Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art


Scott McCloud - 1993
    Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics is a seminal examination of comics art: its rich history, surprising technical components, and major cultural significance. Explore the secret world between the panels, through the lines, and within the hidden symbols of a powerful but misunderstood art form.

Facehunter


Yvan Rodic - 2010
    Yvan Rodic, the photographer behind Facehunter.com, has compiled in this book his images that show his unerring sensibility for street style. He has traveled to nearly thirty countries, capturing real people, whose clothes reflect the incredible diversity of the world s cities. Character and charisma are what he prizes people who wear their clothes with confidence. The result is a contemporary portfolio of what s chic on the street, and an insightful predictor of what will be chic on the runway. Whether you re fashion forward, backward, or sideways, you ll find something inspiring in this radical, personal, and unpredictable book of street style around the world.

Love Looks Not with the Eyes: Thirteen Years with Lee Alexander McQueen


Anne Deniau - 2012
    Charged with energy, informed by history and culture, and filled with fresh concepts, McQueen’s shows have become legends not only of fashion but also of art. Anne Deniau was the only photographer allowed backstage by McQueen for 13 years, beginning in September 1997 and ending with the final show in March 2010. She captured McQueen working with his close circle of collaborators—including designer Sarah Burton, milliner Philip Treacy, jewelry designer Shaun Leane, and model Kate Moss—to create his meticulously produced spectacles. Her book offers an inspiring homage, through the art of photography, to the work of a great artist. Praise for Love Looks Not With the Eyes: Thirteen Years With Lee Alexander McQueen: The pictures are evocative of the torture, the toughness and, most of all, the tenderness of Mr. McQueen.” —New York Times “Deniau’s close connection to McQueen and her appreciation for his formidable talent is like many of the pieces he created: breathtaking.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Thekinetic color and black-and-white photographs document the fantastical,shocking spectacle of a McQueen show in action: hairdos trussed up with birdsof prey; hubcaps strapped to foreheads; faces enhanced by extraterrestrialcheek prostheses. The images are sensual, spooky, and whimsical, playing up thedrama of McQueen’s vision; like one of the designer’s fabulous garments, thephotographs transform fashion into high art. The book is both an homage and amemorial; this celebration of McQueen’s vast, unique talent is also a eulogyfor his tragic loss.” — “Haute couture has a reputation for spectacle, but Anne Deniau’s photographs remind us that it’s also the last bastion of craftsmanship in fashion—or it was, as practiced by designer Alexander McQueen (1969–2010).” —Wall Street Journal “Lush, previously unpublished backstage photographs from many of the late designer’s provocative fashion shows.”—The Los Angeles Times “The kinetic color and black-and-white photographs document the fantastical, shocking spectacle of a McQueen show in action: hairdos trussed up with birds of prey; hubcaps strapped to foreheads; faces enhanced by extraterrestrial cheek prostheses. The images are sensual, spooky, and whimsical, playing up the drama of McQueen’s vision; like one of the designer’s fabulous garments, the photographs transform fashion into high art. The book is both an homage and a memorial; this celebration of McQueen’s vast, unique talent is also a eulogy for his tragic loss.” —Publishers Weekly “Love Looks Not with the Eyes document[s] the intense work and equally intense emotions that played out behind the scenes of McQueen’s poetic, passionate, and provocative shows. . . . The intimacy is evident in the pictures.” —Vogue “The haunting images offer a rarefied glimpse into the designer’s inner world.” —Harper’s Bazaar “Deniau, in the process of documenting 26 McQueen presentations, captured images which, too, transcend photography—matching the decadent and grand world created by the hands of McQueen.” —Time.com “Haute couture has a reputation for spectacle, but Anne Deniau’s photographs remind us that it’s also the last bastion of craftsmanship in fashion—or it was, as practiced by designer Alexander McQueen (1969–2010).” —Wall Street Journal

The Photographer's Handbook


John Hedgecoe - 1977
    More than 600 separate entries illustrated with 1,250 photographs, diagrams, and charts cover the entire range of subject matter, from choosing a camera to storing finished prints.

