Rozpaky nad monumentem o dějinách československého komiksu
Embarrassment over the monumental work on the history of the Czechoslovak comics

Summary/Abstract: Prokůpek, Tomáš, Pavel Kořínek, Martin Foret, and Michal Jareš. Dějiny československého komiksu 20. století, Vols. 1–3. Prague: Filip Tomáš – Akropolis, 2014, 996 + 87 pp.,ISBN 978-80-7470-061-3. The reviewer sees the three-tome publication titled "History of the Czechoslovak comics of the 20th century" as a work which is impressive at first sight and based on extraordinarily voluminous and meticulous heuristics bringing amazing results in the form of a mass of reliable and often hitherto unknown information, and with an excellent graphic design. However, the superb positivistic performance of the authors implies, in the reviewer’s opinion, a problem with the reader’s ability to absorb the deluge of data often presented as tiresome lists of authors, names and characteristics of the pictorials without a framework that would keep them together. As a result, the general impression is fragmentary rather than compact and concise. In addition, the authors perceive comics as a specific literary-graphic genre and almost ignore interactions between this pop culture phenomenon and the society. The reviewer concludes that the authors have created a basic inventory of Czechand Slovak comics, but have not progressed toward a structured historical analysis.

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