Funnybooks
eBook - PDF

Funnybooks

  1. 432 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Funnybooks

About this book

Funnybooks is the story of the most popular American comic books of the 1940s and 1950s, those published under the Dell label. For a time, "Dell Comics Are Good Comics" was more than a slogan—it was a simple statement of fact. Many of the stories written and drawn by people like Carl Barks (Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge), John Stanley (Little Lulu), and Walt Kelly (Pogo) repay reading and rereading by educated adults even today, decades after they were published as disposable entertainment for children. Such triumphs were improbable, to say the least, because midcentury comics were so widely dismissed as trash by angry parents, indignant librarians, and even many of the people who published them. It was all but miraculous that a few great cartoonists were able to look past that nearly universal scorn and grasp the artistic potential of their medium. With clarity and enthusiasm, Barrier explains what made the best stories in the Dell comic books so special. He deftly turns a complex and detailed history into an expressive narrative sure to appeal to an audience beyond scholars and historians.

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Yes, you can access Funnybooks by Michael Barrier in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & Comics & Graphic Novels Literary Criticism. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half-title
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Contents
  7. List of Illustrations
  8. Preface
  9. Acknowledgments
  10. Introduction: “The Very Good Ones”
  11. 1 Mickey in a Magazine
  12. 2 Oskar Lebeck Meets Walt Kelly
  13. 3 Whitman, K.K., and Dell
  14. 4 Learning on the Job in L.A.
  15. 5 A Feel for Walt Kelly’s Stuff
  16. 6 Animal Magnetism
  17. 7 Cartoon Conundrums
  18. 8 Carl Barks Makes His Break
  19. 9 Barks Becomes the Duck Man
  20. 10 The Workman: Gaylord DuBois
  21. 11 The Observer: John Stanley
  22. 12 “I Am a Backwoods Bumpkin”
  23. 13 “Pure Corn” at Disney’s
  24. 14 Special Talents
  25. 15 Barks Masters His Medium
  26. 16 An Arena for All the Passions
  27. 17 Animal Kingdoms
  28. 18 Walt Kelly Branches Out
  29. 19 Strong-Handed Friends
  30. 20 Carl Barks: The Virtuoso
  31. 21 Walt Kelly Escapes
  32. 22 Oskar Lebeck in Exile
  33. 23 Manifest Destiny
  34. 24 Uncle Scrooge: Play Money
  35. 25 Carl Barks in Purgatory
  36. 26 The Slow Fade
  37. 27 Disasters
  38. Epilogue: Can These Bones Live?
  39. Abbreviations
  40. Notes
  41. Index