be printed in full color. The term manga means "random (or whimsical) pictures", and first came into common usage in the late 18th century with the publication of such works as Santō Kyōden's picturebook Shiji no yukikai (四時交加^?) (1798) and Aikawa Minwa's Comic Sketches of a Hundred Women (1798).

Development of this form occurred as a result of Japan's attempts to modernize itself^{[citation needed]}, a desire awakened by trade with the U.S.^{[citation needed]} Western artists were brought over to teach their students such concepts as line, form, and color; things which had not been regarded as conceptually important in ukiyo-e, as the idea behind the picture was of paramount importance. Manga at this time was referred to as Ponchi-e (Punch-picture) and, like its British counterpart Punch magazine, mainly depicted humor and political satire in short one- or four-picture format.

Dr. Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989), widely acknowledged^{[by whom?]} as the father of narrative manga, further developed this form. Seeing an animated war propaganda film titled Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors (桃太郎 海の神兵, Momotarō Umi no Shinpei^?) inspired Tezuka to become a comic artist. He introduced episodic storytelling and character development in comic format, in which each story is part of larger story arc. The only text in Tezuka's comics was the characters' dialogue and this further lent his comics a cinematic quality. Inspired by the work of Walt Disney, Tezuka also adopted a style of drawing facial features in which a character's eyes, nose, and mouth are drawn in an extremely exaggerated manner. This style created immediately recognizable expressions using very few lines, and the simplicity of this style allowed Tezuka to be prolific. Tezuka's work generated new interest in the ukiyo-e tradition, in which the image is a representation of an idea, rather than a depiction of reality.

Though a close equivalent to the American comic book, manga has historically held a more important place in Japanese culture than comics have in American culture. Japanese society shows a wide respect for manga, both as an art form and as a form of popular literature. Many manga become television shows or short films. As with its American counterpart, some manga has been criticized for its sexuality and violence, although in the absence of official or even industry restrictions on content, artists have freely created manga for every age group and for every topic.

Manga magazines—also known as "anthologies", or colloquially, "phone books"^{[citation needed]}—often run several series concurrently, with approximately 20 to 40 pages allocated to each series per issue. These magazines are usually printed^{[by whom?]} on low-quality newsprint and range from 200 to more than 850 pages each. Manga magazines also contain one-shot comics and a variety of four-panel yonkoma (equivalent to comic strips). Manga series may continue for many years if they are successful, with stories often collected and reprinted in book-sized volumes called tankōbon (単行本^?, lit. stand-alone book), the equivalent of the American trade paperbacks. These volumes use higher-quality paper and are useful to readers who want to be brought up to date with a series, or to readers who find the cost of the weekly or monthly publications to be prohibitive. Deluxe versions are printed as commemorative or collectible editions. Conversely, old manga titles are also reprinted using lower-quality paper and sold for 120 ¥ (approximately $1 USD) each.

Doujinshi[link]

Doujinshi (同人誌^?, lit. fan magazine), fan-made Japanese comics operate in a far larger market in Japan than the American "underground comics" market; the largest doujinshi fair, Comic Market, attracts 500,000 visitors twice a year.

See also[link]

Comics portal

• Cartoon
• Comics Studies
• Comics vocabulary
• Webcomic
• Digital comics

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Kern, Adam L. (18 December 2006). Manga from the Floating World: Comic book Culture and the Kibyôshi of Edo Japan. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Asia Center. ISBN 978-0-674-02266-9. 
• Inge, M. Thomas (1979). "Comics as Culture". Journal of Popular Culture 12 (631). 
• Martin, Tim (2 April 2009). "How Comic Books Became Part of the Literary Establishment". Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/5094231/How-Comic-Books-became-part-of-the-literary-establishment.html. 

External links[link]

• Grand Comics Database
• The Comic Book Database
• Comic book Reference Bibliographic Datafile
• Sequart Research & Literacy Organization
• Comic Book Resources
• The Comics Ninja
• Comic Art Collection at the University of Missouri
• The Comics Journal
• The Comics Reporter

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Joe Kubert
Kubert at the Big Apple Convention in Manhattan, October 17, 2009.
Born	(1926-09-18) September 18, 1926 (age 85) Poland
Nationality	American
Area(s)	Artist
Notable works	Sgt. Rock Hawkman Tarzan
Awards	Alley Award (1962, 1963, 1969) National Cartoonists Society Awards (1974, 1980) Eisner Award (1977) Harvey Award (1997)
Official website

Joe Kubert (born September 18, 1926)^[1] is an American comic book artist who went on to found The Kubert School. He is best known for his work on the DC Comics characters Sgt. Rock and Hawkman. His sons, Andy Kubert and Adam Kubert, have themselves become successful comic-book artists.

