Comic Book Confidential

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Comic Book Confidential
Movie poster for Comic Book Confidential
Directed by	Ron Mann
Produced by	Don Haig Martin Harbury Charles Lippincott
Written by	Ron Mann Charles Lippincott
Starring	Will Eisner Robert Crumb William M. Gaines Jack Kirby Stan Lee Frank Miller
Music by	Dr. John Keith Elliott Gerard Leckey
Cinematography	Joan Churchill Robert Fresco
Editing by	Robert Kennedy
Distributed by	Home Vision Entertainment
Release date(s)	September 10, 1988
Running time	90 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

Comic Book Confidential is an American/Canadian documentary film that was released in 1988.

Directed by Ron Mann and written by Mann and Charles Lippincott, the film is a survey of the history of the comic book medium in the U.S.A, from the 1930s to the 80s, particularly from the point of view of its being an art form. The film includes profiles of a number of notable and influential talents in the comics field, such as Charles Burns, Art Spiegelman, Françoise Mouly, Frank Miller, Stan Lee, Will Eisner, Robert Crumb, Harvey Pekar, and William M. Gaines. In addition to the talents discussing their best known contributions to the art, they also give readings of passages of their work. A live action version of Bill Griffith's character, Zippy the Pinhead, also appears.

The project started in the mid-1980s when Mann was working on a press kit of the comedy Legal Eagles. He secretly used resources from that project (including the studio's crew, money and film stock) to interview his subjects during his off hours. Due to time constraints, Mann cut out footage with musician Frank Zappa, Scrooge McDuck creator Carl Barks, All American Comics editor Julie Schwartz and creator of the first all-woman comic book It Ain't Me Babe, Trina Robbins.

The film received the 1989 Genie Award (recognizing the best of Canadian cinema by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television) for Best Documentary. It was also one of the first films to be released in CD-ROM format for home computer viewing (as a forerunner of the later DVD).