New book about the history of Marvel Comics

"Sean Howe's history of Marvel makes a compulsively readable, riotous and heartbreaking version of my favorite story, that of how a bunch of weirdos changed the world.”

 - Jonathan Lethem

"As a teenager, I never owned a single comic book. Marvel Comics makes me wish I suddenly had 3000 of them in my parents' basement. Exhaustively researched and artfully assembled, this book is a historical exploration, a labor of love, and a living illustration of how the weirdest corners of the counterculture can sometimes become the culture-at-large."

- Chuck Klosterman

"A warts-and-all, nail-biting mini-epic about the low-paid, unsung 'funnybook men' who were unwittingly creating twenty-first century pop culture. If you thought the fisticuffs were bare and bloody on the four-color page, wait 'til you hear about what went down in the Marvel bullpen."

- Patton Oswalt

"Imagine one of those comic book panels of a woman - bug-eyed, mouth agape, pulling at her own hair. Now imagine she's gotten herself in this state because she's amazed by a book about comics. Page after page, Sean Howe's Marvel Comics manages to be enchantingly told, emotionally suspenseful and totally revelatory. If I knew more about superpowers, I'd be able to explain how he did it."

- Sloane Crosley

"Sean Howe is to Marvel Comics what Procopius was to the Byzantine Empire: a court gossip of breathtaking thoroughness and exactitude, and a sly and nuanced writer. It is imperative that this work not fall into the hands of alien species, or we're done for."

 - Luc Sante

In stores October 2012
pre-order here