Overview

Full Product Details

9781496833990

Table of Contents

Reviews

I discovered something new on virtually every page of Rebirth of the English Comic Strip. David Kunzle has unearthed a treasure trove of information that restructures the very history of comics as an art form. The work is expansive, generative, and path-breaking.

Kunzle's books bring the comics of yesteryear magically back to life. If you take the time to read them, you'll be transported to a nineteenth-century playground where painters, illustrators, and early cartoonists built an industry that continues to thrive today.--Michael Taube, syndicated columnist and Washington Times contributor TroyMedia.com This outstanding magnum opus contributes to the literature on comic studies, popular culture, and British history. Over the volume's fourteen chapters, Kunzle (emeritus professor, University of California, Los Angeles) documents the history of the comics, charting the peculiarities of the British tradition at a time when magazines began gaining a foothold among the middle class. Kunzle first examines this mid-century phenomenon in the biting work of George Cruikshank and then incorporates the politics of cartooning in such publications as Punch and Illustrated London News. The carefully curated drawings, all well reproduced, are supported by a careful analysis that offers helpful context. For example, this is a rare volume that offers the full set of Cruikshank's The Bottle, a social commentary often reproduced in social history textbooks without explanation. Kunzle's prose is engaging, and non-specialists as well as scholars will benefit from his erudite references. The publisher is also to be congratulated for choosing a wider printing format, thus allowing a full appreciation of the comic strip, which was once considered, as the author writes in the prologue, the 'poor, unbaptized, and unrecognized' stepsister of caricature. A valuable addition to Kunzle's copious writings.--G. P. de Syon, Albright College CHOICE I discovered something new on virtually every page of Rebirth of the English Comic Strip. David Kunzle has unearthed a treasure trove of information that restructures the very history of comics as an art form. The work is expansive, generative, and path-breaking.--Bart Beaty, professor of English, University of Calgary

Kunzle's books bring the comics of yesteryear magically back to life. If you take the time to read them, you'll be transported to a nineteenth-century playground where painters, illustrators, and early cartoonists built an industry that continues to thrive today.--Michael Taube, syndicated columnist and Washington Times contributor TroyMedia.com With Rebirth of the English Comic Strip: A Kaleidoscope, 1847-1870, David Kunzle, eminent historian of European comics, continues to enrich our picture of the world of comics before the twentieth century, this time focusing on a narrow and surprisingly deep moment in English periodical comics. . . . This will be an essential volume for the study of mid-nineteenth-century comics and its wealth of material will hopefully generate much comics scholarship to come.--Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics Shawn Gilmore This outstanding magnum opus contributes to the literature on comic studies, popular culture, and British history. Over the volume's fourteen chapters, Kunzle (emeritus professor, University of California, Los Angeles) documents the history of the comics, charting the peculiarities of the British tradition at a time when magazines began gaining a foothold among the middle class. Kunzle first examines this mid-century phenomenon in the biting work of George Cruikshank and then incorporates the politics of cartooning in such publications as Punch and Illustrated London News. The carefully curated drawings, all well reproduced, are supported by a careful analysis that offers helpful context. For example, this is a rare volume that offers the full set of Cruikshank's The Bottle, a social commentary often reproduced in social history textbooks without explanation. Kunzle's prose is engaging, and non-specialists as well as scholars will benefit from his erudite references. The publisher is also to be congratulated for choosing a wider printing format, thus allowing a full appreciation of the comic strip, which was once considered, as the author writes in the prologue, the 'poor, unbaptized, and unrecognized' stepsister of caricature. A valuable addition to Kunzle's copious writings.--G. P. de Syon, Albright College CHOICE I discovered something new on virtually every page of Rebirth of the English Comic Strip. David Kunzle has unearthed a treasure trove of information that restructures the very history of comics as an art form. The work is expansive, generative, and path-breaking.--Bart Beaty, professor of English, University of Calgary

Author Information

David Kunzle, professor emeritus of art history at the University of California, is author of Cham; Father of the Comic Strip: Rodolphe Töpffer; Gustave Doré: Twelve Comic Strips; and Rodolphe Töpffer: The Complete Comic Strips, all published by University Press of Mississippi.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available