This comprehensive history of the world's best comics art includes masterpieces by cartoonists from Richard Felton Outcault in 1896 to Chris Ware today. These comics--populated by meta-humans, hybrids, and superheroes--present imagined fantastical worlds that have attracted generations of devoted fans.

A critical reference, this book is also a celebration of the characters who have accompanied readers from their first forays into reading through adolescence, and on into adulthood--from Tarzan to Tintin, Little Nemo to Betty Boop, the Fantastic Four to Batman, the Silver Surfer to Sin City, or the underground comics of Robert Crumb. A motley crew of characters--spandex-wrapped heroes with impossible muscles, hard-boiled detectives in soft hats, emancipated vamps, space-opera acrobats in chain-mail underpants, zombies, and scrawny underground freaks--span all genres of this international art form. Featuring important American and European artists, this broad retrospective decodes the symbolism and artistry of a richly creative form of reading pleasure.