Lunchbox: Inside and Out; From Comic Books to Cult TV and Beyond

Comic Books, airstream trailers, 1960s TV shows ... all are indelibly etched in the american pop culture landscape. but if there's one little corner of our past that's been overlooked, it's the lunchbox.

Hyped by manufacturers of the time, stuffed with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and thermoses leaking chocolate milk, carted from suburban split-levels to schoolyards across the country for four decades, these compact forms of portable art embody a whole world of memory and nostalgia.

From outer space to superheroes, from cowboys to cartoons, in metal or nifty vinyl ... here, for the first time, is the whole colorful history of one of the coolest collectibles of our time.

Erin Barrett and Jack Mingo have written more than two dozen books. They are currently living the bohemian writers' life in Alameda, California, with three kids, two cats, a canoe, a deadline for a daily fun-facts column, unpaid bills, and a clutter of lunchbox memorabilia.