Kubert's other creations include the comic books Tor, Son of Sinbad, and Viking Prince, and, with writer Robin Moore, the comic strip Tales of the Green Beret.

Kubert was inducted into the Harvey Awards' Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1997, and Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1998.

Biography[link]

Early life and education[link]

Kubert was born to a Jewish family in a shtetl called Yzeran (Jezierzany), in southeast Poland (now Ukraine).^[2] He emigrated to Brooklyn, New York City, United States, at age two months with his parents and his two-and-a-half-year-old sister Ida. Raised in the East New York neighborhood, the son of a kosher butcher, Kubert started drawing at an early age, encouraged by his parents.^[3]

In his introduction to his graphic novel Yossel, Kubert wrote, "I got my first paying job as a cartoonist for comic books when I was eleven-and-a-half or twelve years old. Five dollars a page. In 1938, that was a lot of money".^[3] Another source, utilizing quotes from Kubert, says in 1938, a school friend who was related to Louis Silberkleit, a principal of MLJ Studios (the future Archie Comics), urged Kubert to visit the company, where he began an unofficial apprentice and at age 12 "was allowed to ink a rush job, the pencils of Bob Montana's [teen-humor feature] 'Archie'".^[4] Author David Hajdu, who interviewed Kubert and other comics professionals for a 2008 book, reported, however, that, "Kubert has told varying versions of the story of his introduction to the comics business at age ten, sometimes setting it at the comics shop run by Harry "A" Chesler, sometimes at MLJ; however, MLJ did not start operation until 1939, when Kubert was thirteen".^[5]

Kubert attended Manhattan's High School of Music and Art.^[3] During this time he and classmate Norman Maurer, a future collaborator, would sometimes skip school in order to see publishers.^[4] Kubert began honing his craft at the quirkily named Harry "A" Chesler's studio, one of the comic-book packagers that had sprung up in the medium's early days to supply outsourced comics to publishers. Kubert's first known professional job was penciling and inking the six-page story "Black-Out", starring the character Volton, in Holyoke Publishing's Catman Comics #8 (March 1942; also listed as vol. 2, #13). He would continuing drawing the feature for the next three issues, and was soon doing similar work for Fox Comics' Blue Beetle.^[6] Branching into additional art skills, he began coloring the Quality Comics reprints of future industry legend Will Eisner's The Spirit, a seven-page comics feature that ran as part of a newspaper Sunday supplement.

1940s and 1950s[link]

Kubert's first work for DC Comics, where he would spend much of his career and produce some of his most notable art, was penciling and inking the 50-page "Seven Soldiers of Victory" superhero-team story in Leading Comics #8 (Fall 1943), published by a DC predecessor company, All-American Comics. Through the decade, Kubert's art would also appear in comics from Fiction House and Harvey Comics, but he was otherwise worked exclusively for All-American and DC.^[6] Kubert's long association with the Hawkman character began with the story "The Painter and the $100,000" in Flash Comics #62 (Feb. 1945).^[7]

In the 1950s, he became managing editor of St. John Publications, where he, his old classmate Norman Maurer, and Norman's brother Leonard Maurer produced the first 3-D comic books,^[8] starting with Three Dimension Comics #1 (Sept. 1953 oversize format, Oct. 1953 standard-size reprint), featuring Mighty Mouse.^[6] According to Kubert, it sold a remarkable 1.2 million copies at 25 cents apiece at a time when comics cost a dime.^[9]

At St. John, writer Norman Maurer and artist Kubert created the enduring character Tor, a prehistoric-human protagonist who debuted in the comic 1,000,000 Years Ago (Sept. 1953). Tor immediately went on to star in 3-D Comics #2-3 (Oct.-Nov. 1953), followed by a titular, traditionally 2-D comic-book series, written and drawn by Joe Kubert, that premiered with issue #3 (May 1954). The character has gone on to appear in series from Eclipse Comics, Marvel Comics' Epic imprint, and DC Comics through at least the 1990s.^[6] Kubert in the late 1950s unsuccessfully attempted to sell Tor as a newspaper comic strip.^[10] He also contributed work to Avon Periodicals, where he did science-fiction stories for Strange Worlds and other titles.^[6]

DC Comics and Sgt. Rock[link]

Beginning with Our Army At War #32 (March 1955), Kubert began to freelance again for DC Comics, in addition to Lev Gleason Publications and Atlas Comics, the 1950s iteration of Marvel Comics.^[6] By the end of the year he was drawing for DC exclusively, working on such characters as the medieval adventurer Viking Prince, the superhero Hawkman, which would become one of his signature efforts, and, in the war comic GI Combat, features starring Sgt. Rock and The Haunted Tank, two more signature strips.

