Baby Boomer Comics: The Wild, Wacky, Wonderful Comic Books of the 1960s [Paperback]

Craig Shutt (Author), Jim Mooney (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2003

This title contains essays which cover key events affecting the four-colour lives of Spider Man, The Hulk, The X-Men, Superman, Batman and Green Lantern. It contains hundreds of colour illustrations of both covers and individual panels and includes US market prices for the issues described.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Craig Shutt, known as "Mr. Silver Age" to comic fans, has been writing for the leading comics magazine, Comics Buyer's Guide, for more than a decade. After hundreds of columns highlighting all that's wild and wacky about comics from the 1960s, Shutt's brand of nostalgia has had thousands of fans demanding Baby Boomer Comics for years! He lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Product Details

• Paperback: 207 pages
• Publisher: Krause Publications (July 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 087349668X
• ISBN-13: 978-0873496681
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #987,500 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Book About the Silver Age -- Ever!, January 9, 2004

By 

Hoy Murphy (Cross Lanes, WV USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Baby Boomer Comics: The Wild, Wacky, Wonderful Comic Books of the 1960s (Paperback)

This book is about the most fun you can have with 1960s comic books without actually sitting down and reading them. Mr. Silver Age has a sly-but-respectful style of relating the silliness and fun of some of our favorite superheroes from that time. It's a style that works even if you aren't familiar with the origial stories themselves.

The book is lavishly produced with color reproductions of funnybook covers and appropriate comics panels on every page so you know exactly what the commentary is referring to. My only complaint with the book is that some of the reproductions are too tiny for this silver ager's eyes to see, but that just leaves more room for the copy!

Lots of trivia spread throughout, fun quizzes, and wry observations from Mr. Silver Age Craig Shutt make this the most funnest book about the beloved comics of my youth I've read.

Thanks to Krause and the Comics Buyers Guide for publishing this. When's Vol. 2 coming out?

--your pal, Hoy

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An All-Star Collection of the Best of Mr Silver Age, June 14, 2005

By 

Dave Blanchard (Cleveland, Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Baby Boomer Comics: The Wild, Wacky, Wonderful Comic Books of the 1960s (Paperback)

Comic book publishers are happily discovering a renewed interest in just about every title from the 1960s, and are repackaging those yellowing old comics in just about every format you can think of -- from expensive glossy hardcovers to inexpensive b&w omnibus editions.

The publication of this book is not only evidence of that trend, but in fact evidence that BABY BOOMERS COMICS' author, Craig Shutt, had a lot to do with sparking the renaissance of the glorious old Silver Age comic books. Consider: When Shutt began writing his column for COMICS BUYERS GUIDE, back in the early 1990s, the comic book field was obsessed with "grim 'n' gritty" heroes-turned-villains, ridiculously overendowed "bad girls" and an almost complete lack of humor. Through his regular "Ask Mr. Silver Age" columns, Shutt was able to remind readers -- many of whom were born well after the 1960s -- that there used to be a lot of plain old goofy FUN in the comic books, whether it was the backward-thinking and -talking Bizarros, the cross-dressing Jimmy Olsen, Spider-Man's frequent costume catastrophes, and of course the trend for which the Silver Age is best known: talking gorillas. Shutt made it cool to love those old comic books all over again. Is it any coincidence that nowadays you can buy complete collections of those Pop Art and Go-Go Checked classics off Amazon or in any bookstore? I think not.

With this book, Shutt proves once and for all (as if there was any doubt) that Silver Age comics were not only good, but good for you.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great read, with respect but enjoyable humor, October 20, 2004

By 

popular culture lover (Travelers Rest, SC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Baby Boomer Comics: The Wild, Wacky, Wonderful Comic Books of the 1960s (Paperback)

Sure, there are more expensive hardcover books on comics out there that treat the medium (and themselves) very seriously. But this book is a welcome relief from that pseudo-intellectualism. It's fun to read and enjoy the author's encyclopedic knowledge of the comics of our youth. Excellently illustrated. This one's a keeper - buy it.