Sources: Comics Through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas
Comics Through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas. Edited by M. Keith Booker. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2015. 4 vols. Acid free $415 (ISBN: 978-0-313-39750-9). Ebook available (978-0-313-39751-6), call for pricing.
Comics Through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas is an ambitious, four-volume title that “seeks to capture some of the richness” of comics history and “provide information on this history for a wide range of users, from casual fans of comics to professional scholars of the form” (xxiii). Each of the four volumes covers a specific time period, beginning in the 1900s with comic strips and continuing to the present. Just as the volumes cover a broad expanse of time, they also deal with a diverse array of subjects, including comic strips, comic books, comics creators both well-known and obscure (often accompanied by large photographs), comics publishers, and genres such as science fiction and horror. Articles on topics such as the Cold War and religion provide insight into how comics depicted the societal landscape of the time. Comics through Time even provides information on the more obscure aspects of comics history such as Tijuana Bibles, which depicted well-known comics characters in bawdy stories.
Each volume has an extensive and incisive introduction and chronology covering the landscape of comics during the period covered by that volume. While the individual entries provide information on specific topics, the introductions give the reader a broader picture of the ups and downs of the comics industry as well as how comics influenced (and were influenced by) the broader culture.
Since the work is organized by time period, each entry covers a given topic only within the specific period covered by the volume; therefore many subjects, publishers, and creators are given multiple entries throughout the volumes. For example, Will Eisner, whose career spanned from the 1930s until his death in 2005, is given entries in all four volumes. An index ensures that readers will be able to locate all entries for a given topic or creator.
A minor weakness of the work is that a few notable creators, while mentioned in various places, do not receive entries of their own. For example: Carmine Infantino, who became one of the most notable DC Comics artists of the Silver Age for revitalizing the Flash and Batman, and eventually became the company’s publisher, is mentioned in various entries and a sidebar but is not given a proper entry of his own.
Recent years have seen the publication of several valuable comics reference works, such as Beaty and Weiner’s Critical Survey of Graphic Novels series (Salem Press 2012–13). Libraries that have found that series to be a useful resource for patrons should also purchase Comics through Time. The two works are similar in scope but each provides a good amount of unique information, so the two titles complement each other nicely.—Edward Whatley, Instruction and Research Services Librarian, Georgia College and State University, Milledgeville, Georgia