From 1965 through 1967 he collaborated with author Robin Moore on the syndicated daily comic strip Tales of the Green Beret for the Chicago Tribune.

Kubert served as DC Comics' director of publications from 1967 to 1976. During his tenure with DC, Kubert initiated titles based on such Edgar Rice Burroughs properties as Tarzan^[11] and Korak. Kubert also supervised the production of the comic books Sgt. Rock, Ragman and Weird Worlds. While performing supervisory duties he continued to draw for some books, notably Tarzan from 1972 to 1975. Kubert also did covers for Rima the Jungle Girl from 1974 to 1975.^[6] Kubert and writer Robert Kanigher created Ragman in the first issue (Aug.-Sept. 1976) of that character's short-lived ongoing series.^[12]

In the early 1960s, Kubert moved to Dover, New Jersey, where they raised their five children.^[13] In 1976, Kubert and his wife Muriel founded The Kubert School in Dover.^[13]

Kubert wrote and drew a collection of faith-based comic strips beginning in the late 1980s for Tzivos Hashem, the Lubavitch children's organization, and Moshiach Times magazine. The stories, "The Adventures of Yaakov and Yosef", were based on biblical references, but were not Bible stories. Many were based on stories of the Lubavitcher Rebbes and their disciples.^[14]

Later career[link]

Kubert made a return to writing and drawing in 1991 with the Abraham Stone graphic novel Country Mouse, City Rat for Malibu Comics' Platinum Editions. He returned to the character for two more stories, Radix Malorum and The Revolution published by Epic Comics in 1995.

Also for Epic Comics, he delivered the four-issue Tor miniseries in 1993. 1996 saw the publication of Fax from Sarajevo, initially released as a 207-page hardcover book^[15] and two years later as a 224-page trade paperback.^[16] The non-fiction book originated as a series of faxes from European comics agent Ervin Rustemagić during the Serbian siege of Sarajevo. Rustemagić and his family, whose home and possessions in suburban Dobrinja were destroyed, spent two-and-a-half years in a ruined building, communicating with the outside world via fax when they could. Friend and client Kubert was one recipient. Collaborating long-distance, they collected Rustemagić's account of life during wartime, with Kubert and editor Bob Cooper turning the raw faxes into a somber comics tale.

Kubert drew a pencil-illustrated graphic novels,Yossel: April 19, 1943 (2003) and 'Jew Gangster' (2005) both from IBooks. In 2003, Kubert returned to the Sgt. Rock character, illustrating 'Sgt. Rock: Between Hell and a Hard Place' a six-issue miniseries written by Brian Azarello and wrote and drew "Sgt. Rock: The Prophecy", a six-issue miniseries in 2006. 2005 also saw the publication of 'Tex, The Lonesome Rider', written by Claudio Nizzi and published by SAF Comics.^[6]

As of the mid-2000s, Kubert is the artist for PS Magazine, a U.S. military magazine, with comic-book elements, that stresses the importance of preventive maintenance of vehicles, arms, and other ordnance.

In 2008, Kubert returned to his Tor character with a six-issue limited series published by DC Comics entitled Tor: A prehistoric Odyssey. In 2009, Kubert contributed a new Sgt. Rock story for Wednesday Comics, published by DC.^[17] His son, Adam, wrote the story, his first foray at scripting. In 2011, he did the introduction and lenticular 3-D front cover for Craig Yoe's Amazing 3-D Comics!^[6]

Awards[link]

Kubert's several awards and nominations include:

• the 1962 Alley Award for Best Single Comic Book Cover (The Brave and the Bold #42)
• a 1963 write-in Alley Award for "Artist Preferred on Sea Devils
• a special 1969 Alley Award "for the cinematic storytelling techniques and the exciting and dramatic style he has brought to the field of comic art"
• 1974 and 1980 National Cartoonists Society Awards for best Story Comic Book, plus a 1997 nomination for Best Comic Book.
• The 1997 Eisner Award for "Best Graphic Album: New", for Fax from Sarajevo
• The 1997 Harvey Award for "Best Graphic Album of Original Work," for Fax from Sarajevo

Kubert was inducted into the Harvey Awards' Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1997, and Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1998.

