Heroes of the Comics: Portraits Of The Pioneering Legends Of Comic Books

Drew Friedman

Sep 2014 · Fantagraphics Books

About this ebook

Featuring over 80 full-color portraits of the pioneering legends of American comic books, including publishers, editors and artists from the industry’s birth in the ’30s, through the brilliant artists and writers of behind EC Comics in the ’50s. All lovingly rendered and chosen by Drew Friedman, a cartooning legend in his own right. Featuring subjects popular and obscure, men and women, as well as several pioneering African-American artists. Each subject features a short essay by Friedman, who grew up knowing many of the subjects included (as the son of writer Bruce Jay Friedman), including Stan Lee, Harvey Kurtzman, Will Eisner, Mort Drucker, Al Jaffee, Jack Davis, Will Elder, and Bill Gaines. More names you might recognize: Barks, Crumb, Wood, Wolverton, Frazetta, Siegel & Shuster, Kirby, Cole, Ditko, Werthem… it’s a Hall of Fame of comic book history from the man BoingBoing.com call “America’s greatest living portrait artist!”

About the author

Drew Friedman 's work has appeared in The New York Times, Mad, New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and many other magazines. He is the author of several collections of comics and cartooning, including All the Presidents, Maverix and Lunatix: Icons of Underground Comix, Old Jewish Comedians, and Any Similarity to Persons Living or Dead is Purely Coincidental. He resides in Pennsylvania with his wife and collaborator, Kathy Bidus, and their beagles. Al Jaffee was born in 1921 in Savannah Georgia. He is an award winning cartoonist and cultural icon. He began his career in 1941 working as comic book artist for several publishers including Timely Comics and Atlas Comics and later at Marvel Comics. He became editor at Timely comics in the late 1940's working on the humor and teen-age comics. He first appeared in Mad Magazine in 1955 shortly after it changed from comic book to magazine. He became known for his work in the satirical Mad Magazine. He started a trademark feature for the magazine - the Mad Fold-In for the back cover - which has appeared in almost every issue since 1964. It is a joke on the triple fold outs in magazines like Playboy. He is Mad's oldest regular contributor after 55 years. His work has appeared in over 440 issues. He is the author of several books including: Mad's Al Jaffee Spews Out More Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions and Tall Tales. (2008) In 2008 he was honored by Reuben Awards as a Cartoonist of the Year.