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Comics Go To Hell
by Fredrik Strömberg
The Devil is one of the most potent and longest-lived icons in the history of human civilization. It is therefore not a big surprise that images of the Prince of Darkness are so abundant in comics - a medium that by its nature builds upon the communicative powers of icons. In this book, author Fredrik Strömberg examines how cartoonists through the ages have used the myths about the Devil, in a wide variety of ways. Comics featured in this book include, among the infamous Jack T. Chick tracts, Hellblazer , Love & Rockets , The Checkered Demon , Donald Duck , Mephisto , Dilbert , The New Adventures of Jesus , Stray Toasters , The Demon , Futurama , Preacher , Hot Stuff - The Little Devil , Castle Waiting , Sandman , The Book of Leviathan , Swamp Thing , Dragon Ball , Spawn , Silver Surfer , Picture Stories from the Bible , Uncanny X-Men , Tintin , Sshhhh! , and Lady Death . Like Strömberg's previous book from Fantagraphics, Black Images in the Comics , this book is designed for maximum browsability, with each spread featuring a short (but informative!) essay on a comic next to a representative panel of the work at hand.
HC, 6x6, 360pg, b&w
The Devil is one of the most potent and longest-lived icons in the history of human civilization. It is therefore not a big surprise that images of the Prince of Darkness are so abundant in comics - a medium that by its nature builds upon the communicative powers of icons. In this book, author Fredrik Strömberg examines how cartoonists through the ages have used the myths about the Devil, in a wide variety of ways. Comics featured in this book include, among the infamous Jack T. Chick tracts, Hellblazer , Love & Rockets , The Checkered Demon , Donald Duck , Mephisto , Dilbert , The New Adventures of Jesus , Stray Toasters , The Demon , Futurama , Preacher , Hot Stuff - The Little Devil , Castle Waiting , Sandman , The Book of Leviathan , Swamp Thing , Dragon Ball , Spawn , Silver Surfer , Picture Stories from the Bible , Uncanny X-Men , Tintin , Sshhhh! , and Lady Death . Like Strömberg's previous book from Fantagraphics, Black Images in the Comics , this book is designed for maximum browsability, with each spread featuring a short (but informative!) essay on a comic next to a representative panel of the work at hand.
HC, 6x6, 360pg, b&w
360 pages, Hardcover
First published March 31, 2004
46 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 4, 2022
I really enjoyed this.
October 11, 2011
It's a well known fact that the Devil is a hell of a lot more fun than God, and that's one of the reasons he makes far more appearances in art and literature than the presumed good guy. Comics combine art and literature in a low brow sort of way, and the Devil has been careening through them pretty much from the start.
This collection of images drawn from a wide range of comics, and even reaching back into medieval times, offers a breezy overview of how humans, particularly in the West, conceive of Satan. It's a fun book, easily read in one sitting, and one needn't be a comic book geek to enjoy it.
The book would earn four stars except for one drawback: it's horribly edited. Typos abound, words are clearly missing from the text, and early on the creation of the Persian Devil under Zoroastrianism is mistakenly placed in 1000 A.D. Yikes. That should have been B.C. (or, to be more in keeping with present dating, B.C.E.)
Additionally, the reproduced pages would have worked better if they had been printed in color, and one of the reproductions was shrunk so much to fit the small size of the book that I needed a magnifying glass to read the text (and I have perfect eyesight).
This isn't to say that the book isn't worth reading. It's quite enjoyable. But the presentation comes up short, and that's unfortunate, because Satan is one of the best characters to found in comics or anywhere else. The author has done well; it's Fantagraphics Books that needed to put more into this one.
This collection of images drawn from a wide range of comics, and even reaching back into medieval times, offers a breezy overview of how humans, particularly in the West, conceive of Satan. It's a fun book, easily read in one sitting, and one needn't be a comic book geek to enjoy it.
The book would earn four stars except for one drawback: it's horribly edited. Typos abound, words are clearly missing from the text, and early on the creation of the Persian Devil under Zoroastrianism is mistakenly placed in 1000 A.D. Yikes. That should have been B.C. (or, to be more in keeping with present dating, B.C.E.)
Additionally, the reproduced pages would have worked better if they had been printed in color, and one of the reproductions was shrunk so much to fit the small size of the book that I needed a magnifying glass to read the text (and I have perfect eyesight).
This isn't to say that the book isn't worth reading. It's quite enjoyable. But the presentation comes up short, and that's unfortunate, because Satan is one of the best characters to found in comics or anywhere else. The author has done well; it's Fantagraphics Books that needed to put more into this one.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews