Penguin Classics to publish special collection of Marvel Comics
The anthologies of Black Panther, Captain America, and The Amazing Spider-Man will arrive next year
In a collaboration between Penguin Classics and Marvel Comics, the publisher will release the special edition Penguin Classics Marvel Collection, marking the first time that comics have been published through Penguin Classics.
Each of the curated comic book anthologies presents the “original stories and seminal tales of key Marvel characters” with forewords and scholarly introductions written by science fiction and comic experts. The collection includes work from Marvel creators such as Stan Lee, comic book artist Jack Kirby, illustrator Billy Graham, writer Joe Simon, Don McGregor, and more.
As the series editor, Ben Saunders also wrote the scholarly introductions for Captain America and The Amazing Spider-Man. Saunders is known as the founder of the world’s first undergraduate minor in Comics Studies. He has also served as curator for several museum exhibitions of comic book art.
“The comics produced at Marvel in the ‘60s can be compared to the most enduring popular music of that same tumultuous decade. Working at tremendous speed in what was widely regarded as a low-status commercial medium, the creators at Marvel initiated and participated in an aesthetic revolution,” Saunders says.