Customer Reviews
Comprehensive and inspiring - By: G. C. Ewing, 13 Dec 2006 
I have a few books on comicsin general, & 'Great British Comics' beats all of them hands down. It is wonderfully written - not scholarly, not dumb, but perfectly readable, intelligent & also very positive about its subject matter, showing no snobbery or bias towards any one particular area. And talking of that, the diversity of genres & styles is quite astounding - British comics are incredibly richin history & it is fascinating to see the quality of early strips & their development through the years. But they also have a rich future from the look of things, & Paul Gravett is enthusiastically upbeat about a medium that many thought lost along with their distant childhood... "Oh yeah, I remember comics! Do they still make them?". There is a current scene & it's alive & kicking, & there are plenty of examples here. Graphically the book is excellent - there's plenty to look at, & it's not just a gallery of impressive covers as is quite often the case with books of this nature, but actual strip pages - the storytelling itself, which is what comics are. Overall the book is an inspiration.
You'll never look at the High Street the same way again! - By: CS, 05 Dec 2006 Read this book to see how one man can influence the way you shop. This is an inspirational read, & because it is not an "official" biography it describes the rough & the smoothin equal detail. An amazing insight into the way that both the High Street & the City work.
Gentlemen, we have a winner... - By: Alan Woollcombe, 21 Nov 2006 Most general books about comics tend to specialize or be skewed towards a certain genre, audience or era - think 'superheroes', 'alternative', '1960s'. It's a rare beast that eschews such temptations & goes all out for the historical sweep, without seeming superficial or conversely dragged down by the weight of facts & figures. Fortunately, comics historian Paul Gravett wears his extensive learning lightly & weaves an extremely readable overview of a dense field, aided by inviting layouts from the talented Peter Stanbury.
So who should buy this book? Just about anyone with an interestin British comics will get something out of it: the melange of visuals from a century & a half of comic strips will drawin the casual browser, while its authoritative blend of comics culture & history will appeal to the comics' cognoscenti.
Put simply, this is the best primer on British comics I've ever read. Put it on your shopping list now.
An essential book about comics - By: Lewis Stringer, 01 Nov 2006 It's been quite a while since a book as thorough as this has been written on home grown comics, but Great British Comics has been worth the wait. Paul Gravett & Peter Stanbury should be proud of their work here, for it's about the most definitive book on UK comics that's been published.
Some previous books on the genre have only shown the covers to the comics, but this book also showcases the strips themselves, with numerous crisp reprodictions, some even taken from the original artwork, warts & all. Pleasingly, newspaper strips are also included, as are independent comics, two areas which are sometimes overlooked when people write about British comics.
Most importantly, Great British Comics shatters the often-heard myth that "the British comics industry is dead", as it includes examples of strips that bring us right up to date. What this proves is that although some people only consider "traditional comics" to have any merit, British comics have always evolved with the times so each generation has its own idea on what these "traditions" are, from Victorian tabloid comic/ story papers to today's slick comic / magazine hybrids.
The book also contains a timeline designed by Stanbury which shows the lifespan of various titles over the past 100 years. Plus there are several photographs which help give a cultural reference to certain eras, such as the full page photo of kids queueing for rationed comics outside a newsagentin 1943!
An essential book for anyone with an interestin comics.
Business Icon's Candid Biography - By: Rolf Dobelli, 21 Dec 2005 Authors Stewart Lansley & Andy Forrester do a good job of crafting the story of Philip Green, who bullied, connived, intimidated, schemed, blustered & outworked his way to the top of the heapin British retailing. The son of "business-obsessed" parents, Green learned the value of driving a hard bargain earlyin life. He specializedin buying goods at distressed prices so that later he could appear gracious when he sold them for a low price & put a tidy profitin his pocket. As the authors deftly portray, Green was a master of retail haggling. In fact, one disappointment is that the book doesn't deviate from its "business-icon biography" mode to delve more deeply into the attitudes & techniques that made Green a killer dealmaker. Guile, intimidation & ruthlessness no doubt played major roles. The authors do a thorough, creditable job of telling the inside story of how Green clawed his way to his current rank as Britain's fifth richest person. At times, however, they focus too much on internal political intricacies that may not interest most readers. That said, we recommend this interesting portrait of a retail tycoon whose whims still affect the daily lives of tens of thousands of Brits.
