Synopses & Reviews
The lore of the early days of hip hop has become the stuff of myth, so what better way to document this fascinating, epic true story than in another great American mythological medium -- the comic book? From exciting young talent and self-proclaimed hip hop nerd Ed Piskor, acclaimed for his hacker graphic novel , comes this explosively entertaining, encyclopedic history of the formative years of the music genre that changed global culture. Originally serialized on the hugely popular website Boing Boing, is now collected in a single volume cleverly presented and packaged in a style mimicking the Marvel comics of the same era. Piskor's exuberant yet controlled cartooning takes you from the parks and rec rooms of the South Bronx to the night clubs, recording studios, and radio stations where the scene started to boom, capturing the flavor of late-1970s New York City in panels bursting with obsessively authentic detail.
With a painstaking, vigorous and engaging Ken Burns meets- Stan Lee approach, the battles and rivalries, the technical innovations, the triumphs and failures are all thoroughly researched and lovingly depicted. plus the charismatic players behind the scenes like Russell Simmons, Sylvia Robinson and then-punker Rick Rubin. Piskor also traces graffiti master Fab 5 Freddy's rise in the art world, and Debbie Harry, Keith Haring, The Clash, and other luminaries make cameos as the music and culture begin to penetrate downtown Manhattan and the mainstream at large. Like the acclaimed hip hop documentaries and , is an exciting and essential cultural chronicle and a must for hip hop fans, pop-culture addicts, and anyone who wants to know how it went down back in the day.
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"A superhero-riffing, world-building, toe-tapping, beat-hitting story of a whole lot of people, some brilliant, some lucky, some crazy, and some all of the above." Z. GeekDad
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"Even if you are not a fan of hip hop or rap , one cannot deny its pervasive influence on the world at large. If nothing else, this first volume, covering the years 1975 through 1981, demonstrates the nonstop merging of style and culture that is part and particle of the American experience." Alex di Campi 12th Dimension
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"Imagining the early days of the hip-hop movement with writing and art that intentionally evoke the bombast and energy of an early '80s Marvel comic, Piskor has introduced scores of music fans to comics by serializing the series for free on , but these stories look even better in Fantagraphics' printed collections." Los Angeles Times
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"In Piskor's comics, the ... lyrics breakdance off the page... the print version is beautiful, with faux-yellowed pages, a muted color palette and an oversized 'treasury' format recalling its subject's era. Piskor's art falls somewhere between R. Crumb's blues portraits and Joe Sacco's journalism comics." Chicago Tribune
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"Captures the personalities, imagery and milestones with a hilarity and efficiency that no other medium could." Seattle Times
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"Piskor has an aficionado's eye for details and connections." The New York Times Book Review
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"They say the story of Jesus is the greatest ever told, but JC didn't steal a DJ mixer during the New York Blackout of '77 or bomb a subway car with Fab 5 Freddy. With his , comics artist Ed Piskor delves into the history of hip-hop and gets straight-up biblical, penning a 'who-begat-whom' with a b-boy twist." MTV.com
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"This is the comic I've been waiting 40 years to read." Harry Allen
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"It's a story and Piskor tells it immaculately well." (Public Enemy Media Assassin)
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"Piskor is obviously a huge rap fan ... He presents the facts in a nostalgic, faded-ink and rubbery realism of '70s Marvel Comics style, turning rap's early innovators into larger-than-life heroes of history." Bill Adler (co-author, Def Jam: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label)
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"The amount of research and history Piskor packs into this book is ." Biz Markie
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"These stories are carefully researched and detailed along with comic book style art..." The Huffington Post
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"An avid lover of hip-hop music and superhero comic books from a young age, Ed Piskor has combined his two passions to create a reading experience ... imagines real-world events through the filter of 1980s Marvel Comics, bringing hip-hop visionaries to the page in a style that exaggerates their energy and style to capture the intensity of the music without having the beats." The Source
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"." The A.V. Club
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"Being in an Ed Piskor comic is ." NPR
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"A young Pittsburgh bard travels back to the New York birth of rap with DJ Kool Herc and rattles off encyclopedic knowledge through , interwoven narratives of the '70s and early '80s. The feat is backed by era-appropriate art on pages yellowed with nostalgia. Dope, yo." Fab Five Freddy
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"" The Washington Post
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"Piskor's strip is funny and warm, tossing in a few keen nods to two cultures that have shaped him." De La Soul
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"These comics [are] almost too good to be true... If you're a lover of hip hop and / or graphic novels, these are a must!" Phoenix New Times
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"In Ed Piskor's , readers get to experience the origins of rap music in a way like never before; they get to live it. They get to walk the streets of New York City, where in rented performance rooms with cobbled-together gear pioneers like DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash birthed a new art form." Burlesque Design
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"This is ." Biz Markie
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"One of the defining histories of hip hop... Ed created a portal into the beginning of hip hop, and just saying that a picture is worth a thousand words is a poor way of explaining why its impact is greater than that of a detailed book." Lary Wallace Vice
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", fun and funny." Daniel Genis The Daily Beast
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"This is ." Billboard
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"" Fab Five Freddy
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"...[W]hen I discovered Ed Piskor's ... I was in heaven. These bite-sized biographies of hip hop's biggest names and slice-of-life reflections on its defining moments are routinely featured at , but to really experience these beautifully stylized vignettes in all their throwback glory you really need to check out the collected editions." Darcy MacDonald CultMTL
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"... [is] ...an exhaustive, lovingly-rendered portrayal of the movement's explosive early moments." Nathan Reese
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"When cartoonist Ed Piskor decided to unspool the labyrinth history of one of America's greatest artistic accomplishments, he spared no effort to immerse his readers in the era of jump suits and scarred vinyl. Everything in screams nostalgia: the Ben-Day dots, the sepia discoloration...even the print feels course and pulpy, like a priceless cultural artifact unearthed in a garage sale or your dad's basement. Flipping through the oversized pages, you can almost hear the slap bass, horn swells, and ricocheting rhymes of hip-hop's inaugural years." Complex
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"An astonishing feat of cultural archaeology, in both ambition and execution. The project somehow doesn't seem quite real: a comic-book history of hip-hop going back to the very beginning -- the late 70s -- where lore is thick and documentation scarce. To tell this story in any language would be a challenge; to tell it in the language of comics feels like a magical summoning." Sean Edgar Paste
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"These are dookie-gold-chain d-o-p-e." Jatin Varma The Economic Times
Synopsis
This encyclopedic comics history of the formative years of hip hop captures the vivid personalities and magnetic performances of old-school pioneers and early stars like DJ Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, plus the charismatic players behind the scenes like Russell Simmons; Debbie Harry, Keith Haring and other luminaries make cameos.
About the Author
Ed Piskor (1982) is an alternative cartoonist living and drawing out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is a former student of