Factoid Books put out the Big Book series, illustrated by various comic artists or cartoonists, some of them very famous ones. I especially like The Big Book of the '70s and I’ve been hoping they would some day come out with The Big Book of the '60s, The Big Book of the '80s, and so on. But is the company even in business any more? Just wondering.
Factoid Books was an imprint of DC Comics. Looking at their website, it doesn’t look like they’ve published any new titles.
Wow, BrainGlutton, your post reminded me of another similar book that came out early on in the eighties, maybe 1980 or '81.
It purported to be a “Big Book of the Eighties” type of thing – a look back at the decade ahead – and contained a bunch of Onion-like fake news stories about what supposedly happened.
Now, this was back in the days when there was this unconscious sense that on January 1, 1984, we’d suddenly turn into a Big Brother-esque dictatorship. So the book really played on that theme and most of the decade’s supposed events revolved around the changeover to the new Orwellian system, and the use of doublespeak and omnipresent televisions and so on. Of course it was all absurd in retrospect. All this wouldn’t really turn up until 2000.*
It was a lot of fun. Admittedly I was about fifteen at the time, so my sense of humor might not have been all that sophisticated, but still. Does anyone remember this book?
(Sorry to piggyback on this thread. If it’s too OT I can start a new one.)
- JOKE! JOKE!
I sent Jonathan Vankin (author/editor of The Big Book of the '70s) an e-mail about this but he hasn’t responded yet.