Speaking of encyclopedias, here’s the Encyclopedia of Super Villains (1987), by Jeff Rovin.

What a curious book, sort of an overview of pop culture villains, from everything from folklore to comic books to movie serials. There are hundreds of entries, detailing the character’s history, first appearance, costume and henchman. This is supported by full color plates (mostly of comic book covers) and black and white reproductions of comic pages and film stills. It is quirky as hell.

I adored this book as a kid, even though it was somewhat disappointing (not enough art, really, and it paled in comparison to the breadth of villainy in The Gamer’s Handbook of the Marvel Universe). But that cover, by comic artist Ernie Colon, is worth the price of admission alone. How great is it? I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve stared at it, trying to decide what real characters the generics are meant to represent (feel free to sound off in the comments). There’s an accompanying volume dedicated to superheroes, too, but good guys are so boooooring.

In doing a bit of research for this, I learned some interesting stuff about author Jeff Rovin. Remember the How to Win series of tip guides for videogames in the late 80s and early 90s, like How to Win at Nintendo Games? Same Jeff Rovin. He also co-wrote a bunch of novels with Tom Clancy, worked for the defunct Weekly World News tabloid (he didn’t create Bat Boy, alas) and, in 2016, apparently went off the deep end and started claiming to have been a fixer for the Clintons, which earned him a bizarre 15 seconds of fame two weeks ahead of the election. So. Yea.