Hardcover reprints[link]

• Tarzan: The Joe Kubert Years (Dark Horse Comics)

Volume 1 (2005) ISBN 1-59307-404-2; ISBN 978-1-59307-404-3

Volume 2 (2006) ISBN 1-59307-416-6; ISBN 978-1-59307-416-6

Volume 3 (2006) ISBN 1-59307-417-4; ISBN 978-1-59307-417-3

• Tor (DC Comics)

Volume 1 (2001) ISBN 1-56389-781-4; ISBN 978-1-56389-781-8

Volume 1 (2002) ISBN 1-56389-830-6; ISBN 978-1-56389-830-3

Volume 3 (2004) ISBN 1-56389-998-1; ISBN 978-1-56389-998-0

• Wednesday Comics (2009): Sgt. Rock

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Joe Kubert

• Official website
• Joe Kubert at the Comic Book DB
• PS Magazine
• PaulGravett.com: "Joe Kubert: Rock & A Hard Place"
• Comic Geek Speak Podcast Interview (November 21, 2005)
• Interview for Graphic NYC (March 2009)
• Archive of Molnar, Phillip, "Comic's Kuberts Teach Art to Next Generation", Associated Press via Newsday, October 8, 2010

Jeff Lemire
Jeff Lemire at Stumptown Comics Fest, on April 28, 2012
Born	(1976-03-21) March 21, 1976 (age 36) Essex County, Ontario, Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Area(s)	Cartoonist, Writer, Penciller
Notable works	Essex County Trilogy The Nobody Sweet Tooth
Awards	Xeric Award, 2005 YALSA Alex Award, 2008 Joe Shuster Award, 2008 Doug Wright Award, 2008
Official website

Jeff Lemire (born 1976^[1] in Canada) is a Canadian comics artist and writer. He is the author of the Essex County Trilogy, Sweet Tooth and The Nobody. Lemire is known for his moody, humanistic stories and sketchy, cinematic, black-and-white art.

Biography[link]

Lemire was born and raised in a small farming town in Essex County, Ontario, near Lake St. Clair.^[2] Lemire attended film school, but decided to pursue comics when he realized that filmmaking did not suit his solitary personality.^[2]

After self-publishing the Xeric Award-winning comic book Lost Dogs in 2005 via his Ashtray Press imprint, Lemire found a home at Top Shelf Productions. He produced the Eisner and Harvey Award-nominated Essex County Trilogy for Top Shelf in 2008–2009.

Lemire serializes a science-fiction strip called Fortress in the quarterly UR Magazine.

In 2009, the DC Comics Vertigo published Lemire's The Nobody, a two-color tale of identity, fear and paranoia in a small community. Lemire is currently writing and drawing the new monthly full-color Vertigo series Sweet Tooth.^[3][4] He then moved over to the DC Universe to write the one-shot Brightest Day: Atom, with Turkish artist Mahmud Asrar, designed to act as a springboard for an Atom story to co-feature in Adventure Comics.^[5] He also relaunched the Superboy series featuring the character Conner Kent.^[6] During Flashpoint he wrote Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown mini-series,^[7] then, as part of the 2011 DC Universe reboot, he wrote the ongoing series Animal Man^[8] and Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E..^[9][10]

He currently lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is married and has a son.^[11]

Exhibitions[link]

In 2006 Lemire's work was included in an international symposium gathering artists, scholars, curators, publishers, librarians, critics, and writers at the Banff Centre. Lemire's work was part of the "Comic Craze" exhibit, which showcased Canadian comics and narrative fiction.^[1]

Bibliography[link]

Early work[link]

Titles published by various American and Canadian publishers include:

• Asthray #1-2 (w/a, Ashtray Press, 2003)
• Lost Dogs (w/a, graphic novel, Ashtray Press, 2005)
• Beowulf #6-7 (w/a, Speakeasy, 2006)
• The Fortress (w/a, strip in UR Magazine, 2006)
• Top Shelf:
  • The Complete Essex County (hc, 512 pages, 2009, ISBN 1-60309-046-0; tpb, 2009, ISBN 1-60309-038-X) collects:
    • Tales from the Farm (w/a, graphic novel, tpb, 112 pages, 2007, ISBN 1-891830-88-0)
    • Ghost Stories (w/a, graphic novel, tpb, 224 pages, 2007, ISBN 1-891830-94-5)
    • The Essex County Boxing Club (w/a, one-shot, 2008)
    • The Sad and Lonely Life of Eddie Elephant Ears: A Tale from Essex County (w/a, one-shot, 2008)
    • The Country Nurse (w/a, graphic novel, tpb, 128 pages, 2008, ISBN 1-891830-95-3)
  • Awesome 2: Awesomer: "The Horseless Rider" (w/a, anthology graphic novel, tpb, 200 pages, 2009, ISBN 1-60309-039-8)
• Bio-Graphical (w/a, strip in Driven, 2008)

