The Golden Age of DC Comics

This book is "expanded" from Levitz's monumental "75 Years Of DC Comics", which came out in 2010. The older book took about 700 pages to tell the entire history of DC Comics; this one takes about 400 to tell the story up till 1955. In comparison with the earlier work, this one is about half the page size, and doesn't come in its own carrying case, which is good, as it means you don't need the strength of Superman to lift it or the brains of Batman to open the damn thing.It sets out to be an essentially visual history of DC in the so-called Golden Age (which rarely seems all that golden to anyone who wasn't around at the time) and it meets its objectives with massive style and aplomb. The large pages (about the size of a decent laptop screen) and excellent paper quality do full justice to the reproductions of old comic covers and interior art, to say nothing of fascinating stuff like artists' sketches, the lowdown on how colour "separations" were done, archive photos and memorabilia. For any comics history buff, this is heady, addictive stuff and completely absorbing. The focus is, unsurprisingly, on the superheroes, and particularly on Supes and Bats, but there's lots of stuff on all the other popular genres that thrived in the Golden Age.As a visual history, there are a couple of minor failings. Sections on key artists fail to provide information on why they're important, and a couple of very important artists (Toth, Meskin) who should be singled out in this way are largely overlooked. Also, some of the labels and legends explaining the illustrations are laid out in a confusing manner. And it's a bit low on the wider historical context that's promised in the introduction. These are small quibbles, though: in purely visual terms, this is a gloriously successful book.As history, though, it's a bit wobbly. Unlike the 2010 book, which mixed narrative with illustration throughout, this one opts for a condensed narrative at the beginning, and quickly leaves it behind to concentrate on pictures with brief explanatory captions. That's fine as far as it goes, but it's rather disingenuous overall. Given that this is an official history from a very senior company insider, no-one should be expecting an in-depth analysis of DC's business ethics and treatment of creative staff over the decades, but a casual reader could easily get the impression that DC was the original publisher of Mad, the Spirit, and Plastic Man, all of which are covered extensively here. There's also quite a bit on the original Captain Marvel, but you have to look pretty hard to find out that was published by Fawcett Comics, let alone that DC pretty much drove Fawcett out of business. While subsequent corporate deals meant that DC did end up with the rights to most of these characters, it's at best wooly and at worst dishonest to give the impression that the original works of Eisner, Beck, Cole and Kurtzman are part of the history of DC as it happened. They're not, and the book's vagueness on the matter is ever so slightly distasteful.If the book had been slightly more forthright about DC's relationships with other publishers and creators, this would have been a no-questions-asked five star review, and even with the misgivings I've noted, I'd give four and a half if I could. Because, all objections notwithstanding, this is ultimately a visually glorious book, and for those reasons alone it's a delight to look at, ponder over, and wander through. Four follow-ups are planned, covering the Silver, Bronze, Dark and Modern Ages of DC. I couldn't care less about the last two, but sign me up now for the Silver and Bronze books. But let's hope the history is a bit more forthright.

Fantastic book

I started buying DC comics in the Silver Age, which is post 1956, but have always been interested in what went on before. This is a fabulous book, of the highest quality, with superb examples of the comic world from 1935 to 1956. Yes, some of the art work may seem crude by today's standards, but it's fascinating to see the roots of the modern comic world, and to learn about the pioneers in this field. Any serious fan of comics should have a copy of this book - it's an invaluable reference guide to a fascinating period in comic book history.

I already have DC's 75 Years of comics and was hoping for something a bit different, I was a bit disappointed to see however the similarities between this and the 75 Years book. I sincerely hope Taschen isn't trying to pull a fast one and simply split that mighty tome into various parts and re-issue under a different title.

Really well written and packaged. Great for any comics fan, young or old.

A nice coffee table book .Unusually you learn the history from the captions to the illustrations rather than plain text.A must-have for nostalgia fans.

Where else can you read all those old stories about your favourite heroBook is very big for the Home Library Shelf and now is displayed elsewhere

Its still in the plastic, think my husband wants to preserve it for the future. Lol.