Captain America

ISBN-13: 9780143135753 / Angielski / Miękka / 2022 / 400 str.

Jack Kirby; Joe Simon; Stan Lee

Recenzje

A groundbreaking example of comics representation in literature.
Publishers Weekly

Penguin provides introductory essays; superb analyses by the series editor, Ben Saunders; and extensive bibliographies.
Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

Stories become classics when generations of readers sort through them, talk about them, imitate them, and recommend them. In this case, baby boomers read them when they débuted, Gen X-ers grew up with their sequels, and millennials encountered them through Marvel movies. Each generation of fans initially fanboys, increasingly fangirls, and these days nonbinary fans, too found new ways not just to read the comics but to use them. That s how canons form. Amateurs and professionals, over decades, come to something like consensus about which books matter and why or else they love to argue about it, and we get to follow the arguments. Canons rise and fall, gain works and lose others, when one generation of people with the power to publish, teach, and edit diverges from the one before ... A top-flight comic by Kirby or his successor on Captain America, Jim Steranko barely needed words. You could follow the story just by watching the characters act and react. Thankfully, Penguin volumes do justice to these images. They reproduce sixties comics in bright, flat, colorful inks on thick white paper unlike the dot-based process used on old newsprint, but perhaps truer to their bold, thrill-chasing spirit.
Stephanie Burt, The New Yorker

O autorze

Born Jacob Kurtzberg in 1917 to Jewish-Austrian parents on New York s Lower East Side, Jack Kirby came of age at the birth of the American comic book industry. Horrified by the rise of Nazism, Kirby co created the patriotic hero Captain America with Joe Simon in 1940. Cap s exploits on the comic book page entertained millions of American readers at home and inspired US troops fight­ing the enemy abroad. Kirby s partnership with Simon continued throughout the 1940s and early 50s; together, they produced com­ics in every popular genre, from Western to romance. In 1958, Kirby began his equally fruitful collaboration with writer- editor Stan Lee, and in 1961 the two men co created the foundational text of the modern Marvel Universe: The Fantastic Four. Over the next de­cade, Kirby and Lee would introduce a mind- boggling array of new characters including the Avengers, the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, the Silver Surfer, and the X Men. Kirby s groundbreaking work with Lee formed the foundation of the Marvel Universe. In the early 1970s, Kirby moved to DC Comics, where he created his intercon­nected Fourth World series, as well as freestanding titles such as The Demon. He returned to Marvel in 1975, writing and illustrat­ing The Black Panther and Captain America, and introducing series such as Devil Dinosaur, and the Eternals. Kirby died in 1994. Today, he is generally regarded as one of the most important and influential creators in the history of American comics. His work has inspired multiple generations of writers, artists, designers, and film­makers, who continue to explore his vast universe of concepts and characters. He was an inaugural inductee into the Eisner Hall of Fame in 1987.

Writer-editor Stan Lee (1922 2018) and artist Jack Kirby made comic book history in 1961 with The Fantastic Four #1. The suc­cess of its new style inspired Lee and his many collaborators to de­velop a number of new super heroes, including, with Jack Kirby, the Incredible Hulk and the X Men; with Steve Ditko, the Amazing Spider-Man and Doctor Strange; and with Bill Everett, Daredevil. Lee oversaw the adventures of these creations for more than a de­cade before handing over the editorial reins at Marvel to others and focusing on developing Marvel s properties in other media. For the remainder of his long life, he continued to serve as a creative figure­head at Marvel and as an ambassador for the comics medium as a whole. In his final years, Lee s signature cameo appearances in Marvel s films established him as one of the world s most famous faces.
 
While sharing a studio with Jack Kirby, artist Joe Simon co created Captain America, a stirring symbol of American idealism and pride during the war-torn 1940s. Simon and Kirby would go on to form one of the most productive partnerships of the early American comic book industry. The two men co created comics in every genre crime, war, horror, science fiction, Western, humor, and romance for numerous different publishers between 1940 and 1954. Noted characters and series included the Sandman and the Newsboy Legion for DC Comics, Young Romance for Crestwood, and Boys Ranch for Harvey. Simon also wrote two autobiographies The Comic Book Makers (1990), coauthored with his son, Jim Simon, and Joe Simon: My Life in Comics (2011) essential reading for any historian of comic book history and culture.
 
Jim Steranko rocked the comic book world in the late 1960s with a revolutionary approach to design and narrative, influenced by the contemporary worlds of both commercial and fine art. Ster­anko produced very little comics work after the 1970s, but his illus­trations would grace the covers of numerous science fiction and fantasy novels, as well as