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The crime and mystery genre, from traditional to noir to horror, has influenced the comic book since its beginning. The origins of the American comic book industry have also been bound up in real organized crime, problematic racist and sexist practice, and corrupt politics that generated—and exactly parallel—current political trends and policies. How did all these elements create and shape the medium?
Bullets & Balloons: Crime, Culture and Comic Book History examines the connections of this forgotten history.
This new work, expanded from articles originally commissioned by the Northern California Mystery Writers of America, examines the comic book's ties to both the crime genre and genuine crime.
This includes discussion of mob-affiliated Harry Donenfeld, creator of DC comics; Al Barreaux, the black Jazz Age artist who created comic's first superhero; early comics work by crime authors Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane and Nobel-laureate Patricia Highsmith; Leverett Gleason, Communist publisher who created the crime comic and defied the House Un-American Activities Committee; how comics helped reveal the Holocaust; the industry's simultaneous development and contribution to America's film noir culture, and the emergence of the extreme political Right, who used comic books as a whipping-boy to take control of the US congress, ushering in an era of censorship and the Cold War. Among many, many others.
The author is an independent comics creator since 1986, first ever to be published in the 60-year history of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, submitted to the Edgar Awards, an internationally sold graphic novelist, contributor (with crime author Gary Phillips) of the 'Graphic Novels' chapter to Simon and Schuster's best-selling Agatha, Macavity and Anthony award-winning How to Write a Mystery: the MWA Handbook (Lee Child & Laurie R. King editors, Scribner 2021) and currently a Board Member At-Large for the Northern California Mystery Writers of America.
Many books on the history of comics, its characters and personalities have engaged audiences worldwide. Here is a bold, fresh examination for fans, authors, historians and casual readers alike.
Now available in special eBook format, lavishly illustrated with historic period covers, artwork, photos and documents, including interactive links.
