The Great Comic Book Heroes.
FEIFFER, Jules [Charles Strouse].
The Great Comic Book Heroes.
Bonanza Books Edition of Jules Feiffer's The Great Comic Book Heroes; From the Collection of Broadway Composer Charles Strouse
New York: Bonanza Books, 1965.
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Item Number: 152210
Bonanza Books edition of Jules Feiffer’s landmark celebration of the Golden Age comic book superheroes, reprinting the 1965 Dial Press original. Quarto, original publisher’s half-cloth, profusely illustrated in color. From the collection of Tony, Grammy, and Emmy Award-winning composer Charles Strouse and his wife, choreographer Barbara Siman. Over his 50-year career, Charles Strouse wrote the music for such iconic musical theater hits as Bye Bye Birdie, Applause, and Annie, as well as the theme song for the classic sitcom All in the Family (“Those Were the Days”). His partnership with Martin Charnin on Annie produced one of Broadway’s most successful scores ever, with “Tomorrow” and other songs from the production becoming enduring American musical standards admired by generations. His reach knew no genre or generation – from a number-one Billboard hit in 1958 to Jay-Z’s Grammy-winning sampling of “It’s the Hard-Knock Life” four decades later – and his honors include three Tony Awards and induction into both the Songwriters and Theater Halls of Fame. With his ownership stamp and sticker to the front free endpaper. Near fine in a very good dust jacket. Designed by Paul Bacon.
The Great Comic Book Heroes (1965) is a landmark anthology and the first serious celebration of the Golden Age of American comic books, compiled, introduced, and annotated by the cartoonist Jules Feiffer (1929-2025). Reproducing in full color the origin stories and early adventures of the costumed heroes who defined the late 1930s and 1940s, among them Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Captain America, Captain Marvel, the Sub-Mariner, the Human Torch, Hawkman, the Spectre, Plastic Man, and Will Eisner's the Spirit, the volume rescued these once-disposable comics from obscurity and treated them, for the first time between hard covers, as a genuine American art form. Feiffer's accompanying memoir-essay, a witty and affectionate recollection of growing up in thrall to the comics, is itself regarded as a foundational piece of comics criticism. A Pulitzer Prize-winning satirical cartoonist long associated with The Village Voice, as well as a playwright and the screenwriter of Carnal Knowledge, Feiffer helped inaugurate the serious study of the medium and inspired the generations of readers, collectors, and scholars who followed.
