To live and die in L.A. ... Hollywood's Quality Studios is home to the top-rated television superhero The Protector, the comedy team of Michaels and Leonard, and our own Harry Kraft - who's back in the States and prowling the back lot as a night watchman. It's Los Angeles, 1951 - a Technicolor nightmare - and Harry (God bless him) sees things in black and white. Harry knocks heads with an ambitious Senator who's ruining careers trying to smoke out Communist sympathizers; the Mob, who wants a piece of the studio's action; and a sexy ingenue from South of the Border, who'll let a baby die to hide her past - and that's just in the first reel. Harry - with a gun in one hand and a garter belt in the other - tries to set things right, but only the kindness of a stripper and a young boy's burgeoning sexuality can save the day. With (most of)) the bad guys on the cutting room floor, Harry hits the road, cruising down Route 66 on his way out of town and landing at a roadside diner, where a femme fatale offers him a piece of her pie - if he'll kill her husband.

First with his magisterial fantasy Bone to his mind-bending, time-warping sci-fi noir RASL, Paleolithic-set fantasy Tüki: Save the Humans, arthouse-styled superheroic miniseries Shazam!, and his latest children's book Smiley's Dream Book, Jeff Smith (b. 1960) has made an indelible mark on the comics industry. As a child, Smith was drawn to Charles Schulz's Peanuts, Carl Barks's Donald Duck, and Walt Kelly's Pogo, and he began the daily practice of drawing his own stories. After writing his regular strip Thorn for The Ohio State University's student paper, Smith worked in animation before creating, writing, and illustrating his runaway success, Bone. A comedic fantasy epic, Bone focuses on the Bone cousins, white, bald cartoon characters run out of their hometown, lost in a distant, mysterious valley. The self-published series ran from 1991 to 2004 and won numerous awards, including ten Eisner Awards. This career-spanning collection of interviews, ranging from 1999 to 2017, enables readers to follow along with Smith's development as an independent creator, writer, and illustrator.

Women and the Comics is the first attempt to document the careers of the hundreds of women who have created and worked in the field of comic strips, comic book and cartooning. The women whose work is showcased in this book have been long overlooked or ignored by most other histories of comics. In this volume you'll encounter the art of Rose O'Neill, whose Kewpies popularity spans over 70 years; Nell Brinkley, whose "Brinkley Girl" was just as famous in her day as Gibson's; Grace Drayton, whose lovely drawings gave the Campbell Kids life; the "flapper" artists of the 1920s; Dale Messick, creator of Brenda Starr; Martha Orr, who originated Mary Worth; the once anonymous female comic book artists of the 1940s; newspaper strip creators Marty Links (Bobby Sox), Cathy Guisewite (Cathy) and Lynn Johnston (For Better or For Worse); and the many women who write and draw today's most popular comic books. A special chapter surveying female cartoonists in Europe, Japan, and Australia is also included. Women and the Comics is a landmark book, the result of four years of research by Catherine Yronwode and Trina Robbins. It is a reference source designed to serve future generations interested in discovering the contributions women have made to America's most popular art form.