In The Essential Guide to World Comics, co-authors Tim Pilcher and Brad Brooks crisscross most of the globe on a 320-page whirlwind tour, which leaves them, and no doubt most readers, "flabbergasted at the sheer scope across the planet." Like TV film critics Siskel and Ebert, this guide benefits from Pilcher and Brooks' dual viewpoint, which strikes a balance between Brad's faith in comics as art and Tim's more prosaic view of comics as fun. As they say, "Both views are valid and the truth probably lies inbetween". Almost everywhere they turn, they find that the mass-market mainstream and the more artistic alternatives co-exist and often overlap. In fact, perhaps the most overused word in the book is "cross-pollination", as they observe how interconnected different countries' comics cultures have become
They carve up the world into ten chapters of between 20 and 36 pages, charting figures and favourites that made history, sometimes starting from the 19th century, but mainly from the 20th. North America and Britain lead off, followed by Japan, the rest of Southeast Asia, France and Belgium, and the rest of continental Europe. Next come South America, Scandinavia, and Australasia, and finally India, Africa, and the Middle East. They close each chapter with a spread on one 'World-Class Creator", like Kirby, Baxendale, Hergé or Tezuka, or less well-known geniuses like Uruguay's Alberto Breccia, Denmark's Peter Madsen or New Zealand's Dylan Horrocks. They pack in some great anecdotes, masses of names, titles, facts and figures and rarely seen imagery from lovely crumbling antiquities to obscure small press gems. My one quibble is that, while they offer an index of about1,000 creators (some cited on the page only in a list), they did not index the vital characters or comic titles, surely more familiar to most readers.
It is still a remarkable achievement, colourful and sharply designed. Of course, no single book can ever contain the entirety of the world's comics, but maybe the web could. As Dave Gibbons muses in his foreword, "Maybe someday in the future, comics aficionados will have the equivalent of the technology that brings music from around the world to my computer desktop." Already fan-created websites are sprouting with impressive resources, but imagine being able to read online archives or downloads of whole runs of any of the strips shown here, translated into whatever language you need at the touch of button. Whether this happens is probably more a question of when than if. Till then, this Guide is a dream round-the-world ticket.
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