Humor

Did you hear the one about the comedian who was canceled?
 
Comedians are no strangers to controversy or crossing the line. But some things do change. Humorists the world over are no longer simply denounced in grouchy op-eds. Now comedians are being hounded by criminal investigations and civil suits. They are menaced by vigilantes and religious fundamentalists. Some have been forced into exile, imprisoned, or even murdered. In the age of social media and global digital distribution, the audience is everyone, ensuring that criticism can be as vicious as it is unavoidable.
 
Darkly witty, and with a flair for storytelling, Jacques Berlinerblau explores the high stakes of the low blow from popular comedians such as Chris Rock, Dave Chapelle, and Sarah Silverman to humorists from France to Zimbabwe, Egypt, and North Korea. As comedians face growing legal and physical peril, not just humor but laughter itself is becoming suspect.

Did you hear the one about the comedian who was canceled?
 
Comedians are no strangers to controversy or crossing the line. But some things do change. Humorists the world over are no longer simply denounced in grouchy op-eds. Now comedians are being hounded by criminal investigations and civil suits. They are menaced by vigilantes and religious fundamentalists. Some have been forced into exile, imprisoned, or even murdered. In the age of social media and global digital distribution, the audience is everyone, ensuring that criticism can be as vicious as it is unavoidable.
 
Darkly witty, and with a flair for storytelling, Jacques Berlinerblau explores the high stakes of the low blow from popular comedians such as Chris Rock, Dave Chapelle, and Sarah Silverman to humorists from France to Zimbabwe, Egypt, and North Korea. As comedians face growing legal and physical peril, not just humor but laughter itself is becoming suspect.

Did you hear the one about the comedian who was canceled?
 
Comedians are no strangers to controversy or crossing the line. But some things do change. Humorists the world over are no longer simply denounced in grouchy op-eds. Now comedians are being hounded by criminal investigations and civil suits. They are menaced by vigilantes and religious fundamentalists. Some have been forced into exile, imprisoned, or even murdered. In the age of social media and global digital distribution, the audience is everyone, ensuring that criticism can be as vicious as it is unavoidable.
 
Darkly witty, and with a flair for storytelling, Jacques Berlinerblau explores the high stakes of the low blow from popular comedians such as Chris Rock, Dave Chapelle, and Sarah Silverman to humorists from France to Zimbabwe, Egypt, and North Korea. As comedians face growing legal and physical peril, not just humor but laughter itself is becoming suspect.

Funnybooks is the story of the most popular American comic books of the 1940s and 1950s, those published under the Dell label. For a time, "Dell Comics Are Good Comics" was more than a slogan—it was a simple statement of fact. Many of the stories written and drawn by people like Carl Barks (Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge), John Stanley (Little Lulu), and Walt Kelly (Pogo) repay reading and rereading by educated adults even today, decades after they were published as disposable entertainment for children. Such triumphs were improbable, to say the least, because midcentury comics were so widely dismissed as trash by angry parents, indignant librarians, and even many of the people who published them. It was all but miraculous that a few great cartoonists were able to look past that nearly universal scorn and grasp the artistic potential of their medium. With clarity and enthusiasm, Barrier explains what made the best stories in the Dell comic books so special. He deftly turns a complex and detailed history into an expressive narrative sure to appeal to an audience beyond scholars and historians.