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Paradox Press series of Big Books
The Big Book of Scandal: Trashy but True Tales from the Tawdry Worlds of Celebrity, High Society, Politics, and Big Business!
Book by Vankin, Jonathan
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 8, 2012
After seeing this book at some friends’ cabin, I was delighted to find a copy at Powell’s Book. Strange tales told in graphic novel format. Incidentally, this is the best book of the series so far.
June 5, 2016
A great curation of any gossip monger's wet dream. A classy collection.
February 18, 2026
The Big Book of Scandal is exactly what it promises to be—trashy, tawdry, and wildly entertaining—but it’s also much smarter than you might expect. Jonathan Vankin and his team of artists have assembled a riotous collection of scandals that span celebrity culture, high society, politics, and big business, and the result is both addictive and oddly educational.
What I loved most is the tone: it never feels mean-spirited, just gleefully fascinated by the absurdity of human behavior when power, fame, and money collide. The storytelling is punchy and fast-paced, making it dangerously easy to say “just one more chapter” until suddenly you’ve read five.
The range of scandals is impressive. Some stories are jaw-dropping, some darkly funny, and others downright surreal—but all of them reveal something about ambition, ego, corruption, and the strange ecosystem of public life. The book walks that fine line between guilty pleasure and cultural commentary, and it does so with style.
Visually and structurally, it also feels dynamic rather than dry. It doesn’t read like a dense historical account; it feels more like a curated gallery of outrageous human moments. Perfect for dipping in and out of, but equally satisfying to binge.
If you enjoy pop culture, history’s messier side, or simply well-told stories about spectacular public downfalls, this book is a blast. It’s scandal in its purest form—shocking, ridiculous, and endlessly entertaining.
Highly recommended for anyone who appreciates the art of a well-told fiasco.
What I loved most is the tone: it never feels mean-spirited, just gleefully fascinated by the absurdity of human behavior when power, fame, and money collide. The storytelling is punchy and fast-paced, making it dangerously easy to say “just one more chapter” until suddenly you’ve read five.
The range of scandals is impressive. Some stories are jaw-dropping, some darkly funny, and others downright surreal—but all of them reveal something about ambition, ego, corruption, and the strange ecosystem of public life. The book walks that fine line between guilty pleasure and cultural commentary, and it does so with style.
Visually and structurally, it also feels dynamic rather than dry. It doesn’t read like a dense historical account; it feels more like a curated gallery of outrageous human moments. Perfect for dipping in and out of, but equally satisfying to binge.
If you enjoy pop culture, history’s messier side, or simply well-told stories about spectacular public downfalls, this book is a blast. It’s scandal in its purest form—shocking, ridiculous, and endlessly entertaining.
Highly recommended for anyone who appreciates the art of a well-told fiasco.
November 19, 2019
This volume featured many scandals that we'd all heard about, but also some that were new to me. I also learned a few things about the more famous scandals that I had never known.
I say it everytime I review one, but the Factoid Books are just great.
I say it everytime I review one, but the Factoid Books are just great.
May 31, 2016
This is the first time I've read The Big Book of Scandal—as with The Big Book of the '70s by Jonathan Vankin—and in retrospect, I'm being generous; The Big Book of Scandal is a bit more of a three-and-a-half-star book. Still, it has its merits, foremost among them being its illustration of how culture has changed over the decades, and how so-called scandal is subjective, at best.
Where The Big Book of Scandal falls down the most is that it often takes too sensationalist a tone, especially where it's unwarranted given the nuance of a situation, or, alternatively, the scandal ended up a hullabaloo about nothing. Foremost among such entries is that for the "cyber porn" scandal of the 1990s, which almost seems quaint given the proliferation of adult media on the internet (that being said, the articles and studies that entry discusses were sufficiently troubling that Jonathan Wallace and Mark Mangan saw fit to devote an entire chapter to them in Sex, Laws, and Cyberspace: Freedom and Censorship on the Frontiers of the Online Revolution), as well as the literal centerpiece of The Big Book of Scandal discussing the O.J. Simpson trial, which remains hotly debated to this day, and—as any skilled lawyer, myself included, will tell you—was unique in its own way.
However, more frequently, The Big Book of Scandal makes some quality analysis of several scandals throughout history, whether in realms political (most heartbreaking is the Profumo scandal in Great Britain, that literally ended in an innocent man's suicide), entertainment, or financial. That, like The Big Book of the '70s, The Big Book of Scandal is somewhat heavily footnoted, is helpful in case anyone wants to do any Further Reading. All in all, The Big Book of Scandal is a more-or-less worthwhile addition to any comics library.
Where The Big Book of Scandal falls down the most is that it often takes too sensationalist a tone, especially where it's unwarranted given the nuance of a situation, or, alternatively, the scandal ended up a hullabaloo about nothing. Foremost among such entries is that for the "cyber porn" scandal of the 1990s, which almost seems quaint given the proliferation of adult media on the internet (that being said, the articles and studies that entry discusses were sufficiently troubling that Jonathan Wallace and Mark Mangan saw fit to devote an entire chapter to them in Sex, Laws, and Cyberspace: Freedom and Censorship on the Frontiers of the Online Revolution), as well as the literal centerpiece of The Big Book of Scandal discussing the O.J. Simpson trial, which remains hotly debated to this day, and—as any skilled lawyer, myself included, will tell you—was unique in its own way.
However, more frequently, The Big Book of Scandal makes some quality analysis of several scandals throughout history, whether in realms political (most heartbreaking is the Profumo scandal in Great Britain, that literally ended in an innocent man's suicide), entertainment, or financial. That, like The Big Book of the '70s, The Big Book of Scandal is somewhat heavily footnoted, is helpful in case anyone wants to do any Further Reading. All in all, The Big Book of Scandal is a more-or-less worthwhile addition to any comics library.
August 18, 2008
I read this book quite a while back and only remembered it when I pulled it off the shelf to send it out via interlibrary loan.
It's a good, quick, trashy read. It was good in the same way that People magazine is good.
It's a good, quick, trashy read. It was good in the same way that People magazine is good.
February 19, 2012
Big bad scandals which filled tabloids for ages were presented in stories packed with nastiness of human nature. The politicians, actors and businessmen were prone do make mistakes bad ones. The sad thing is that the book is to USA centric.
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July 29, 2011"Big Book of..." is great illustrated series on a wide variety of topics with lots of top-notch artists and authors.
August 17, 2011
The "Big Book" series is great fun and seem well-suited for light summer reading. Any excuse to read a comic book...
May 1, 2017
So good, it's scandalous!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews