Comic Book Confidential

Ron Mann's 1988 documentary follows the history of the American comic book from the forties to the eighties. The account is chronological: the early superhero period, the censorship campaign of the fifties, the underground publications of the sixties and the rise of the graphic novel in the eighties. Its most valuable quality is that most of the people speaking are no longer alive. Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, Stan Lee, Robert Crumb and Harvey Pekar describe their own working methods. Those recordings could not be obtained any other way today. The fifties campaign claiming comics caused crime and the censorship imposed by the Comics Code are covered in detail. Mann animates the pages on screen and the artists read their own texts aloud, which forms the documentary's visual language. Who it's for: those interested in comics history and in debates about censorship in popular culture. Who it's not for: viewers wanting a current picture; the documentary stops at the end of the eighties.