What do you think?
Rate this book
Hero-A-Go-Go: Campy Comic Books, Crimefighters, & Culture of the
Welcome to the CAMP AGE, when spies liked their wars cold and their women warm, good guys beat bad guys with a pun and a punch, and Batman shook a mean cape. HERO-A-GO-GO celebrates the camp craze of the Swinging Sixties, when just about everyone--the teen
- GenresComicsHistoryNonfiction
272 pages, Paperback
First published May 16, 2017
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 16, 2022
An examination of the super hero and spy crazes of the 1960's and the camp era in which they fit. Lot of information, and lots of pictures about almost every facet of the subject. It goes into comics, movies, television, and music. A couple of things they really delve into that I didn't know about include a comic starring LBJ as "Super President." Just a couple of years later, he had to drop out of the democrat primaries. Also an interview with Dean Torrance of the singing duo, Jan & Dean about their TV show.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
February 18, 2023
Michael Eury gives the Twomorrows treatment to the comics, TV shows, and ephemera of the Camp Era (the mid to late 60s). If you've read any of the books put out by Twomorrows you know what you're getting. That's particularly unsurprising since Eury is the editor of Back Issue Magazine, which happens to cover the comics I grew up on (the 70s and 80s and recently into the early 90s). Most of this stuff was from before my time, me being a 1967 model. But there was plenty of crossover, particularly since I had two older brothers and an older sister who were right in the middle of this stuff (Eury was born smack in between my two brothers). So I cut my teeth on reruns of the Batman TV show, Hanna-Barbera and Jay Ward cartoon reruns, The Monkees, etc. And it wasn't super unusual to come across some old comics from this era in the mid 70s and a number of the Big-Little Books of this era were reprinted in my youth.
Probably not as meaningful for me as if I was 8 or so years older, but still a fun and informative nostalgia trip.
Probably not as meaningful for me as if I was 8 or so years older, but still a fun and informative nostalgia trip.
August 25, 2017
Michael gives any fan of the pop-culture stuffed 1960s a massive collection of essays, interviews, recollections, artwork and research in a hefty fun to read package. This book is DENSE with text, but balanced with full color artwork and well-chosen photos. The book is a pleasure to both read and look upon thanks to fun design work by artist Scott Saavedra. And while you might think you've seen/heard it all in the realm of "camp" (especially when discussing comics or television), you'll find a slew of new information and interesting connections brought to light. There are spies, superheroes, rock and pop musicians, space explorers and so much more in a variety of genres and configurations. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
April 23, 2018
This book is a veritable treasure trove of information of a bygone era. Thanks to the magic of TV reruns, back issue bins, and the internet I was fairly familiar with a number of the icons of the Camp Age. But context can be everything and nothing beats experiencing something in its own time. That the facts here have been researched and are presented by someone who lived through it all makes this book really feel special. Every page, with their colorful pictures and fascinating factoids, brings a smile to my face. They can even raise an eyebrow or two.
This is cultural history, not taught by an academic looking back and trying to recapture what it was like, but remembered by a fan who is clearly wise enough not to have let himself grow up too much.
This is cultural history, not taught by an academic looking back and trying to recapture what it was like, but remembered by a fan who is clearly wise enough not to have let himself grow up too much.
July 3, 2017
Some of my favorite comic book memories of growing up in the 1960s are of characters I long thought I imagined because most traces of them have been erased from existence:
• Diaper Man
• Secret Squirrel
• Forbush Man
• Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse
• And that guy who shouted “SPLIT” just before various body parts of his broke apart to punch out the bad guys!
Michael Eury, a former editor at DC Comics and long-time editor of Back Issue! magazine, apparently saw what I saw.
What a relief!
In his new book, Hero-A-Go-Go: Campy Comic Books, Crimefighters, & Culture of the Swinging Sixties, Eury brings all these wacky characters and many, many more in a celebration of a simpler time, when Ralph Bakshi was better known for Cuckoo Man than Fritz the Cat.
Watch or listen to my interview with Michael Eury: https://mrmedia.com/2017/07/1315-hero...
• Diaper Man
• Secret Squirrel
• Forbush Man
• Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse
• And that guy who shouted “SPLIT” just before various body parts of his broke apart to punch out the bad guys!
Michael Eury, a former editor at DC Comics and long-time editor of Back Issue! magazine, apparently saw what I saw.
What a relief!
In his new book, Hero-A-Go-Go: Campy Comic Books, Crimefighters, & Culture of the Swinging Sixties, Eury brings all these wacky characters and many, many more in a celebration of a simpler time, when Ralph Bakshi was better known for Cuckoo Man than Fritz the Cat.
Watch or listen to my interview with Michael Eury: https://mrmedia.com/2017/07/1315-hero...
April 20, 2019
4.5. This is an informative but random look at 1960s pop culture trends, variously including TV superheroes; the Beatles and the Monkees and their various comic-book knockoffs; James Bond knockoffs; exceptionally dumb superheroes; and superhero parodies.
All the information is good, but the randomness annoys me. Eury asserts the sixties was the "Camp Age" and takes that as his subject matter but he acknowledges a lot of what he's working with (I Spy and the Prisoner for instance) were not at all campy (I'd argue a number of things he does think are campy are not). But that's a minor quibble about such an informative book.
All the information is good, but the randomness annoys me. Eury asserts the sixties was the "Camp Age" and takes that as his subject matter but he acknowledges a lot of what he's working with (I Spy and the Prisoner for instance) were not at all campy (I'd argue a number of things he does think are campy are not). But that's a minor quibble about such an informative book.
June 5, 2020
An excellent look at the decade of my birth and my introduction to popular culture, from comic books, TV shows and Batman bubble gum cards. Reading this book was a nostalgic trip back to my childhood, and a reminder of why I still enjoy the pop culture from the decade of my birth.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews