The Golden Age of DC Comics Hardcover – December 5, 2012

Right after I ordered The Golden Age of DC Comics by Taschen I had a sudden fear. What if the book was nothing more than a reprinting of the Golden Age section from 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art Of Modern Mythmaking. Well, my fear was warranted and this indeed is the first section of a book I already own. Having said that I don't entirely regret buying this book. It does contain new material including an interview with Joe Kubert and many new images but everything written by Paul Leyritz is kept unaltered as far as I can tell. As much as I love this books much larger parent there is one big problem with 75 Years of DC Comics; it is simply unwieldy as reading material.You don't just pull 75 Years of DC Comics off a shelf and peruse it. You have to make plans to read it. Unless you have ever seen and held the book it is nearly impossible to get a sense of its size. In 2004 Taschen put out a biography on Mohamed Ali and the XXL version weighed in at a staggering 75 pounds. It was not meant to be read. Although 75 Years of DC Comics isn't nearly that large the effort it takes to pull it out of its protective case and somehow either rest it on the floor or, God help you, lay it across your legs, is not insignificant. Good luck trying to just hold it in your hands. Golden Age of DC Comics is the portable, readable version of 75 Years and that alone may make it worth buying. 75 Years is like the collectable version to Golden Age's readable version.The Golden Age of DC Comics is not for everyone. Casual comic readers or non DC fans will likely be quickly bored. The only story in the book is the story of DC comics. It's mostly images of comic covers and interior images, b/w photos of children reading comics, images of printing presses, famous and not so famous personalities from comics golden age, demonstrations of color separation in the four color image process. There are tons of quotes and short blurbs about DC accompanying the images but this is not a wordy book. You can fly through the 400 page book pretty quickly. The images are all beautiful although Taschen didn't exactly bust their budget on high quality comics as most of the comic covers shown here are probably about Fair condition. I absolutely love this book but I am precisely the target audience. I'll give it five stars despite essentially owning it already because it's just that cool.

i was born in 1940, at an early age I started reading these comic books .. We were immigrants from wartime germany living in tsingtao-china. The Maines came in 1945 and set up headquartes next to our home - they broght with them these comics and crates of Coca-Cola. My good english is thanks to these magazines. Superman, Batman and Robin, Hawkman,, Greenarrow etc. were like family to me. My dad threw away all my huge collection of these friends on our way by ship to Palestine in 1948. I still vividly remember them as he threw them out of our cabin's porthole. Floating up and down in thew wake of the ship...Yet, I doubt he would have acted otherwise had he only known the future worth of these copies..The book brought back these memories, the action, the excitement and what's more - the stories of the figures behind.Excellent book, first-class printing. Recommend to all senior youngsters of my age

I didn't buy the 75 years book, though I had thought about it. My interest, being a bit of a pre boomer, was the golden and sliver age material, the things I bought or sought when I was a kid, and I figured the 75 year book would be dealing with a lot of the more recent entires which I have little interest in. Thus this first volume deals with the first half, the golden age, and the next one will be focusing on the silver age and that will pretty well do it for me. I'm pleased with the book as it brings back a lot of memories, as I expect the second one to do as well. There is a good deal of concentration on Batman and Superman in this volume, and I enjoyed that, as those two characters really put DC comics on the map, as far as I was concerned. Looking forward to the next volume.

This has become my showcase book in my vast collection of Comics history. The paper is of high quality the colors are spectacular.The text is colloquial and easy to read and very informative. I have a number of hard cover comic history books and this is the best I have ever owned, i will expect the same quality when I order the silver age DC. I removed the beautiful golden dust jacket so as not to have it frayed or folded or marred. I only put it back on the book when I am displaying it.

I purchased this as a gift so I cannot evaluate the contents of the book, but the recipient was delighted and effusive in thanks. It shipped quickly.

This is a beautiful book. Great illustrations and gorgeous cover. Purchased as a gift for our son and it was the highlight of his day!Also came packaged very well. Entire edition was carefully bubble wrapped. Arrived in pristine condition with no tears or creases to any part of book.

if you have the nerve to say anything about Marvel - seriously, don't be a jerk.DC FOR LIFE and this book is pretty awesome. No word of a lie I'm biased but seriously - buy this book and have your mind bbbbblloown.

tutto ok

Este é um livrão com capa dura, sobre capa dourado metálico, muito bonito. É em inglês, pois é dos Estados Unidos. É ricamente ilustrado, com várias imagens das primeiras histórias em quadrinhos dos personagens da DC que na época era National. Vale muito a pena ter este livro na coleção. Vale lembrar que este livro é o primeiro de uma coleção de três livros. Este conta sobre a era de ouro dos quadrinhos, falando especificamente dos personagens da DC: Batman, Superman, Sociedade da Justiça,etc. Tem muitas curiosidades.

Si eres un fan del cómic, aquí tienes una maravilla a todos los niveles: contenidos, imágenes, edición... Un placer para los sentidos.

I have no idea what book the other reviewer has, but this is an amazing book! The pages are not flimsy whatsoever. This is a nice big solid great Taschen quality volume. Some pages are not shiny, I guess to keep the appearance of an actual comic book, and some pages do have a sheen to them. Overall a great addition for any comic lover. The pictures do jump out, and the color is amazing. Do not hesitate to pick this one up! I also have the super extra large 75 years of DC comics, and this supplements it wonderfully! So there..!

Cadeau très apprécié. Je n'ai pas lu moi-même ce livre puisque 'il ne m'était pas destiné, mais la personne l'a beaucoup aimé,et le trouve très bien fait avec de belles illustrations.