With the risk of un-hijacking this thread I notice you didn't specify comic book reading suggestions, just reading suggestions connected with comic books and a certain period of history. There's a couple great histories of the pre-comics code comic book industry: The Ten Cent Plague-- The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America

You can also check out Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book I didn't read the first, but it's supposed to be pretty good. The second focuses on some of the cool and quirky characters that really were the founders of a new industry. I found it entertaining and inspiring.

you would think that the money involved would bring creativity, but it's quite the opposite. Keep in mind ad agencies are slaves to their clients (the days of renegade "mad men" are long gone, and I suspect their gonzo reputation of yesteryear was a fabrication) and as a result the typical creative process is:

--Look at the ad trade magazines from last year.
--See which ads "did the best" which really means, which ads all the other advertisers ranked the highest.
--Do exactly that same ad, but tweak it for whatever pop culture thing is hitting as of six months ago.
--The metric ad agencies give to their clients is not how much product got moved-- it's what "rating" their superbowl ad got.

The superbowl is a money laundering scheme for advertisers-- it's very incestuous and the only real beneficiaries of the superbowl are the ad agencies. Certainly not football fans.

Why is this marked troll? I have a prime account, and I've often noticed that I can find something "not-prime" cheaper, even when shipping is included. Hard-to-find items in particular.

THAT IS A GREAT IDEA FOR A BOOK/MOVIE!

You should get to it before someone else does... I'm thinking something along the lines of Larry Niven's body banks... or the premise of the (terrrible) Repo Men

You, sir, are a do-er of good. If more people would treat advertising as the noise it is, rather than an annoyance to be endured (we kill mosquitos, don't we? Why put up with ads?) the world would be a better place.

Before someone flames me for "Won't someone think of teh jobz", full disclaimer: I'm occasionally employed by ad agencies. Can't stand it... til I get the paycheck.

Mwa ha ha ha!

Mod parent up, please. I kill all kinds of insects that invade my personal space without compunction-- but living creatures of any kind are not toys.

There's plenty of grey area to go around, I guess-- would I feel the same about building a treehouse? Probably not.

That sounds JAWSOME!

Responding to undo my -Offtopic mod, when I wanted to mod Funny. "TubeShark-aggedon" could have some crossover with "Sharkonado", maybe set in the midwest..

I saw what you did there. Spelling's a beach sometimes.

You're completely right-- and sometimes it's a real bummer when we show up at the place (stadium, concert hall, ballroom, corn field, whatevs) and all the info we need to set up boils down to "isn't that a power outlet over there? It is! Good luck!"

Hence, the comparison to someone getting back from Ikea with an electric couch and setting it up with... instructions in Swedish?.

Mod parent up. I work with licensed sound engineers, gaffers, and A/V techs all the time...we get loads wrong all the time, and we're trying to do it right.

Either "electric furniture" is your new business model (yikes!) or don't do it, ever.

Mod this up! Professionals in the field often have to refer to or re-use assets from previous jobs-- do you think those stupid superbowl robots you see every year are re-built from scratch?

What happens when a deadline hits and a quick re-skin turns into a total rebuild because Adobe's servers went down that week... or Adobe has gone out of business?

There's a great documentary about Harryhausen as well as some of the artists he inspired. It's on the Netflix for streaming, as I recall:

The Sci-Fi Boys

R.I.P Ray, your work with skeleton fights in "Argonauts" opened my eyes to the world of animation and all things morbid! You will be missed.