I am a comic book geek. I love comics more than any other form of art/entertainment. I'm especially partial to the superhero comics. That's why I'm overjoyed when I see respect given to the medium from a third party.
Enter last night's awesome documentary on The History Channel. This piece traced the history of superhero comics, from Siegel and Shuster to Will Eisner to Julius Schwartz to Stan Lee and beyond. It covered almost everything, and featured appearances by a ton of industry heavyweights such as Lee, Eisner, Paul Levitz, Joe Quesada, Kevin Smith, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller (what's with the shaved head, Frank!), Michael Chabon, and I think a few other folks.
It went into great detail about the Golden Age, Frederic Wertham and Seduction of the Innocent leading to the Comics Code Authority, the creative boom of the 80's (Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns), the speculator boom of the 90's, and the current troubles facing the industry today, with some suggestions about how to turn things around. It was very comprehensive, and very respectful to the medium.
As an extra, kudos to the editing dept. for the way cool animated panels and other neat little touches added along the way!
I'm not sure if the History Channel is going to be re-showing this thing anytime soon or not, but I highly recommend it for all you comic book geeks (and if you're not a comic geek, then take a look, and you might learn something).
I switched channels to catch part of this while RAW was on. It *is* a very good history of comics, with a pretty good clutch of creators to talk to. I just got my gal reading Watchmen and Sandman, and I think she would have appreciated seeing this.
It's *much* better than the documentary offered on the Unbreakable DVD.
"To be the man, you gotta beat demands." -- The Lovely Mrs. Tracker
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Only twenty screens? Only twenty. One is the Varsity Twin next to UH. *ahem* HUZZAH!!!! PLEASE go watch this movie and prove anime can draw. While you're at it, Spirited Away is bizzack too. Shoo. Shoo. Go now.