"Comics have smuggled their way into art books before," writes Roger Sabin in his introduction to Comics, Comix, & Graphic Novels: A History of Comic Art, an exhaustive resource on the most delicious of cultural and aesthetic contraband. Don't be fooled by the behemoth coffee-table book format or the fact that it is published by London's highbrow Phaidon Press. Comics, Comix, & Graphic Novels is as energetic as a jolt of double espresso - and as simultaneously appealing to both sophisticated and street sensibilities.
Sabin, a British arts journalist, weaves a chronology of the graphic medium, beginning with 17th-century woodcuts depicting public beheadings - "the first illustrated mass communication that flourished" - and carrying us up to present, with More Tales from Sleaze Castle and Maus. Also included are heroines (Wonder Woman alongside the lesser-known Little Miss Moneybags) and international voices (such as Japan's cyberpunk Akira), as well as underground (à la R. Crumb) and alternative works (think Raw).
The book's sensuous, thick-stock pages feature sharp, color-saturated reproductions, and there are many full-page spreads. The visuals alone could tell the history of the medium. But under Sabin's fluid hand, images and text come together like an expert cartoonist's frame-by-frame assemblage of drawings and dialog balloons.
Comics, Comix, & Graphic Novels: A History of Comic Art, by Roger Sabin: US$59.95. Phaidon Press: (800) 722 6657, fax (800) 858 7787.
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