Rick Marschall
Encyclopedia
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
, described by Bostonia magazine as "America's foremost authority on pop culture." Marschall has served as an editor for both Marvel
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
and Disney
Disney Comics
Disney Comics was a comic book publishing company operated by The Walt Disney Company which ran from 1990 to 1993. In the USA, Disney only licensed their comic books to other publishers prior to 1990...
comics, plus several syndicates.
Marschall has written and edited more than 62 books on cultural topics, including the history of comics, television and country music. He has documented the history of comic strips in two magazines he edited: Nemo, the Classic Comics Library
Nemo, the Classic Comics Library
Nemo, the Classic Comics Library was a magazine devoted to the history and creators of vintage comic strips. Created by comics historian Rick Marschall, it was published in the 1980s by Fantagraphics....
and Hogan's Alley
Hogan's Alley (magazine)
Hogan's Alley, a publication devoted to comic art, is subtitled the magazine of the cartoon arts. It has been published on an irregular schedule since 1994 by Bull Moose Publishing in Atlanta. Covering comic strips, comic books, cartoons and animation, each hefty issue contains at least 144 pages...
. For Marvel, he founded the slick graphic story magazine Epic Illustrated
Epic Illustrated
Epic Illustrated was a comics anthology in magazine format published in the United States by Marvel Comics. The series lasted for 34 issues, from Spring 1980 to February 1986....
. He edited comic strips (Peanuts, BC, Dick Tracy), scripted for graphic novels and animated cartoons (ThunderCats) and edited a book with Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss
Theodor Seuss Geisel was an American writer, poet, and cartoonist most widely known for his children's books written under the pen names Dr. Seuss, Theo LeSieg and, in one case, Rosetta Stone....
.
Marschall has taught creative writing at the Summer Institute for the Gifted
Summer Institute for the Gifted
The Summer Institute for the Gifted , founded in 1984 is a co-ed summer program specializing in gifted education for students ranging in age from 4 - 17. In 2009 SIG became a program of the National Society for the Gifted and Talented...
at Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
and techniques of fiction at Rutgers University
Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
and the School of Visual Arts
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts , is a proprietary art school located in Manhattan, New York City, and is widely considered to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. It was established in 1947 by co-founders Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and...
.
In 2009, he teamed with Jonathan Barli to launch Rosebud Archives, dedicated to the preservation and publication of comic art in prints, portfolios and books. That same year, he looked back on his career:
- I drew political cartoons for years. I have been a comic-strip editor of three newspaper syndicates, an editor at Marvel, a writer of Disney comics. I have taught about comics on the teaching staffs of four colleges. I consulted with the US Postal Service when they issued 20 stamps to celebrate the comics’ centennial; and the State Department has sent me overseas (I keep coming back) to mount exhibitions and talk about comics. I’ve written 62 books; edited several magazines and founded a few... I have written four books on country music, two on television history, and am today finishing a biography of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Selected bibliography
- American Comic Classics: A Collection of U.S. Postage Stamps
- America's Great Comic Strip Artists: From the Yellow Kid to Peanuts
- Blondie & Dagwood's America
- Encyclopedia of Country and Western Music
- The Encyclopedia of Country Music
- The First Nemo Annual Screw Ball Comics
- The Golden Age of Television
- History of Television
- Milton Caniff, Rembrandt of the Comic Strip
- Screw Ball Comics