New Comics

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This collection of interviews culled from the Comics Journal , and edited by the magazine's publisher, gathers in one volume the voices of the most significant illustrators and writers working in the industry. Beginning with Will Eisner discussing his pioneering efforts in the 1930s, the book features artists Harvey Kurtzman, Robert Crumb, Howard Chaykin, Bill Griffith, Art Spiegelman, Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez et al. True to form, Frank Miller pontificates on the moral significance of his recreation of Batman as a noir vigilante, and passionate maverick Harvey Pekar discusses the creative and financial obstacles to producing the unconventional American Splen dor. Groth's introduction provides a short history of comics from the turn-of-the-century newspaper strips and the underground comics of the 1960s to the genre's current renaissance. Also included are a glossary of industry terminology and a selected bibliography of the artists' oeuvres. An entertaining, informative primer on a great American art form. (Nov.)