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A review by ashleylm
Comic Book History of Comics by Fred Van Lente
3.0
A slight disappointment, but relative to my initial high hopes this lands squarely in the middle.
You know how some of us recoil a bit at the sound of "history," remembering names, dates, treaties, wars—all the boring stuff from school? (Unless you love history, of course). Somehow I thought I'd be free of that in a history of comics, and yet, not so. This was very much a names, dates, treaties (i.e. contracts), wars (i.e. contract disputes) kind of history.
There was so, so much about this company and that writer and this artist and that law and this distribution method and that lawsuit and on and on and on, but nothing about, say, Peanuts. I don't know how you do a history of comics without talking about Peanuts, I really don't.
And the "comic book" style history didn't really lean into its comic-book-ness. Instead of appreciating the panels as text and image combined, almost every panel was narration and illustration; sometimes the illustrations had a word balloon or two, but for the most part the illustrations were unnecessary for the telling of the story. So it really felt like your usual history.
(Because of the format, I was especially thinking we'd see a lot about technical innovations, stylistic choices, things that could best be expressed visually—but all the topics covered could have been handled just as easily in a normal narrative without visual assistance).
So I was disappointed, because the title and format led me to expect something quite a bit different. We coincided on "it's about comics," but that's as far as my expectations met their delivery. I'm an Art Historian by training, all the way up to a Masters degree, and I can assure you the interesting part of Impressionism or Cubism or the Rococo, to me, is What It Looks Like (and how that differs from what art looked liked previously), not the age, background, and trials and tribulations of the artists.
Retitle this A Comic Book History of the Comic Book Business and it would be far more accurate.
Note: I have written a novel (not yet published), so now I will suffer pangs of guilt every time I offer less than five stars. In my subjective opinion, the stars suggest:
(5* = one of my all-time favourites, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = actually disappointing, and 1* = hated it. As a statistician I know most books are 3s, but I am biased in my selection and end up mostly with 4s, thank goodness.)
You know how some of us recoil a bit at the sound of "history," remembering names, dates, treaties, wars—all the boring stuff from school? (Unless you love history, of course). Somehow I thought I'd be free of that in a history of comics, and yet, not so. This was very much a names, dates, treaties (i.e. contracts), wars (i.e. contract disputes) kind of history.
There was so, so much about this company and that writer and this artist and that law and this distribution method and that lawsuit and on and on and on, but nothing about, say, Peanuts. I don't know how you do a history of comics without talking about Peanuts, I really don't.
And the "comic book" style history didn't really lean into its comic-book-ness. Instead of appreciating the panels as text and image combined, almost every panel was narration and illustration; sometimes the illustrations had a word balloon or two, but for the most part the illustrations were unnecessary for the telling of the story. So it really felt like your usual history.
(Because of the format, I was especially thinking we'd see a lot about technical innovations, stylistic choices, things that could best be expressed visually—but all the topics covered could have been handled just as easily in a normal narrative without visual assistance).
So I was disappointed, because the title and format led me to expect something quite a bit different. We coincided on "it's about comics," but that's as far as my expectations met their delivery. I'm an Art Historian by training, all the way up to a Masters degree, and I can assure you the interesting part of Impressionism or Cubism or the Rococo, to me, is What It Looks Like (and how that differs from what art looked liked previously), not the age, background, and trials and tribulations of the artists.
Retitle this A Comic Book History of the Comic Book Business and it would be far more accurate.
Note: I have written a novel (not yet published), so now I will suffer pangs of guilt every time I offer less than five stars. In my subjective opinion, the stars suggest:
(5* = one of my all-time favourites, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = actually disappointing, and 1* = hated it. As a statistician I know most books are 3s, but I am biased in my selection and end up mostly with 4s, thank goodness.)