It follows logically that Jonathan Vankin has written a comic book--actually, one of those large paperbacks with 50+ stories, all by different artists, including a few heavyweights like Dick Giordano, Marie Severin, Joe Staton, Paul Gulacy and Walt Simonson. Steamshovel has commented previously on how Vankin's writing style, and that of John Whalen, his partner at Conspire.Com, looks so glibly at conspiracy material it runs a risk of trivializing it all. A 137-word wrap up of the Lewinsky week ending 2/15/98 by Whalen recently appeared in the New York Times "Sunday" page, where quick hits on the conspiracy culture actually have become less and less dismissive.
That's OK -- in measure. Steamshovel readers no doubt laugh until they cry over some of the content of the magazine, and will also at some of what's in this book. It takes a sense of humor as well as a fine-tuned sensitivity to the tragic to deal with vile conspiracy politics. Moreover, putting it all together with pictures and word balloons can make conspiracies digestible to readers unable to handle straight text. In fact, The Big Book of Scandal! contains more credible research than many textual sources.
Vankin does a great job of concisely and completely dealing with long forgotten scandals, without too much crossover into his previous books (Conspiracies, Cover Ups and Crimes and 60 Greatest Conspiracies) and he does not pick easy targets. The Lockheed Scandal, the Wilson-Terpil Affair, several minor celebrity sin-fests, even something on tired old Watergate get comicized here. The book focusses on Hollywood, society, political and big business scandals, and so distiquishes itself from the Big Books on the unexplained, criminals, martyrs, urban legends, weirdos, losers and freaks. (To coin a Vankinish observation, that list looks more like readers than topics the longer it gets.) The first book in this series--from Factoid Books, a front for Paradox Press, which is an imprint of DC Comics--The Big Book of Conspiracies, contained many references to Steamshovel Press, and Steamshovel later outed writer Doug Moench as an early member of the Merry Marvel Marching secret Society.