DC 75 DC Comics Year by Year A Visual Chronicle

DC 75 DC Comics Year by Year A Visual Chronicle
DK Publishing
Publication date: 2010
Written by: Alan Cowsill, Alex Irvine, Matthew K. Manning, Mike McAvennie and Daniel Wallace
ISBN 978-0-7566-6742-9
Price 29.95. Some prices cheaper on internet.
Reviewed by: Allen Klingelhoets

The hard cover book starts with Forward by DC Publisher Paul Levitz. The colored book starts with early history of DC Comics. The book is set up in decade format from 1930 to 2010.

The book tells about the introduction of superhero characters like Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Superman, and Wonder Woman and many others. The book did not just focus on DC Comics. It mentions Captain Marvel appearing in WHIZ Comics from Fawcett Publications which even at times out sold Superman Comics during the 1940’s.

I also liked how bonus treasures were shown. One of those was membership form for Justice Society of America. The form was even signed by Diana Prince (Wonder Woman) who was JLA secretary.

The book tells about many comic books published by DC Comics. It did not just restrict itself to Super heroes. DC Comics even published biblical, The Adventures of Bob Hope, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, House of Mystery and even All Star Western. These are only few of titles mentioned in DC 75.

I think great book giving story of DC from earliest time formed as company including many cover and even some reprint color full page art pictures. Book is teen to adult age group. The book also has concluding index and artist acknowledgments sections. The book is 352 pages of DC Comics history. I suppose can buy book online. I just got my copy through inter-library loan.

I found my concluding section in introduction.

The book gives essential background into DC Universe. The book is a month-by-month chronicle, charting the major (and minor) publications from seventy-five years of DC Comics. It cover the events of the Golden Age of comics (1938-1955), The Silver Age (1956-1969), and The Bronze Age (1970-1979), right up through The Modern Age (1980-Present). It travels from Earth-2 to earth-1, to the Antimatter Universe and back again to provide a comprehensive record of the people that shaped the DC Universe.

DC Comics Year by Year also includes titles from companies that eventually became part of the DC family, from All Star Comics of the 1940’s through to Captain Marvel’s first appearance in WHIZ Comics # 2 (February 1940), right up to the greatest moments of the Wildstorm imprint, established in 1999. The articles are richly illustrated with covers and artwork and are set against a chronology of real-world events, allowing DC’s seventy-five-year evolution to be charted in a historical context.

A team of top comic historians and writers have been scouring comic shops, their collections, other people’s collections, and sacred DC Vaults, to present Comics Year by Year to a waiting world. Whether it’s the first appearance of Sam Bradley in Detective Comics # 1 (March 1937); the trend for funny animal stories in Real Screen Comics # 1 (Spring 1945); tales of heart break in Romance Trail (1949-1950); the debut of Ace the Bat Hound (Batman # 92, June 1955); or Morpheus return to The Dreaming in The Sandman # 1 (January 1989), all genres are covered detailing not only a timeline of the world’s greatest heroes but a chronicle of one of the most successful of modern times.
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But that’s just four colored semantics; the comic books themselves are the real stars of the show. So get ready for a trip through comic book history, from The Golden Age through the present day. Just turn the page and you’ll be... up, up, and away!


Allen Klingelhoets