Vertigo[link]

Titles published by DC Comics' Vertigo imprint include:

• The Nobody (w/a, graphic novel, hc, 144 pages, 2009, ISBN 1-4012-2080-0)
• Sweet Tooth (w/a, 2009–...) collected as:
  • Out of the Deep Woods (collects #1-5, tpb, 128 pages, 2010, ISBN 1-4012-2696-5)
  • In Captivity (collects #6-11, tpb, 144 pages, 2010, ISBN 1-4012-2854-2)
  • Animal Armies (collects #12-17, tpb, 144 pages, 2011, ISBN 1-4012-3170-5)
  • Endangered Species (collects #18-25, tpb, 176 pages, 2012, ISBN 1-4012-3361-9)
  • Unnatural Habit (collects #26-32, tpb, 160 pages, 2012, ISBN 1-4012-3723-1)
• House of Mystery #18: "The Tale of Brutus the Bold" (a, with Matthew Sturges, 2009) collected in HoM vol.4 (tpb, 160 pages, 2010, ISBN 1-4012-2756-2)
• Strange Adventures: "Ultra the Multi-Alien: The Life and Death of Ace Arn" (w/a, one-shot, 2011)
• Jonah Hex #69 (cover, interior art, 2011)

DC Comics[link]

Titles published by DC Comics include:

• Atom:
  • Brightest Day: Atom: "Nucleus, Prologue" (w, with Mahmud Asrar, one-shot, 2010)
  • Adventure Comics (w, co-feature):
    • "Splitting the Atom" (with Mahmud Asrar, in #516, 2010)
    • "Atom Strange" (with Mahmud Asrar, in #517, 2010)
    • "We are All Atoms" (with Mahmud Asrar, in #518, 2010)
    • "Colonized" (with Mahmud Asrar, in #519, 2010)
    • "Atom-Ant" (with Mahmud Asrar, in #520, 2011)
    • "Weapons of Mass-Reduction" (with Mahmud Asrar, in #521, 2011)
  • Giant-Size Atom: "Nucleus, Conclusion" (w, with Mahmud Asrar, Allan Goldman and Robson Rocha, one-shot, 2011)
• Superboy #1-11 (w, with Pier Gallo, 2011) collected as Superboy: Smallville Attacks (tpb, 256 pages, 2011, ISBN 1-4012-3251-5)
• Flashpoint: Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown #1-3 (w, with Ibraim Roberson, 2011) collected in Flashpoint: The World of Flashpoint Featuring Green Lantern (tpb, 232 pages, 2012, ISBN 1-4012-3406-2)
• Animal Man (w, with Travel Foreman, 2011–...) collected as:
  • The Hunt (collects #1-6, tpb, 144 pages, 2012, ISBN 1-4012-3507-7)
• Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. (w, with Alberto Ponticelli, 2011–...) collected as:
  • War of the Monsters (collects #1-6, tpb, 144 pages, 2012, ISBN 1-4012-3471-2)
• Justice League Dark #9-ongoing (w, with Mikel Janin, 2012–...)

Other US publishers[link]

Titles published by various American publishers include:

• Noir: A Collection of Crime Comics: "The Old Silo" (w/a, anthology graphic novel, tpb, 104 pages, Dark Horse, 2009, ISBN 1-59582-358-1)
• Image:
  • Outlaw Territory vol.2: "Coffin for Mr. Bishell" (a, with Joshua Hale Fialkov, anthology graphic novel, tpb, 240 pages, 2011, ISBN 1-60706-321-2)
  • The CBLDF Presents Liberty Annual '11: "Being Normal" (a, with Mark Waid, 2011)
• Strange Tales II #1: "A Civilized-Thing" (w/a, Marvel, 2010) collected in ST2 (hc, 144 pages, 2011, ISBN 0-7851-4822-1; tpb, 2011, ISBN 0-7851-4823-X)

Awards[link]

Lemire won a Xeric Award in 2005 for his book Lost Dogs.^[12] He was a 2008 recipient of a Young Adult Library Services Association Alex Award for Essex County Volume 1: Tales from the Farm.^[13] Lemire received a Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Creator Award for Outstanding Cartoonist in 2008,^[14] and the Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent in 2008.^[15]

Lemire has also been nominated for an Ignatz, a Harvey, and two Eisner Awards.^[16]

In 2011 Essex County was selected as one of five titles for Canada Reads, with the theme of "The Essential Canadian Novels of the Decade." Its celebrity champion was Sara Quin. ^[17] Essex County was eliminated in the first round, but later placed #1 in a "People's Choice" poll with more votes than all other books combined.^[18]

Notes[link]