Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes

[The Toyroom]

Much of what I learned about Golden Age/early Silver Age Superman and Batman came from these two tomes. I was constantly checking them out of the library until I managed to find copies of my own:







I picked up the new Batman Encyclopedia a couple of years ago and it doesn't even compare to the original. It has more illustrations, including a lot of color pin-up pieces. But the majority of the black and whites are just scans from the comics and aren't converted to line-art like in the original Fleisher encyclopedias. In addition, the new version seems to want to cover all of the confusing history the Dark Knight has gone through over the years, including multiple versions. What I liked about the Fleisher books was they tried to write it as though it was one character who had gone through changes and not different versions of the character over the ages.

My only disappointment in the Fliesher books was their info stopped around 1964 or so...

There was a Wonder Woman volume too but I've never had the chance to read/pick -up one of those:

[SUP-Ronin]

Sadly I've never seen any of those, but I'll keep an eye out.

[ScottA]

I believe I have the Batman book buried away somewhere.

[torgospizza]

Toyroom, it's not DC-oriented, but you might like 100 Years of Comic Strips. It's a huge hardback volume and you can usually pic it up extremely cheap. I think I got it new for like $10 or less at Barnes and Noble. It's kind of a smorgasbord with 479 pages starting with Hogan's Alley (The Yellow Kid) and ends with Calvin and Hobbes. Practically every page is devoted to a different--and often full-page--strip. Every now and then they'll spend a few pages devoted to a strip, like Roy Crane's Captain Easy, but for the most part there's a sampling of every strip you've heard of and tons you probably haven't. It was a surprise to see the character Hugo Hercules doing Superman-like feats in a comic from 1902, f.ex. There isn't much text, either--the editors have chosen to let the strips speak for themselves.

[johnnystorm]

I have the original DC books , they are quite good. There was a Golden Age volume to follow i believe, Flash or GL that never came out. I would have thought a Shazam volume would have done ok too.
At first I thought this thread was going to be about the terrible Jeff Rovin books...the Superheroes & Monster volumes. Totally bad, both of them, no order whatsoever, and mostly about characters Rovin liked or was involved with. many entries for Atlas/Seaboard characters.

[samurainoir]

Didn't dc reprint these a couple of years ago?

I read these in the library as well when I was a kid. The wonder woman stuff in particular seemed so bizarre... dr Psycho, egg Fu, etc. Odd little factoids that stick in your mind, like the second two face. He really tried to make some sense of those continuity inconsistencies too. Fandom at it's earliest given that most of us back then would not have access to all those old comics.

Original Encyclopedia Comic Book Heroes 1-3 VF/NM batman wonder woman superman 2 | eBay

[samurainoir]

eBay - New & used electronics, cars, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods & more at low prices

WONDER WOMAN ENCYCLOPEDIA 250 pages, 1976, AWESOME!!!! | eBay

[The Toyroom]

Yes, those are the DC reprints from a few years back. They launched those right before they did the all-new versions. Looking at them size wise (I've never seen one personally) I'm wondering how small the text ended up being or if they cut anything out because the originals were pretty large and extensive. The new ones look like they are "Showcase Presents" size.

[Earth 2 Chris]

I coveted those for years and years. I managed to get Superman and Batman about 10 years ago from a friend who was selling a lot of his collection.

I also have Jeff Rovin's "Encyclopedia of Super-Heroes". I got that from Walden Books in 1988 for my birthday that year. Man, what an exhaustive book!! Although Rovin give a bit too much coverage to the 70s Atlas line, which he edited!

I never did find his Super Villain follow-up.

Chris

[The Toyroom]

At first I thought this thread was going to be about the terrible Jeff Rovin books...the Superheroes & Monster volumes. Totally bad, both of them, no order whatsoever, and mostly about characters Rovin liked or was involved with. many entries for Atlas/Seaboard characters.

I checked those out of the library once or twice...Yes they were horrible. How Rovin picked some of those choices while others were excluded was beyond me...

[The Toyroom]

At one point, I was so obssessed with the Batman encyclopedia and "The Untold Legend of Batman" mini-series I tried to write my own synopsis version in a spiral notebook I had, trying to incorporate all the different versions I was reading in to one (yeah..."Geek!" ). Each section had it's own chapter heading and a little illustration. I still recall the section on Bruce Wayne's 1st venture as a costumed hero under the tutelage of Detective Harvey Harris was entitled "Brilliant as a Robin Redbreast"

[Earth 2 Chris]

At first I thought this thread was going to be about the terrible Jeff Rovin books...the Superheroes & Monster volumes. Totally bad, both of them, no order whatsoever, and mostly about characters Rovin liked or was involved with. many entries for Atlas/Seaboard characters.

I missed your comment about Rovin's book when I posted here initially. In hindsight they are very lop-sided, but as a teenager in 1988 I was fascinated about all the characters I'd never heard of before. Of course there's a lot of misinformation in the book that I didn't know about then. I still flip through it from time to time though.

Chris

[Mego Magyar]

I got the Superman Encyclopedia around 1980, never saw the others but always wanted them. A few years ago I was able to track down the other 2 so now I have all 3 - originals not the reprints.