From The Wire: "Matthew Ingram, aka Woebot, has published a book titled 100 Lost Rock Albums From The 1970s. The book takes in strands of metal, glam rock, French artists, punk and pub rock, and is released digitally as a self-published eBook via Amazon. Ingram says: 'Last year I started writing an article on the 100 Lost Rock Albums From The 1970s but it ballooned out of all proportions and I decided to turn it into an eBook.''Over time we have lost touch with the original character of the 70s. Using 'lost' records I've attempted to re-examinine the decade and redress what I see as imbalance. Beyond small reviews of a meticulously-selected 100 albums there's quite a lot of contemporary history, much theorising and lots of gags.'"

     The murder of the Tsarina’s ‘Mad Monk’ sent shock waves through pre-revolutionary Russia. Many foretold it would mean the end of the monarchy — and they might have been right. But the murderers and their leader, the notorious Prince Yusupov, saw Rasputin’s hold over Nicholas II and his wife as an evil influence that was destroying Russia, whose armies were being slaughtered in the First World War. Yusupov was one of the richest men in Russia. He was also handsome, amusing and vain, boasting of the smallest waist of any man in Europe. Though married to the Tsar’s niece, Irina, he was homosexual and often paraded in women’s clothes — as such he even excited the attention of King Edward VII at the Théâtre des Capucines. During the revolution he was rescued at the eleventh hour with other members of the Imperial Family and went to Paris where he settled. His flamboyant lifestyle, his business adventures, court cases and struggles to raise money on the Yusupov jewels, as well as his friendships with the great of the time, including the Windsors, make exciting reading. Based on personal interviews and meticulous research, this enthralling biography captures the flavour of a bizarre, eventful and extraordinary life. Christopher Dobson is an author and foreign correspondent who has travelled the world in the pursuit of news. His front-line coverage of the wars in the Middle East and Vietnam won him widespread acclaim and he was voted International Journalist of the Year in 1968. He now specializes in writing about terrorism and is recognized as one of the leading experts in this field. Married with four children, he lives in Sussex where he spends as much time as he can fishing, shooting, gardening and reading. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

    He challenges any single discourse on the erotic. The scope of his inquiry ranges from Emily Bronte to Sade, from St. Therese to Claude Levi-Strauss, and Dr. Kinsey; and the subjects he covers include prostitution, mythical ecstasy, cruelty, and organized war. Investigating desire prior to and extending beyond the realm of sexuality, he argues that eroticism is "a psychological quest not alien to death."

    Chip Kidd is renowned and revered as a maverick graphic designer. Specifically, Kidd's book jacket designs for such major New York publishers as Alfred A. Knopf are among the most significant and innovative of our time. This richly illustrated book--the first critical selection of kid's design work--looks closely at this contemporary visual pioneer. Veronique Vienne presents a full and nuanced view of Kidd, discussing how he has developed celebrity status as a designer, design critic, lecturer, and editor. She also relates how Kidd is greatly influenced by popular culture, noting his vast collection of Batman memorabilia. Vienne concludes by examining Kidd's editorial involvement with books on cartoonists as well as his own first novel, The Cheese Monkeys, published in 2001 to critical acclaim. Chip Kidd reveals the fascinating life and career of a revolutionary graphic designer with a winning public persona, whose ambitions now also lean toward editing and writing. The book will appeal to anyone involved in design and popular culture as well as admirers of Kidd's extraordinary creative spirit.

    A graphic and uncompromising autobiographical bender, the story of Tea's years as a prostitute, with provocative illustrations by Laurenn McCubbin.

    With influences ranging from hip hop to zombie slasher movies, Hewlett emerged in the mid 1990s as cocreator of the zeitgeist-defining Tank Girl comic. With then-roommate, Blur frontman Damon Albarn, he went on to create the unique cartoon band Gorillaz, a virtual pop group of animated characters, which recorded four studio albums and mounted breathtaking live spectacles. Since then, Hewlett has continued to collaborate with Albarn on projects including an elaborate staging of the Chinese novel Monkey: Journey to the West by Wu Cheng en, complete with circus acrobats, Shaolin monks, and Chinese singers. In 2006, he was named Designer of the Year by the Design Museum in London, and in 2009, Hewlett and Albarn won a Bafta for their Monkey animated sequence for the Beijing Olympic Games. More recently, an exhibition of prints at the Saatchi Gallery in London demonstrated an exciting new direction in Hewlett s practice. This new TASCHEN edition, Hewlett s first major monograph, illustrates this thrilling creative journey with over 400 artworks from the Tank Girl era through Gorillaz and up to the present day. Through stories, characters, strips, and sketches, we trace Hewlett s exceptional capacity for invention and celebrate a polymath artist who refuses to rest on his laurels, or to be pigeonholed into a particular practice.Text in English, French, and German"

    The western world was turned upside down by the rock ‘n' roll revolution and here's the real lowdown on the rock stars who made it happen — and what it did to their lives.

