The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics [V0007]

1988 large format HCDJ 7th printing of the 1977 original, in excellent condition, 14x10.5-inches, 336-pages. A collection of iconic samples from the most critically acclaimed American comic strips, from Yellow Kid of 1896 to such admired contemporary works as Peanuts, B.C. and Doonesbury. Old favorites Katzenjammer Kids, Mutt and Jeff, Gasoline Alley, Bringing up Father, Mickey Mouse, Little Orphan Annie, Dick Tracy, L'il Abner, Barnaby, Pogo and many more fill this collection of American comic classics.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "As one of the first comprehensive histories of newspaper comic strips, this coffee table book does a very good job of highlighting the important strips, and strips that have fallen into obscurity (there are a number that I had never heard of). The reproductions are excellent, although there are some Sunday strips that are only in black-and-white. The editors' commentary is fairly sparse, leaving room for more artwork, but perhaps leaving out important historical data in the process. There is a nice annotated index at the end of the book which supplements some of this information, but is still a bit short on details. Although this book measures a hefty 10" x 14", some of the early strips are nevertheless shrunken from their original tabloid size, making some of the captions and dialogue balloons hard to read. One of the clearest take-aways from this book is how strips evolved--from meticulously drawn and text heavy when newspaper pages were large to the 1970's much more simplified renderings as comic pages got smaller and smaller. This book presents the strips in their original forms. Thus, there is racism, violence (including domestic violence), and a general lack of diversity. Some of the racism is quite bad, but overall I think most readers will be able to put the stories into the historical context of their times. There is also a sequence in the Wash Tubbs selections that graphically depicts the killing and rendering of a whale, something you would never see today."; "My grandmother had this book on her shelf, and I would read through it when I visited. I now own it - A great cultural repository."; "I first came across this in third grade. It was probably the first book that I ever wanted to steal. Aside from some disjointed storylines of which I really wanted to read more (a younger me would probably say "I don't care if it's a 'collection,' give me the whole darn thing!"), this is an astoundingly fun assortment of large, high-quality scans. I never knew that Mickey Mouse and Popeye could have so much depth to their storylines 'til I opened this tome (the laugh of the Sea Hag!... ANK ANK ANK). And don't even get me started on Little Nemo... I was constantly drawing before I read this, but afterward I know for a fact that I tried to emulate the masterwork of these old cartoonists as best I could. A random line that has stuck with me: "OH all you Hollanders! Watch out for SLIM JIM!!," which is followed by a glorious, chaotic, full page involving a windmill and the aforementioned Slim Jim. Really, need I say more?"; "Wonderful! Sturdy, great collection of classic newspaper comic strips printed in large format so none of the precious details can be missed. Grab it if you see it in the wild. It's a fantastic book not to be missed."