Donal Phelps is our great poet of the poetics of comics. He has made me see comic strips I've loved and come to take for granted with virgin eyes and taught me to love strips I once misguidedly passed over - all in eloquent, besotted, lyric style that could talk me anything.' - Art Spiegelman'

This book looks at some classic American comic strips, a creation unique to cultural life and, in addition to entertainment, has commented on the way we see and view ourselves. From its "high culture" influence on Pop Art to its "low culture" appeal to children of all ages, the comic strip has had a lasting hold on the imaginations of generations.

This illustrated book collects Donald Phelps' essays on early 20th century newspaper strips -- the Golden Age of comic strips, when readers avidly followed the daily & weekly adventures of Flash Gordon, Little Nemo, & Krazy Kat, a time when the critic Gilbert Seldes could write, Of all the lively arts the Comic Strip is the most despised &, with the exception of the movies, it is the most popular.Ó These are celebratory literary examinations, with examples, of some of the greatest strips to have ever appeared in newspapers: James Swinnerton's Little Jimmy, E.C. Segar's Thimble Theatre, Chester Gould's Dick Tracy, Frank King's Gasoline Alley, Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie, Harry J. Tuthill's The Bungle Family, & others.

Donald Phelps's essays on early 20th-century newspaper strips, the golden age of comic strips (Flash Gordon, Little Nemo, Krazy Kat, Popeye ...).