The Silver Age of DC Comics

Okay, no, I haven't started reading any new novels yet -- but I have a good excuse, because this is a present I got just recently, and presents come first!

Luckily, this book is much more than a gallery of comic book covers, as I can find entire websites dedicated to those. It is foremost a collection of stories about the making of these comic books. Not all of these stories are necessarily true; the infamous dare during a golf game that led to the creation of the Fantastic Four and Marvel Comics' ascendancy is a folktale that not everyone agrees actually happened. Still, it's nice that Levitz does not ignore Marvel's ascendancy during this time and even explains how DC fell behind creatively during these years.

I'm always fascinated by the people behind the stories, and one of the treats of this book is all the photographs it includes of creators I've long since missed my chance to meet at conventions ("Oh, that's what Julius Schwartz looked like!"). And there are extra treats like cell animation from an Aquaman cartoon, pages of interior comic book art, and pictures of Batman toys from the time period (one tragically missing picture that still has its caption in the book would have been a sample cell from a Blackhawk cartoon that was never made).