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Captain Marvel and the Art of Nostalgia
Billy Batson discovers a secret in a forgotten subway tunnel. There the young man meets a wizard who offers a precious gift: a magic word that will transform the newsboy into a hero. When Billy says, -Shazam!, - he becomes Captain Marvel, the World's Mightiest Mortal, one of the most popular comic book characters of the 1940s. This book tells the story of that hero and the writers and artists who created his magical adventures.
The saga of Captain Marvel is also that of artist C. C. Beck and writer Otto Binder, one of the most innovative and prolific creative teams working during the Golden Age of comics in the United States. While Beck was the technician and meticulous craftsman, Binder contributed the still, human voice at the heart of Billy's adventures. Later in his career, Beck, like his friend and colleague Will Eisner, developed a theory of comic art expressed in numerous articles, essays, and interviews. A decade after Fawcett Publications settled a copyright infringement lawsuit with Superman's publisher, Beck and Binder became legendary, celebrated figures in comic book fandom of the 1960s.
What Beck, Binder, and their readers share in common is a fascination with nostalgia, which has shaped the history of comics and comics scholarship in the United States. Billy Batson's America, with its cartoon villains and talking tigers, remains a living archive of childhood memories, so precious but elusive, as strange and mysterious as the boy's first visit to the subway tunnel. Taking cues from Beck's theories of art and from the growing field of memory studies, Captain Marvel and the Art of Nostalgia explains why we read comics and, more significantly, how we remember them and the America that dreamed them up in the first place.
The saga of Captain Marvel is also that of artist C. C. Beck and writer Otto Binder, one of the most innovative and prolific creative teams working during the Golden Age of comics in the United States. While Beck was the technician and meticulous craftsman, Binder contributed the still, human voice at the heart of Billy's adventures. Later in his career, Beck, like his friend and colleague Will Eisner, developed a theory of comic art expressed in numerous articles, essays, and interviews. A decade after Fawcett Publications settled a copyright infringement lawsuit with Superman's publisher, Beck and Binder became legendary, celebrated figures in comic book fandom of the 1960s.
What Beck, Binder, and their readers share in common is a fascination with nostalgia, which has shaped the history of comics and comics scholarship in the United States. Billy Batson's America, with its cartoon villains and talking tigers, remains a living archive of childhood memories, so precious but elusive, as strange and mysterious as the boy's first visit to the subway tunnel. Taking cues from Beck's theories of art and from the growing field of memory studies, Captain Marvel and the Art of Nostalgia explains why we read comics and, more significantly, how we remember them and the America that dreamed them up in the first place.
- GenresComicsHistoryNonfiction
203 pages, Hardcover
Published January 3, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 5, 2017
Very scholarly in tone and content and heavily footnoted, yet an okay read about the background behind Captain Marvel & Fawcett Comics & both CC Beck & Otto Binder, two creatives about which I'd not known as much as I do now thanks to this book.
Review copy received via NetGalley.com
Review copy received via NetGalley.com
April 9, 2019
Essentially an academic treatise on the contributions of Captain Marvel to popular culture. I had hoped for more information on his creator C. C. Beck, fortunately the bibliography will lead me to what I’m seeking.
January 25, 2017
Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review.
This is an interesting and scholarly look at Billy Batson and his alter ego Captain Marvel, the writer and artist who help create him and the look at nostalgia's effect towards comics. The book touched on the lawsuit between Fawcett comics and National Comics (DC Comics) over similarities between Captain Marvel and Superman. The disappointment in how racial stereotypes were used in creating Captain Marvel character Steamboat.
There is a lot of good information here but there is something that annoyed me, the author included the source in parenthesis at the end of the sentence. Instead of including a number to make it less visually crowded.
This is an interesting and scholarly look at Billy Batson and his alter ego Captain Marvel, the writer and artist who help create him and the look at nostalgia's effect towards comics. The book touched on the lawsuit between Fawcett comics and National Comics (DC Comics) over similarities between Captain Marvel and Superman. The disappointment in how racial stereotypes were used in creating Captain Marvel character Steamboat.
There is a lot of good information here but there is something that annoyed me, the author included the source in parenthesis at the end of the sentence. Instead of including a number to make it less visually crowded.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews