Comic Book Rebels: Conversations with the Creators of the New Comics

by Stanley Wiater, Stephen R. Bissette

No longer just kid's stuff, today's comic books are hip, contemporary entertaining and seriously collected. Here, in twenty original interviews, leading figures in the field discuss how, approaching the graphic novel from an often daringly radical taboo-breaking perspective, they transformed it into a significant medium - at once art and literature - of our popular culture. Every stage of the medium's evolution is represented here, from the underground "comix" creators of the 1960's to the giants of independent publishing today. Each interview is accompanied by a representative piece of art work that the rebel in question helped create, as well as a portrait of the interviewee by co-author Bissette, a comic book rebel himself (please see back flap). In their own words, these visionary creators tell their compelling and often outrageous stories of taking on an industry that at first disdained or even discouraged them, offering readers a rare opportunity to meet the forces behind the transformation of a whole art form.

Genres: Comics, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1993

Reviews

[Dominick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Broad-ranging collection fo interviews with some old hands and up-and-comers in comics, conducted in the early 1990s. The though line is supposed to be how they're all to some extent in opposition to the status quo, which is true of them as artists, but the interviews don't really get into that specific question, in most cases. They tend to be short and relatively superficial, though there are some insightful moments, and the books somewhat makes up in breadth what it lacks in depth. Good annotated bibliography of potentially interesting/useful comics-related resources. Not an essential book itself, though.