COMIC BOOK PEOPLE: PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE 1970s AND 1980s

Comic Book People: Photographs from the 1970s and 1980s
By Jackie Estrada
160 9x12-inch pages
b/w plus color section
2014 Exhibit A Press
hardcover
$34.95

When I first heard of this book I thought, Well, sure — but what’s so fascinating about a bunch of old photographs? And then I witnessed a copy at the Exhibit A table during the Denver Comic-Con last spring, and — wow! — was I wrong. My first error was in supposing that this tome would consist solely of photos; but Estrada has captioned each photo, supplying information about the person in the pic and dating it. Captions and photos together make the volume a fascinating nostalgic trip into the history of comic-cons, San Diego’s in particular. Fifteen chapters are mustered under thematic titles — The Giants (Eisner, Feiffer, Kirby), Golden and Silver Age Comic Book People, Writers, Artists, Writer/Artists, Comic Strips, Cartoonists, Animators, etc. So I bought a copy. And I bought Volume 2, too; it came out in time for the Sandy Eggo Con in July, and it is also available at exhibitapress.com.