Masterful Marks

In a first-of-its-kind collection, award-winning illustrators celebrate the lives of the visionary artists who created the world of comic art and altered pop culture forever. Sixteen Graphic Novel Biographies of: • Walt Disney • Dr. Seuss • Charles Schulz • The Creators of Superman • R. Crumb • Jack Kirby • Winsor McCay • Hergé • Osamu Tezuka • MAD creator, Harvey Kurtzman • Al Hirschfeld • Edward Gorey • Chas Addams • Rodolphe Töpffer • Lynd Ward • Hugh Hefner The story of cartoons—the multibillion-dollar industry that has affected all corners of our culture, from high to low—is ultimately the story of the visionary icons who pioneered the form. But no one has told the story of comic art in its own medium—until now. In Masterful Marks, top illustrators—including Drew Friedman, Nora Krug, Denis Kitchen, and Peter Kuper—reveal how sixteen visionary cartoonists overcame massive financial, political, and personal challenges to create a new form of art that now defines our world.

"In a first-of-its-kind collection, award-winning illustrators celebrate the lives of the visionary artists who created the world of comic art and altered pop culture forever. No one has told the story of comic art in its own medium, until now. In Masterful Marks, top illustrators--including Drew Friedman, Nora Krug, Denis Kitchen, and Peter Kuper--reveal how sixteen visionary cartoonists overcame massive financial, political, and personal challenges to create a new form of art that now defines our world. Superhero comics didn't exist until two teenagers from Cleveland created the first superhero of all time: Superman. Advertising artist Theodor Geisel released his first book in 1937 as Dr. Seuss--and children's literature was never the same. Charles M. Schulz's perseverance and passion gave the world Peanuts, the world's most famous comic strip. Featuring these tales, and profiling such giants as Walt Disney, Robert Crumb, and the creators of MAD, Tintin, and manga, Masterful Marks illustrates how graphic storytelling became such a rich and popular medium. Masterful Marks is a stunning portrait of the comic art's aesthetic heritage and a powerful story of how creative vision can change the world"--

"After the blast, Kurt Cobain's body slumped. Next to his corpse lay a piece of paper with his last words. At the time the bullet seared his head, Cobain was a rock star, his grizzled face graced the covers of slick music industry magazines, his songs received mainstream radio play, his band Nirvana performed in huge arenas. But he had been thinking an awful lot about what he called the "punk rock world" that saved his life during his teen years and that he had subsequently abandoned for stardom. He first encountered this world in the summer of 1983, at a free show the Melvins held in a Thriftway parking lot. After hearing the guttural sounds and watching kids dance by slamming against one another, he ran home and wrote in his journal: "This was what I was looking for," underlined twice. As he dove into this world, he recognized its blistering music played in odd venues, but also a wider array of creativity, like self-made zines, poetry, fiction, movies, artwork on flyers and record jackets, and even politics. This too: how all of these things opened up spaces for ideas and arguments. Now in his suicide note he reflected on his "punk rock 101 courses," where he learned "ethics involved with independence and the embracement of your community."2 There are people who can recount where they were when Cobain's suicide became news. I was in Ithaca, NY, finishing up my dissertation... but my mind immediately hurled backwards to growing up in Washington, D.C.'s "metropolitan area" (euphemism for suburban sprawl). I started to remember the first time I entered this "punk rock world." Around a year or two before Cobain went to the Thriftway parking lot, I opened the doors of the Chancery, a small club in Washington, D.C., and witnessed a tiny little stage, maybe a foot and a half off the ground. Suddenly, a small kid about my age (fifteen), his hair bleached into a shade of white that glowed in the lights, jumped up. I remember it being brighter than expected (unlike my earlier, wee-boy experiences in darkened, cavernous arenas where bands like Kiss or Cheap Trick would play to me and thousands of stoned audience members). This kid with the blond hair might have said something, I don't remember, what I recall is that his band broke into the fastest, most vicious sounding music I had ever heard. Suddenly bodies started flying through the air, young men (mostly) propelling themselves off the ground into the space between one another, flailing their arms, skin smacking skin. Control was lost, for when a body moved in one direction, another body collided into its path. When someone fell over, another would pick him up. The bodies got pushed onto the stage, making it hard to differentiate performer from audience member. At one moment it appeared the singer had been tackled by a clump of kids, and he seemed to smile. Sometimes, I could even make out what the fifteen-year old was shouting, especially, "I'm going to make their society bleed!" Overwhelmed, I rushed outside to clear my head"--

