Bart Beaty and Benjamin Woo work to historicize why it is that certain works or creators have come to define the notion of a "quality comic book," while other works and creators have been left at the fringes of critical analysis.                                                                                                                                                    This book offers a series of short, provocative essays about value and reputation in the world of American comic books. Inspired by Pierre Bourdieu's analyses of fields of cultural production, The Greatest Comic Book of All Time explores why works have the reputations that they do and what it might take to re-structure the comics world along different principles.                                                                                                                          

"I would unhesitatingly recommend The Greatest Comic Book of All Time as one of the most important recent publications in comics studies. ? professional comics scholars of every stripe should read it. ? no one has done a better job than Beaty and Woo of showing us just how much bigger our playground could be." (Ben Saunders, Inks The Journal of the Comics Studies Society, Vol. 1 (2), 2017)