This book offers a series of short, provocative essays about value and reputation in the world of American comic books. Inspired by Pierre Bourdieu's analyses of fields of cultural production, The Greatest Comic Book of All Time explores why works have the reputations that they do and what it might take to re-structure the comics world along different principles.

Autorentext
Bart Beaty is Professor of English at the University of Calgary, Canada. Among other works, he is the author of Twelve-Cent Archie, Comics Versus Art, and Unpopular Culture.
Benjamin Woo is Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University, Canada. His research examines contemporary geek media cultures, with a particular focus on the producers, institutions, and audiences oriented to comics and graphic novels.

Zusammenfassung
Bart Beaty and Benjamin Woo work to historicize why it is that certain works or creators have come to define the notion of a "quality comic book," while other works and creators have been left at the fringes of critical analysis.

Inhalt
1 What If The Greatest Comic Book of All Time Were.- 2 Maus by Art Spiegelman?.- 3 A Short Story by Robert Crumb?.- 4 A Superhero Story by Jack Kirby?.- 5 Written by Alan Moore?.- 6 The Cage by Martin Vaughn-James.- 7 By Rob Liefeld?.- 8 An Archie Comic?.- 9 Not by a White Man?.- 10 Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi?.- 11 Dave Sim's Cerebus?.- 12 Hicksville by Dylan Horrocks?.