Peter Kuper (b. 1958) is one of the country's leading cartoonists. His artwork has graced the pages and covers of numerous newspapers and magazines, including Time, the New Yorker, Mother Jones, and the New York Times. He is a longtime contributor to Mad magazine, where he has been writing and drawing Spy vs. Spy for two decades, and the cofounder and coeditor of World War 3 Illustrated, the cutting-edge magazine devoted to political graphic art. Most of the interviews collected here are either previously unpublished or long out of print. They address such varied topics as world travels, teaching at Harvard, Hollywood deal-making, climate change, Spy vs. Spy, New York City in the 1970s and 1980s, and World War 3 Illustrated. Among the works examined are his books The System, Sticks and Stones, Stop Forgetting to Remember, Diario de Oaxaca, and adaptations of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis and Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Kuper also discusses his graphic novel Ruins, which received the Eisner Award for Best New Graphic Novel in 2016. Along with two dozen images, this volume features ten lively, informative interviews as well as a quartet of revealing conversations, conducted in collaboration with Kuper's fellow artist Seth Tobocman, with underground comix legends Robert Crumb and Vaughn Bodé, Mad magazine publisher William Gaines, and Jack Kirby.

BLAB!—the Harvey Award-winning anthology of cutting-edge comics, art, and culture—has returned to its comics roots with a stellar lineup of contributors. Noah Van Sciver depicts the tragic demise of Crime Does Not Pay editor Robert Wood. Ryan Heshka recounts the rise and fall of Superman creators Siegel and Shuster. Sasha Velour portrays the making of film director F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu. Children’s book illustrator Giselle Potter examines Peter Rabbit author Beatrix Potter’s passion as a naturalist. Illustrated articles include the history of the gorilla and a report on UFOs. All this and much more in Comics and Stories That Will Make You BLAB!

"In a first-of-its-kind collection, award-winning illustrators celebrate the lives of the visionary artists who created the world of comic art and altered pop culture forever. No one has told the story of comic art in its own medium, until now. In Masterful Marks, top illustrators--including Drew Friedman, Nora Krug, Denis Kitchen, and Peter Kuper--reveal how sixteen visionary cartoonists overcame massive financial, political, and personal challenges to create a new form of art that now defines our world. Superhero comics didn't exist until two teenagers from Cleveland created the first superhero of all time: Superman. Advertising artist Theodor Geisel released his first book in 1937 as Dr. Seuss--and children's literature was never the same. Charles M. Schulz's perseverance and passion gave the world Peanuts, the world's most famous comic strip. Featuring these tales, and profiling such giants as Walt Disney, Robert Crumb, and the creators of MAD, Tintin, and manga, Masterful Marks illustrates how graphic storytelling became such a rich and popular medium. Masterful Marks is a stunning portrait of the comic art's aesthetic heritage and a powerful story of how creative vision can change the world"--"Masterful Marks is a first-of-its-kind collection of graphic biographies of the visionary artists who pioneered the modern era of comics, drawn by today's foremost illustrators and edited by the award-winning creator of the cult-favorite BLAB art books, Monte Beauchamp. In Masterful Marks: Cartoonists Who Changed the World, sixteen award-winning illustrators shed light on the lives of the pioneer artists who most influenced them--and who created the world of modern comic art. Covering comic strips, manga, graphic novels, gag cartoons, children's books, and animation--and featuring such giants as Charles Schulz and the creators of Superman, Walt Disney, Hergé, Charles Addams, Robert Crumb, and Dr. Seuss--Masterful Marks is a tribute to the visionary creators whose work left an indelible mark upon the world. Had it not been for these monumental characters, the billion-dollar cartoon and comics industries would not exist as we know them today. Masterful Marks tells the stories of: * Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (creators of Superman) by Ryan Heshka and Monte Beauchamp * Edward Gorey (celebrated author of children's books) by Greg Clarke * Winsor McCay (animation pioneer) by Nicolas Debon * Charles Schulz (creator of Peanuts) by Sergio Ruzzier * Chas Addams (creator of The Addams Family) by Marc Rosenthal * Jack Kirby (co-creator of Captain America) by Mark Alan Stamaty * Harvey Kurtzman (creator of MAD magazine) by Peter Kuper Masterful Marks is at once a visually stunning portrait of the cartoon world's aesthetic heritage, and a powerful story of how creative vision can change the world"--