"But Shooter's work was the exception at DC rather than the rule. The cover of the August 1966 issue of Batman showed the Caped Crusader relaxing in front of a TV showing The Adventures of Batman, Robin begging him to come out and fight crime."
Jeremy Dauber is a professor of Jewish literature at Columbia University. He's written several books which explore Jewish history and culture, American Comics: A History being the only of his books that doesn't directly tackle that subject.
As a work of research this book is commendable. The author is exhaustive in his analysis of this art form, beginning with the debatable "early comic books" of medieval Europe and concluding with recent titles such as Tom King's run on Mr. Miracle.
With this said, I found the last two chapters of this book to be uncomfortably "woke." The author is very preoccupied with issues of sexism, racism, sexual orientation and representation, often to a degree far in excess of what the average comic book reader is willing to countenance.
In earlier chapters his exploration of racial and sexual politics in the context of comic strips and comic books is absorbing, but in later chapters it grows extremely tiresome, involving as it does discussions of comic books that few have read and that fewer have interpreted in the same way as the author. His waxing rhapsodic over comics that were never popular, and which thus lacked any real impact on the industry, feels extremely condescending at times. And at the end of the day, do you or I really need to read titles like Black Hole? No, not really. If that's your thing, cool, and if not, then also cool.
In the midst of his plea for representation the author also seems to lose sight of the fact that it's only one aspect of storytelling. It's a tool that, when used well, adds realism to a story and invites new readers into that same story. It's also a tool, when used badly, that both alienates readers and evidences a lack of originality. Do we need more minority and LGBTQ+ characters in comic books? Yes, we certainly do, but these characters have to be done well, they have to be compelling, and they have to serve the narratives they inhabit. Assuming otherwise estranges people, and it also overlooks the central concern of the comic book industry, that of a publisher's need to know its audience.
I'd recommend the first half of this book. It's full of interesting historical anecdotes and asides. I wouldn't recommend the second half, which overlooks some important changes in the industry and which grows increasingly pompous toward its conclusion.
I also think that if the author wanted to "show his wares" (his prose) to a wider market he would have done better find a subject which lent itself more naturally to that. As it is it often seems like he's using the history of comic books to show us how big his vocabulary is, and many of his analyses of the genre seem to overlook the very titles he's discussing.
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