Comics: Between the Panels

This volume celebrating the comics medium was a dozen years in the making. Taking readers behind the scenes and between the panels, this book will appeal to everyone who has ever read a comic strip or comic book.
Via alphabetical entries, the authors take an irreverent, idiosyncratic look at creators, characters, companies, conventions, and collectors - why, everything including Kitchen Sink! Don't expect dry reference book reading - Duin and Richardson pull no punches in expressing opinions, from citing their favorite covers and costumes to exposing some of the darker sides of comics creation and publishing.
In the course of researching the book, Steve Duin (the Portland Oregonian) interviewed more than 150 comics industry veterans. Their reminiscences provide first-person insights into the early days of comics in the 1930s, the studio days of the 1940s, the crisis in the 1950s, and the resurgence in the 1960s. The book also offers plenty of behind-the-scenes info about the eccentric personalities who have brought comics to the edge of the millennium.

Mike Richardson is the president and founder of Dark Horse Comics, the award-winning international publishing house he founded in 1986. He is also the president of Dark Horse Entertainment, for which he has produced numerous projects for film and television.

In addition to producing films such as R.I.P.D., Hellboy, and Mystery Men, he has also produced films based on several of his own creations, including The Mask and Timecop. Richardson owns a successful pop-culture retail chain, Things From Another World, with stores stretching from Universal's CityWalk in Los Angeles to his hometown in Milwaukie, Oregon.

Richardson has written numerous graphic novels and comics series, as well as Comics: Between the Panels and Blast Off!, two critically acclaimed books about pop culture. He lives with his wife, Karie, and their dog in Lake Oswego, Oregon.