King of the Comics: One Hundred Years of King Features Syndicate (The Library of American Comics)
by Dean Mullaney, Bruce Canwell,and Brian Walker
IDW Publishing
ISBN-13: 978-1631403736
Krazy Kat! Popeye! Flash Gordon! Beetle Bailey! Blondie! Prince Valiant! Hagar the Horrible! Barney Google and Snuffy Smith! Baby Blues! Mutt & Jeff! Zits! Juliet Jones! Buz Sawyer! Steve Canyon! Bizarro! Hi & Lois! Maggie & Jiggs! Johnny Hazard! There are simply too many to list because King Features has had a more illustrious and long-lasting history than any newspaper syndicate, even as it continues to lead the way into the digital age and beyond. This book is a centennial birthday bash hosted by Dean Mullaney, Bruce Canwell, and Brian Walker, with contributions by Brendan Burford, Lucy Shelton Caswell, Jared Gardner, Ron Goulart, Jeffrey Lindenblatt, Carl Linich, Paul Tumey, and Germund von Wowern. More than just comics, it’s a celebration of the profound impact that King Features has had on popular culture!
This is a lovely, and heavy, coffee table book that gives you a generous sampling of the greatest comic strips published by King Features Syndicate over the last century. A reader can get lost for hours in nearly 300 pages of classic comics and essays about them. You’ll find everything from the favorites of years gone by to obscure treats like the 1940s Wonder Woman comic strip by William Moulton Marsters and H.G. Peters, the comic book heroine’s creators.
This book is a great gift for comic strip fans of all ages. The list price is $49.95, but most bookstores will discount it to under forty bucks. You can order it from any brick-and-mortar bookseller by giving them the ISBN number, or you can go the Amazon route and probably get the best price.
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