BIG BOOK OF... REVIEW IV
By this point, you're probably wondering what it is with me and this series of books. I own 12 of them and this is the sixth title I'm writing up for the site. I like them; for someone who loves useless trivia, you can't beat the brevity of these books, and they're illustrated to boot. For me, it's also a cool way to collect the art of many comic book artists outside their normal genre. Besides, the topics are incredibly funky.
I almost bought The Big Book of Bad when I mentioned to the clerk how it was getting harder and harder for me to buy these books because I had almost all of them. He pointed to the new releases rack and said that The Big Book of the 70s had just come out. Well, golly, I just needed to have that!
First of all, let me say that HST is not in this book. I think they could have easily made the book two or three times the size. It's a wee disappointing on my part that the writer, Jonathan Vankin chose to focus on more "pop" and mass market culturish stuff than the edgy gonzo-ish stuff.
Even though they are probably seeking to capitalize on the current 70s revival craze, this Big Book is a nice little history book and would probably be handy for the younger gonzo fans out there to read. I know I'm 22, but I've been reading history books of all kinds since I was a kid, so I feel pretty well-read up on the decades I missed. But kids today, I tell ya, they have the attention span of a peanut and the stories in this book will capture their attention long enough that, God forbid, they might just learn and retain something.
Fads such as disco, mood rings, and toys are covered, as well as those oh so groovy fashions. The celebrity section of the book is fairly well-rounded, profiling Jane Fonda and Cassius Clay. Probably my favourite stories are about pet rocks and 70s lingo.
TV took a turn for the better (worse?) in the 70s, and the Big Book fails somewhat in this department. There are stories on SNL and Sesame Street, but not cutting edge programs like All in the Family.
The book makes up for it though in the political section. Here you'll find Henry Kissinger, the Watergate Burglury, and Nixon's Impeachment. Jimmy Carter has at least three stories on him - including his downfall with the Iran Hostage Crisis.
There are also a few curious topics covered, such as an apparent meat shortage that ushered in the expansion of American's palattes, and the night that New York went dark. The explosion of McDonald's is chronicled along with the Energy Crisis (heh, they couldn't forget that, eh?). Actually, the Energy Crisis story broadened my understanding of it - and suggested that it wasn't a shortage of oil but political tensions that caused the actual shortage (according to the book, only 6% of oil in the US came from foreign sources). The entertainment section rounds out with Glam Rock and The Bay City Rollers.
There are a few gaps in the book, and the stories I would have liked covered aren't in here, but they have made their ways into other Big Books - check out the Big Books of Vice and Scandal for 70s related drug and crime stories.
Perhaps the coolest and most touching part of the book is at the explain, where the narrator tries to explain what the 70s were about. Perhaps its why so many things that were cool back then fell out of style in the 80s and have resurged in the new millenium. The 70s were truly a decade where one could write their own rules and experiment without ridicule. At what other time in history could you wear loud plaid? If HST had happened in the 80s, he would have been dissmissed as another disenchanted redneck. Happily, he was alive when the US needed his rage the most. In the 50s and 60s, life was dictated by Victorian and Edwardian mores that had managed to hang on tenaciously until the sexual revolution. Now in the 80s and 90s we have personal identities dictated by large corporations. --Christine
LOL lest one suspects me of working for DC, who also has the imprint of Vertigo Comics which publishes Transmetropolitan, I don't.
