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Society Is Nix

Gleeful Anarchy at the Dawn of the American Comic Strip 1895-1915 Revised Edition
Brief Description
Mit Dose Kids, Society Is Nix! So said The Inspector about the Katzenjammer Kids. But he could have been speaking of all comic strips in their formative years in the early 1900s. From the very first colour Sunday supplement, comics were a driving force in newspaper... Read More
Format: Hardback
$19099
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A revised and expanded edition of the Eisner-nominated book on the earliest American comics, with over 200 classic strips, by over 75 cartoonists: the "Founders of the Funnies."

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Mit Dose Kids, Society Is Nix! So said The Inspector about the Katzenjammer Kids. But he could have been speaking of all comic strips in their formative years in the early 1900s.

From the very first colour Sunday supplement, comics were a driving force in newspaper sales, offering a wild parody of the world and the culture found in the surrounding pages. Society didn't stand a chance!

These are the origins of the American comic strip, born at a time when there were no set styles or formats, when creators had the freedom to experiment, when artistic anarchy helped spawn a new medium.

The genesis of comics is laid out in a dozen essays by the greatest in their field - historians like Thierry Smolderen, Brian Walker, Alfredo Castelli, Bill Kartalopoulos, Paul C. Tumey, and others. And in the second, revised edition of this seminal collection: over 200 comic strips!

The earliest comics by acknowledged greats like R. F. Outcault, George McManus, Winsor McCay, and George Herriman, along with creations of more than fifty other superb cartoonists, known and unknown. The classic strips, most not printed in over 100 years, are presented in their original colours at the incredible oversized format Sunday Press is known for: all the better to see the comics that would inspire the next century of comics to come!

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9798875000607

Publisher: Fantagraphics

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 15 July 2025

Country: United States

Imprint: Fantagraphics

Edition: Revised Edition

Illustration: 164 Illustrations

Contributors:

  • Edited by Peter Maresca

Audience: General / adult, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Width: 340.0mm

Height: 426.0mm

Weight: 300g

Pages: 167

About the Author

Peter Maresca is the multiple Eisner and Harvey Award-winning publisher of high-quality, full-sized collections of classic American newspaper strips. His Sunday Press books represent a high-water mark in the reproduction and preservation of American comic strips. Maresca changed the concept of comic reprints in 2005 with his original-sized Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays, Winsor McCay's groundbreaking strip. He continued with Sundays with Walt & Skeezix (Frank King's Gasoline Alley), George Herriman's Krazy Kat, Chester Gould's Dick Tracy, and a dozen others. Maresca lives a relatively non-virtual life in Palo Alto, CA.

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