Johnny Hart’s growingold with B.C.
The GNA’s resident critic, Barry Harter, delivers his opinion of Johnny Hart’s growingold with B.C., a collection of comics - mixed with history and trivia related to the landmark strip - complied by the late Hart and his family.
Read on for the full review.
Johnny Hart’s growingold with B.C. is a skewed history lesson of the Jocular Period.
This journey down the yellow brick road begins, rather than ends, by tearing back the fabric to see the man behind the curtain. The biographical preface is peppered with remembrances by friends and family who have been featured and spoofed in ink for 50 years. Examples of their character(istics) follow in strips from the syndicated staple.
The evolution contained begins at the beginning — 1958 A.D. — striking a fossilized funny bone as a classic of Cro-Magnon man coming to an understanding with himself and the world around him.
Each decade is proceeded with accolades from Hart’s peers. The strips that follow are a handpicked cross section of cave drawings on pulp, the themes forming a theology in the sophomoric and sublime in the three- to four-panel structure.
At times, Hart places tongue in cheek, testing the waters of social satire only to defer, at other times, to a higher deity during times when public favor follows a more secular trend. Or, maybe his whim is whet by word play or slapstick.
The sum of the total is cumulative in comedy as timeless as the prehistoric parables he’s chose to chronicle.
Checker Book Publishing Group has crafted a collection of America’s favorite friends who have entered the home and workplace for over 50 years on a daily basis. And, these are the best kind of friends — neither demanding, staying too long or eating the last slice of pizza.
Send this one across the ocean and it won’t come back.
Five out of five rocks for this “Hart” felt compendium.
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(Complimentary review copy provided by the publisher.)