This chunky, heavy book is a superb collection of posters. The back pages bibliography lists eleven poster books by the author and I assume their contents are all in this title. Individually, the graphics of pop culture are not particularly interesting, but when collected together, whether it's book jackets, record and magazine covers, movie posters, and so on, they take on a cool fascination and with a thousand-plus here, it's a real page-turner.
I thought the editorial format worked really well. Each poster is dated and frequently the artist and designer are credited. The author has researched background information about many of these creatives for short essays on most pages. A lovely addition are black and white publicity photos of stars from the thirties and forties that were clearly used by artists for the poster.
Book designer Graham Marsh has cleverly presented all this colorful material in a very easy on the eye style, with a poster or two a page and for a change of pace (essential in highly visual books) occasionally nine.
This could be the definitive movie poster book. I doubt it could be improved on.
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