American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1990s
Review by KC Carlson
I’m a huge fan of this series. Published by TwoMorrows, the American Comic Book Chronicles is an extremely detailed year-by-year — and then a further month-by month — examination of pretty much everything of note that happened during that time, both inside the comic books and at the offices of the major publishers, as well as with many of their top freelance artists and writers.
American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1990s, written by Jason Sacks and Keith Dallas, has ten chapters, one for each year of the decade. Each chapter is 25 to 35 pages long, including a detailed (and illustrated) timeline of the entire year. So, if you read it the right way, the timeline acts as the teaser for the years’ events, and the super-detailed chapters provide all the essential information.
Here are just some of the dubious happenings of the 1990s that you can read more about in this new volume: Todd McFarlane’s Spider-Man #1 sells over 2 million copies! Ever wonder how many thousands are still sitting the comic book stores back rooms (or worse, in landfills after the stores closed from over-ordering when the customers/speculators didn’t participate as expected) . . . Speaking of Spider-Man, 1995 was the year that Aunt May finally passed away — but not before revealing that she had known for years that her nephew Peter was Spider-Man all along . . . Remember DC One Million? Yeah, me either. It happened in 1998 . . . Quick! What was the first Image comic book and when did it first appear? Rob Liefield’s Youngblood #1 appeared in April 1992. (Issue #10 was the last issue, and it appeared in Dec 1994. You do the math.) . . . On my 38th birthday in 1994, the first issue of Zero Hour: Crisis in Time appeared. It was produced by Dan Jurgens and Jerry Ordway (and I was the editor). It was promoted as the most important comic book event since 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths. (Didn’t quite work out that way. July 12 has never been the same.) . . . Later on in September of 1994, John Morrow publishes The Jack Kirby Collector #1 and forms Twomorrows Publishing. That worked out pretty good, didn’t it?!
Oh, yeah, almost forgot… In 1992/93, Superman died! Wonder how that turned out…?!