They can’t succeed on merit alone. They also need someone willing to tell readers why they matter

One of the great joys of being a columnist is receiving review copies of works of fiction and non-fiction. There are times that I request certain titles for commissioned book reviews. There are also occasions when publishers send me books arbitrarily to hopefully pique my interest in reviewing them.

Alas, there’s been a noticeable decline in the number of people reading books, newspapers, magazines and the like. The surplus of published books and other printed material far exceeds the demand. There are still a few publications primarily devoted to book reviews, including the Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books, Literary Review, Literary Review of Canada, Bookforum and Claremont Review of Books. The number of publications with dedicated book sections has dwindled, and even the ones that remain have largely reduced the amount of space afforded to reviews.

This has been the equivalent of the kiss of death for niche subject areas. One example is animation and comic strips. It was always difficult to place reviews on these topics, although I and others have had moments of success, and it’s even harder today. Which is why I started writing the occasional column focused on books of animation and comic strips that I either requested or received—but wasn’t able to arrange a proper review.

Let’s begin.

Fantagraphics, long regarded as one of North America’s pre-eminent comics publishers, has released a few exquisite volumes as of late. A strong recommendation would be Mort Walker’s Beetle Bailey: 75 Years of Smiles, written and edited by his son, Brian Walker. It’s an exceptional retrospective of the lazy-college-dropout-turned-lazy-army-private and his misadventures at Camp Swampy. The strip has maintained its gag-a-day format for decades, but there’s been some evolution in Beetle Bailey’s character, from constantly escaping the clutches of Sgt. Snorkel to his relationship with Gen. Halftrack’s secretary, Miss Buxley. Other memorable characters, including Snorkel’s anthropomorphic dog Otto, Privates “Killer” Diller, Zero and Plato, Corporal Yo, Lt. Flap, Lt. Fuzz and Cookie Jowls, add to the hilarity of one of the longest-running strips of all time.

I would also recommend these two excellent volumes.

First up is Marco Rota’s Donald Duck: Tales of Andold Wild Duck, which is part of the Disney Masters series. Rota has worked for the long-running Italian comics magazine Topolino for years, and was editor-in-chief of Disney Italia from 1974 to 1988. One of many popular characters he’s created is Andold, a likely ancestor to Donald who helped protect Scotland from the Vikings in the Middle Ages. An assortment of fun, frolicking stories like “The Nightmare Ship” and “In Love and War” are included in this volume.

Next is Hugo Pratt’s Corto Maltese: Fable of Venice and Other Adventures. This is Fantagraphics’ first release of Pratt’s brilliant series about the adventurous sailor Corto Maltese. The book also contains a new English translation that’s apparently closer to Pratt’s cadence and tone in the original Italian version. Dean Mullaney, who founded the Library of American Comics and published the original 12-volume set and translation (which I reviewed for The Critic Magazine in 2020) for his imprint Eurocomics, is also part of this fascinating project.

The University Press of Mississippi, which focuses on intellectual studies of animation and comic strips, has also released some interesting books.

Joe Sutliff Sanders’s The Comics of Hergé: When the Lines Are Not So Clear is an impressive analysis of the legendary Belgian cartoonist’s life and career. An associate professor in the children’s literature track of the English Department at Kansas State University, his book includes small studies of several Hergé creations of Quick & Flupke and Jo, Zette and Jocko. The book’s main focus is (unsurprisingly) on Tintin, the young reporter with courage, an adventurous spirit and a heart of gold. He’s accompanied by his faithful dog Snowy, his hot-tempered best friend Captain Haddock, the absent-minded Professor Calculus and frequent encounters with the bumbling detectives Thomson and Thompson. “The influence Tintin has had on contemporary understandings of tourism, science, pseudoscience, and international relations” is immense, intriguing and, as the essays contained in Sanders’s book suggest, multifaceted.

Ewa Stańczyk’s Cartoons and Antisemitism: Visual Politics of Interwar Poland is a fascinating examination of an extremely sensitive subject. While antisemitic imagery had existed in Polish caricatures and cartoons since the 19th century, it became more prevalent during the Second World War. Stańczyk, an assistant professor of East European studies at the University of Amsterdam, noted that her book “reconstructs what the late interwar media told their readers about Jews and how this fit in with wider discussions surrounding the minority question.” The seemingly never-ending series of stereotypical images of Jews in Polish publications ultimately created an environment of anger, intolerance and hatred that festered for generations.

There are many brilliantly designed and intellectually stimulating books on animation and comic strips published each year. That’s why I like to occasionally devote some space to this niche subject area. And besides, it’s always fun to focus on comics, comics and more comics for a short spell.

Michael Taube is a political commentator, Troy Media syndicated columnist and former speechwriter for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He holds a master’s degree in comparative politics from the London School of Economics, lending academic rigour to his political insights.