Society Is Nix

    (Fantagraphics, 2025)

A revised and expanded edition of the Eisner-nominated book on the earliest American comics, with over 200 classic strips, by over 75 cartoonists: the 'Founders of the Funnies.' 'Mit Dose Kids, Society is Nix!' So said The Inspector about the Katzenjammer Kids. But he could have been speaking of all comic strips in their formative years in the early 1900s. From the very first color Sunday supplement, comics were a driving force in newspaper sales, offering a wild parody of the world and the culture found in the surrounding pages. Society didn’t stand a chance! These are the origins of the American comic strip, born at a time when there were no set styles or formats, when creators had the freedom to experiment, when artistic anarchy helped spawn a new medium. The genesis of comics is laid out in a dozen essays by the greatest in their field-historians like Thierry Smolderen, Brian Walker, Alfredo Castelli, Bill Kartalopoulos, Paul C. Tumey and others. And in the second, revised edition of this seminal collection: over 200 comic strips! The earliest comics by acknowledged greats like R. F. Outcault, George McManus, Winsor McCay, and George Herriman, along with creations of more than fifty other superb cartoonists, known and unknown. The classic strips, most not printed in over 100 years, are presented in their original colors at the incredible oversized format Sunday Press is known for: all the better to see the comics that would inspire the next century of comics to come!
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