The Golden Age of DC Comics by Paul Levitz

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Having just finished one coffee table style art book, I was ready to dive into another. The previous book, Dungeons & Dragons: Art & Arcana, was divided into nine chapters and had a solid narrative outlining the history and evolution of the game's artwork. This book, though it has a lot of amazing artwork, had no real narrative to speak of and I found the text rather disappointing. First, there is an extremely brief interview with Joe Kubert that felt very superficial. Next, we get an all too brief history of the early days of what would become DC Comics. This is the first 50 pages of the book. The next 350 pages is all artwork, but without any kind of narrative to help pull you through, the tiny text of the captions leave you wallowing adrift. I realize that this is probably typical of most coffee table books which are supposed to be glanced at not read, but I wanted more. Not a lot more, but something to pull you through beyond just flipping pages. Lastly, there are occasional references comparing a featured illustration to a future (post-Golden age) illustration. It would be great if I didn't have to run to the computer to see what they're talking about. They should have had those comparisons side by side. In all, while I loved the artwork, the presentation left me wanting.



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