Captain Marvel and John Lewis, The Gumps and a young Raina Telgemeier, Art Spiegelman and the Sandman, have never before joined forces in the pages of a single book—until now. The latest from acclaimed author and Columbia University professor Jeremy Dauber, AMERICAN COMICS: A History (W. W. Norton & Company; November 16, 2021) tells the sweeping story of cartoons, comic strips, and graphic novels and their century-long hold on the American imagination.
Jeremy Dauber is available for interviews starting Monday, November 8, 2021. I would love to get you a copy of AMERICAN COMICS (PDF & hardcopy avail) and schedule an interview with Jeremy Dauber. If there is interest, please respond with a preferred date & time and a mailing address for the hard copy of the book.
Jeremy Dauber is a professor of Jewish literature and American studies at Columbia University. His previous publications include Jewish Comedy and The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem.
Beginning with the Civil War cartoonist Thomas Nast, who popularized the lasting images of Uncle Sam and Santa Claus, Dauber assembles a cast of creators as charismatic and changeable as any of their four-color heroes. His research on these unlikely heroes (and villains) of comics history whisks readers from the olden age of newspaper comic strips to the first hero boom that brought us Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and hundreds of others; from the Eisenhower era’s moral panic to the trippy and visceral products of small presses; from the grim and gritty fallen heroes of the 1990’s to the graphic novel’s brilliant rise.
Dauber’s book is thus at once an excavation and an illumination. Throughout, he argues that we can understand how America sees itself through whose stories comics tell. Striking and revelatory, AMERICAN COMICS is a rich chronicle of the last 150 years of American history through the lens of its comic strips, political cartoons, superheroes, graphic novels, and more.
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