Superheroes!

Superheroes! PDF Author: Brian Solomon
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493064525
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Superheroes! is the ultimate reference book about the men and women in tights who fight for what’s right and the comic book phenomenon that conquered the world. From their origins in stories created by barely grown men during an era of global war and printed on cheap paper for consumption by children, superheroes have grown into a popular culture whirlwind that has attracted millions of fans and crossed over into every form of media. Encompassing early coming books, indie outliers, and the mammoth fictional universes managed by DC and Marvel, Superheroes! chronicles the rise of a distinctly American invention, the modern-day evolution of the myths and legends of old. Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Captain America, X-Men, the Justice League and the Avengers—they all represent our greatest hopes, and sometimes our darkest fantasies. Pop culture expert Brian Solomon tells a story that goes from the Golden, Silver and Bronze Ages of comic book history right up to the Modern Age of multimillion-dollar Hollywood movies, and beyond. Perhaps no fictional genre has endured and blossomed over the past eighty years the way superheroes have. Learn all about the creators who have brought them to life: artists like Jack Kirby and Jim Lee, writers like Stan Lee and Alan Moore, actors like Christopher Reeve and Robert Downey Jr., and directors like Tim Burton and Joss Whedon. They’re all here, in all their high-flying, eye-zapping, goon-punching glory. Up, up and away!

Superheroes!

Superheroes! PDF Author: Brian Solomon
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493064525
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Get Book Here

Book Description
Superheroes! is the ultimate reference book about the men and women in tights who fight for what’s right and the comic book phenomenon that conquered the world. From their origins in stories created by barely grown men during an era of global war and printed on cheap paper for consumption by children, superheroes have grown into a popular culture whirlwind that has attracted millions of fans and crossed over into every form of media. Encompassing early coming books, indie outliers, and the mammoth fictional universes managed by DC and Marvel, Superheroes! chronicles the rise of a distinctly American invention, the modern-day evolution of the myths and legends of old. Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Captain America, X-Men, the Justice League and the Avengers—they all represent our greatest hopes, and sometimes our darkest fantasies. Pop culture expert Brian Solomon tells a story that goes from the Golden, Silver and Bronze Ages of comic book history right up to the Modern Age of multimillion-dollar Hollywood movies, and beyond. Perhaps no fictional genre has endured and blossomed over the past eighty years the way superheroes have. Learn all about the creators who have brought them to life: artists like Jack Kirby and Jim Lee, writers like Stan Lee and Alan Moore, actors like Christopher Reeve and Robert Downey Jr., and directors like Tim Burton and Joss Whedon. They’re all here, in all their high-flying, eye-zapping, goon-punching glory. Up, up and away!

Superman

Superman PDF Author:
Publisher: PediaPress
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 1751

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Book Description


How the World Remade Hollywood

How the World Remade Hollywood PDF Author: Ed Glaser
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476644675
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
For decades, filmmakers worldwide have been remaking Hollywood movies in colorful ways. They've chronicled a singing and dancing Hannibal Lecter in India, star-crossed lovers aboard the doomed Nigerian ship Titanic, a Japanese expedition to the planet of the apes, and an uncivil war in Turkey between Captain America and a mobbed-up Spider-Man. Most of these films were low budget and many were unauthorized, but all of them were fantastic--and lately have begun to resurface thanks to cherry-picked YouTube clips. But why and how were they made in the first place? This book tells the little-known stories of the wily filmmakers who made an Italian 007 flick by casting Sean Connery's tradesman brother, produced a Turkish space opera by stealing a print of Star Wars for its effects footage, and transported a full-fledged Terminator to the present day--not from a post-apocalyptic future, but from the vibrant mythology of Indonesia. Their stories reveal more than mere imitations; they demonstrate the fascinating ways ideas evolve as they cross borders.

Superman

Superman PDF Author: Larry Tye
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812980778
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
The first full-fledged history not just of the Man of Steel but of the creators, designers, owners, and performers who made him the icon he is today, from the New York Times bestselling author of Satchel and Bobby Kennedy “A story as American as Superman himself.”—The Washington Post Legions of fans from Boston to Buenos Aires can recite the story of the child born Kal-El, scion of the doomed planet Krypton, who was rocketed to Earth as an infant, raised by humble Kansas farmers, and rechristened Clark Kent. Known to law-abiders and evildoers alike as Superman, he was destined to become the invincible champion of all that is good and just—and a star in every medium from comic books and comic strips to radio, TV, and film. But behind the high-flying legend lies a true-to-life saga every bit as compelling, one that begins not in the far reaches of outer space but in the middle of America’s heartland. During the depths of the Great Depression, Jerry Siegel was a shy, awkward teenager in Cleveland. Raised on adventure tales and robbed of his father at a young age, Jerry dreamed of a hero for a boy and a world that desperately needed one. Together with neighborhood chum and kindred spirit Joe Shuster, young Siegel conjured a human-sized god who was everything his creators yearned to be: handsome, stalwart, and brave, able to protect the innocent, punish the wicked, save the day, and win the girl. It was on Superman’s muscle-bound back that the comic book and the very idea of the superhero took flight. Tye chronicles the adventures of the men and women who kept Siegel and Shuster’s “Man of Tomorrow” aloft and vitally alive through seven decades and counting. Here are the savvy publishers and visionary writers and artists of comics’ Golden Age who ushered the red-and-blue-clad titan through changing eras and evolving incarnations; and the actors—including George Reeves and Christopher Reeve—who brought the Man of Steel to life on screen, only to succumb themselves to all-too-human tragedy in the mortal world. Here too is the poignant and compelling history of Siegel and Shuster’s lifelong struggle for the recognition and rewards rightly due to the architects of a genuine cultural phenomenon. From two-fisted crimebuster to über-patriot, social crusader to spiritual savior, Superman—perhaps like no other mythical character before or since—has evolved in a way that offers a Rorschach test of his times and our aspirations. In this deftly realized appreciation, Larry Tye reveals a portrait of America over seventy years through the lens of that otherworldly hero who continues to embody our best selves.

Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters

Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters PDF Author: Sheldon Hall
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 9780814330081
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
The pantheon of big-budget, commercially successful films encompasses a range of genres, including biblical films, war films, romances, comic-book adaptations, animated features, and historical epics. It discuss the characteristics, history, and modes of distribution and exhibition that unite big-budget pictures, from their beginnings in the late nineteenth century to the present. Moving chronologically, it examines the roots of today's blockbuster in the "feature," "special," "superspecial," "roadshow," "epic," and "spectacle" of earlier eras, with special attention to the characteristics of each type of picture. (Editor).

Death, Disability, and the Superhero

Death, Disability, and the Superhero PDF Author: José Alaniz
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1626743274
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 553

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Book Description
The Thing. Daredevil. Captain Marvel. The Human Fly. Drawing on DC and Marvel comics from the 1950s to the 1990s and marshaling insights from three burgeoning fields of inquiry in the humanities—disability studies, death and dying studies, and comics studies—José Alaniz seeks to redefine the contemporary understanding of the superhero. Beginning in the Silver Age, the genre increasingly challenged and complicated its hypermasculine, quasi-eugenicist biases through such disabled figures as Ben Grimm/The Thing, Matt Murdock/Daredevil, and the Doom Patrol. Alaniz traces how the superhero became increasingly vulnerable, ill, and mortal in this era. He then proceeds to a reinterpretation of characters and series—some familiar (Superman), some obscure (She-Thing). These genre changes reflected a wider awareness of related body issues in the postwar U.S. as represented by hospice, death with dignity, and disability rights movements. The persistent highlighting of the body's “imperfection” comes to forge a predominant aspect of the superheroic self. Such moves, originally part of the Silver Age strategy to stimulate sympathy, enhance psychological depth, and raise the dramatic stakes, developed further in such later series as The Human Fly, Strikeforce: Morituri, and the landmark graphic novel The Death of Captain Marvel, all examined in this volume. Death and disability, presumed routinely absent or denied in the superhero genre, emerge to form a core theme and defining function of the Silver Age and beyond.

The Official Overstreet Comic Book Companion, 11th Edition

The Official Overstreet Comic Book Companion, 11th Edition PDF Author: Robert M. Overstreet
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
ISBN: 0375723080
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
Describes and lists the values of popular collectible comics and graphic novels issued from the 1950s to today, providing tips on buying, collecting, selling, grading, and caring for comics and including a section on related toys and rings.

Film Reboots

Film Reboots PDF Author: Daniel Herbert
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474451381
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Through a set of vibrant case studies, this collection investigates rebooting as a practice that seeks to remake an entire film series or franchise, with ambitions that are at once respectful and revisionary.

Batman and Psychology

Batman and Psychology PDF Author: Travis Langley
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
ISBN: 1684428572
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
Batman is one of the most compelling and enduring characters to come from the Golden Age of Comics, and interest in his story has only increased through countless incarnations since his first appearance in Detective Comics #27 in 1939. Why does this superhero without superpowers fascinate us? What does that fascination say about us? Batman and Psychology explores these and other intriguing questions about the masked vigilante, including: Does Batman have PTSD? Why does he fight crime? Why as a vigilante? Why the mask, the bat, and the underage partner? Why are his most intimate relationships with “bad girls” he ought to lock up? And why won't he kill that homicidal, green-haired clown? Combining psychological theory with the latest in psychological research, Batman and Psychology takes you on an unprecedented journey behind the mask and into the dark mind of your favorite Caped Crusader and his never-ending war on crime.

Selling the Silver Bullet

Selling the Silver Bullet PDF Author: Avi Santo
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477303979
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Originating as a radio series in 1933, the Lone Ranger is a cross-media star who has appeared in comic strips, comic books, adult and juvenile novels, feature films and serials, clothing, games, toys, home furnishings, and many other consumer products. In his prime, he rivaled Mickey Mouse as one of the most successfully licensed and merchandised children’s properties in the United States, while in more recent decades, the Lone Ranger has struggled to resonate with consumers, leading to efforts to rebrand the property. The Lone Ranger’s eighty-year history as a lifestyle brand thus offers a perfect case study of how the fields of licensing, merchandizing, and brand management have operated within shifting industrial and sociohistorical conditions that continue to redefine how the business of entertainment functions. Deciphering how iconic characters gain and retain their status as cultural commodities, Selling the Silver Bullet focuses on the work done by peripheral consumer product and licensing divisions in selectively extending the characters’ reach and in cultivating investment in these characters among potential stakeholders. Tracing the Lone Ranger’s decades-long career as intellectual property allows Avi Santo to analyze the mechanisms that drive contemporary character licensing and entertainment brand management practices, while at the same time situating the licensing field’s development within particular sociohistorical and industrial contexts. He also offers a nuanced assessment of the ways that character licensing firms and consumer product divisions have responded to changing cultural and economic conditions over the past eighty years, which will alter perceptions about the creative and managerial authority these ancillary units wield.