By Charles Biro, Michael T. Gilbert
Published by Fantagraphics
A while back I reviewed a biography of Socialist publisher Lev Gleason here. I think if you read that book first you’ll have a better understanding of this one—Tops-The Complete Collection of Charles Biro’s Visionary 1949 Comic Book Series.
Editor/writer Charles Biro was Stan Lee to Gleason’s Martin Goodman. Best remembered today for creating the Golden Age Daredevil and the controversial crime comics genre with Crime Does Not Pay, in 1949 Biro and Gleason made an ambitious attempt at evolving the comic book genre into something more adult withTops.
Its quick failure doomed Tops to be all but forgotten by even the most hardcore comics historians until now.
Michael T. Gilbert here presents a complete reprinting of both issues of the ill-fated Life and Look-sized tabloid comic magazine along with delving deep into its backstory with the help of estimable comics historians Ken Quattro, Roger Hill, and George Hagenauer. In fact, it’s all the history that really makes this book special. A complete reprint of an early fanzine article on Tops by Bill Spicer is a particular highlight.
The reprinted contents of the original mags are themselves less than stellar and it’s easy to see why grown-ups didn’t exactly gravitate to Tops back in the proverbial day. In spite of some lovely but generally placid art by the likes of Reed Crandall and Bob Lubbers, the stories, supposedly more adult than those in typical comic books, are generally quite dull and many suffer from Biro’s trademark wordiness! Most of them, especially in the first issue, could have fit easily into Gleason’s crime or romance comics. In fact, one had originated in Daredevil and was completely redrawn for inclusion in Tops. Both versions are shown here for comparison.
Issue two of Tops is slightly more interesting and unusual with features like “Melvin (sic) Douglas Tells How You Would Live Under a World Government.” In spite of the embarrassing misspelling of his name in the title, this is Hollywood star Melvyn Douglas “narrating” this decidedly left-wing propaganda screed. There’s a long and fascinating piece on “fanatical reformer” Anthony Comstock, perhaps a dig at those already attacking comic books?
Tops attempted to be classy by using the full names of its contributors in some cases, such as “Leverett S. Gleason,” but then carelessly misspelled the names of multiple contributors throughout! Everyone gets their due in this book’s back matter, however, which consists of extensive biographical material on most of the folks who were involved in Tops and also with this book. This section works wonders in placing everything and everyone in proper historical context.
Unfortunately, it still can’t do anything for the original content. It was a well-intentioned experiment, a noble failure. Thanks to Michael T, Gilbert and friends, Gleason, Biro, and Tops are no longer relegated to being a trivia question and can now assume their proper place in comics history. That’s what gets this book a thumbs up from me.
Booksteve recommends.
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