    It was an anthology of erotic comics, with contributions from some of the best and the brightest creators. There were three issues, and they were AWESOME. But that was it. The third Smut Peddler mini was followed by a years-long publishing hiatus...UNTIL NOW.

    

    Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko is a coffee table art book tracing Ditko's life and career, his unparalleled stylistic innovations, his strict adherence to his own (and Randian) principles, with lush displays of obscure and popular art from the thousands of pages of comics he's drawn over the last 55 years.

    Taking advantage of the absolute latest advances in wood pulp technology, Building Stories is a book with no deliberate beginning nor end, the scope, ambition, artistry and emotional prevarication beyond anything yet seen from this artist or in this medium, probably for good reason.

    High Art Lite provides a sustained analysis of the phenomenal success of YBA, young British artists obsessed with commerce, mass media and the cult of personality Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Marcus Harvey, Sarah Lucas, among others. In this fully revised and expanded edition, Julian Stallabrass explores how YBA lost its critical immunity in the new millennium, and looks at the ways in which figures such as Hirst, Emin, Wearing and Landy have altered their work in recent years.

    Crumb Handbook is a brand new take on the life, trials and ideas of one of the most influential cartoonists of the last 40 years. Wry, self-deprecating, and candid, this is an exceptionally revealing and unexpectedly moving visual biography. Crumb is thoughtful and enlightening, with insights into 20th century popular culture that are hilarious, challenging, and acidly satirical. Crumb casts an unblinking eye onto the underbelly of modern life, an urban nightmare of human weakness, lust, terror, and cruelty all seen through the comic lens of satire. Simultaneously, he weaves in the surreal narrative of his personal evolution from his tormented childhood in the 1940s through his coming of age in the psychedelic revolution of the 1960s. With over 80 personal photographs, and 300 images taken from his sketchbooks many of which have never been seen before, comic books, as well as fine art from museums, The R. Crumb Handbook tells it like it is!Described by art critic Robert Hughes as "the Brueghel of the 20th century," Robert Crumb has become the only sixties counter culture artist to break through into the fine art world and today attracts celebrity collectors such as Steve Martin and author Alex Garland.Written with his close friend and fellow cartoonist Peter Poplaski, the new book allows ample room for the "father of underground comics" to express his ideas and opinions on a variety of subjects: fame and celebrity, art and commercialism, sex and drugs, age and death. And what visit to Crumbland would be complete without cameo appearances by Mr. Natural, Fritz the Cat, Devil Girl, and Keep On Truckin'?At over 400 pages, The R. Crumb Handbook is the newest and best compilation ofhis most famous work. The book features over 300 never seen before illustrations from his sketchbooks, 80 personal photos, interviews, and a special CD of 20 songs of R.Crumb's original music. Cartoons? Photos? Music? All in one book? This is a valuable collectible that will be welcomed by all.

    Volume One collects the first year's worth of content from the weekly comic Oh Joy Sex Toy. Combining helpful facts with terrible puns and the occasional Star Trek joke, Volume One is an indispensable resource for fans of sex, fans of comics, and nerds of all stripes. In addition to Erika’s work, Volume One also features the comics of nearly a dozen other cartoonists including Lucy Knisley, R. Stevens, and Amanda Lafrenais. Plus there’s a bunch of bonus stuff too, if you’ve already been keeping up-to-date with OJST’s weekly update online. Erika shares some brand new comics made exclusively for Volume one, as well as shares some behind-the-scenes information on OJST.If you hate funhappy depictions of sex and gut-punchingly bad jokes, DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. You will 100% hate it.

    When a fawning fan letter grants him access to his cartoonist hero, the celebrated Joseph Ahlstrom, he's quick to take advantage of a proffered portfolio review... but winds up learning more than he ever wanted to about Joe when he stumbles across some of his idol's illicit fetish art.His hasty, ill-considered theft of a drawing triggers a series of events he never planned on... most of which involve Joseph's imposing and resolute partner, Roya. Yes, Roya is a 135-page graphic novel m/f/m femdom story, with ghost green on art, C. Spike Trotman on story chores, and kinomatika handling the cover.