Full disclosure here folks. I 'intermet' Brian Cronin years ago and dined with him last Saturday. He's a wonderful guy, so I'm thrilled to say that I absolutely loved his recently published book. For years, Brian has been debunking and bunking(?) various myths and legends of the comic book world for years at his fantastic blog Comics Should Be Good (more disclosure - I also contribute there). With Was Superman A Spy... And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed, Cronin has been able to move his work from the web to bookstore shelves. It is a wonderfully designed paperback. Cronin hasn't just rehash his various blog pieces here, but smoothly linked them together, organizing by company and character. He's provided additional background, making it much more readable for people new to the comic book world. Inside these pages, Cronin investigates everything from Batman's initial color scheme to the reason you've never seen Black Lightning in a JLA cartoon. I consider myself to be pretty up on most comic book stuff - but I must admit that I never knew that the Fantastic Four almost work masks. This is a must have for any comic book fan - a wonderfully entertaining read. Thursday, May 07, 2009
Buy This Book: Was Superman a Spy?
Full disclosure here folks. I 'intermet' Brian Cronin years ago and dined with him last Saturday. He's a wonderful guy, so I'm thrilled to say that I absolutely loved his recently published book. For years, Brian has been debunking and bunking(?) various myths and legends of the comic book world for years at his fantastic blog Comics Should Be Good (more disclosure - I also contribute there). With Was Superman A Spy... And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed, Cronin has been able to move his work from the web to bookstore shelves. It is a wonderfully designed paperback. Cronin hasn't just rehash his various blog pieces here, but smoothly linked them together, organizing by company and character. He's provided additional background, making it much more readable for people new to the comic book world. Inside these pages, Cronin investigates everything from Batman's initial color scheme to the reason you've never seen Black Lightning in a JLA cartoon. I consider myself to be pretty up on most comic book stuff - but I must admit that I never knew that the Fantastic Four almost work masks. This is a must have for any comic book fan - a wonderfully entertaining read. 
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3 comments:
Just picked it up at Border's yesterday and plan on reading it on a flight tomorrow morning. Will check back and let you know what I thought.
Leafed through it, and noticed that he's repeating the old, untrue story that Ditko quit Spider-Man because of a disagreement over the Goblin's identity. I have to admit, that makes me dubious about him as a writer, because it's evident just from reading ASM # 37 and 38 that Ditko intended the Goblin to be Osborn. Ditko finally wrote an essay confirming that, recently.
Neil Anderson
I've always enjoyed Brian's column and am about 10 pages from finishing the book, which is excellent. In my experience of reading Brian's column, he's always willing to correct errors that he has made or digging deeper when called upon... and many things will always remain legend, no matter how far we probe.
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