The Circus: 1870s–1950s


Noel Daniel - 2008
    During the heyday of the American circus from the mid-1800s to mid-1900s, traveling circuses performed for audiences of up to 12,000-14,000 per show, employed as many as 1,600 men and women, and crisscrossed the country on 20,000 miles of railroad in one season alone. The spectacle of death-defying daredevils, strapping super-heroes and scantily-clad starlets, fearless animal trainers, and startling freaks gripped the American imagination, outshining theater, vaudeville, comedy, and minstrel shows of its day, and ultimately paved the way for film and television to take root in the modern era. Long before the Beat generation made ""on the road"" expeditions popular, the circus personified the experience and offered many young Americans the dream of adventure, reinvention, excitement, and glamour.

The Curious Sofa


Edward Gorey - 1961
    The book is a “pornographic illustrated story about furniture” (according to the cover). According to reviews, there is nothing overtly sexual in the illustrations, although innuendos (and strategically deployed urns and tree branches) abound. The New York Times Book Review described it as “Gorey’s naughty, hilarious travesty of lust.” Gorey has stated that he intended to satirize Story of O.

Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex


David Henry SterryR.J. Martin Jr. - 2009
    They're PhDs and dropouts, soccer moms and jailbirds, $2,500-a-night call girls and $10 crack hos, and everything in between. This anthology lends a voice to an underrepresented population that is simultaneously reviled and worshipped.Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys is a collection of short memoirs, rants, confessions, nightmares, journalism, and poetry covering life, love, work, family, and yes, sex. The editors gather pieces from the world of industrial sex, including contributions from art-porn priestess Dr. Annie Sprinkle, best-selling memoirist David Henry Sterry (Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent), sex activist and musical diva Candye Kane, women and men right off the streets, girls participating in the first-ever National Summit of Commercially Sexually Exploited Youth, and Ruth Morgan Thomas, one of the organizers of the European Sex Work, Human Rights, and Migration Conference.Sex is a billion-dollar industry. Meet the real people who are its flesh and blood.

A Period of Juvenile Prosperity


Mike Brodie - 2013
    Two weeks later I was gone, witnessing my new world wizz by, especially at dusk, then darkness as I watched the sum of all the city lights cast my silhouette across the pine trees of the Florida panhandle. This was it, I was riding my very first freight train. And soon, what would begin as mere natural curiosity and self-discovery would evolve into a casting call of sorts, taking photographs of my newfound friends. — Mike Brodie11 x 13 Inches60 Four-color Plates104 Pages

Comics: A Global History, 1968 to the Present


Dan Mazur - 2014
    no matter the name, they have been a powerful medium across four continents for decades. This is the history of comics around the world from the late 1960s to the dawn of the 21st century. Comics is a richly illustrated narrative of extraordinary scope. Examples from all over the world include everything from Crumb and Kirby to RAW; from Metal Hurlant to Marjane Satrapi to nouvelle manga; from both the American mainstream and underground to the evolving and influential British scene. The images here are bright and colorful, dark and brooding, arresting and pleasant, all at the same time. An unprecedented collection includes around 260 expertly chosen illustrations, many reproduced in full-page format for more sophisticated analysis.The authors, two uniquely positioned and knowledgeable authorities, are the first to write a broadly comprehensive history of this most accessible, democratic, and occasionally subversive modern popular art form, displaying an intimate familiarity with schools and styles, writers, artists, and companies across countries and generations. In showing us both post-apocalyptic dreamscapes and portraits of the everyday, Comics looks at this thirty-plus year period through a very unique lens.

Talking Cock


Richard Herring - 2003
    Talking Cock combines answers to questions about sexuality, circumcision, and strange behavior with a deeply researched history, poignant true-life confessions, and insights from the hilarious to the downright obscene.

The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk


Randy Shilts - 1982
    His is a story of personal tragedies and political intrigues, assassination in City Hall and massive riots in the streets, the miscarriage of justice and the consolidation of gay power and gay hope.

Joel Meyerowitz: How I Make Photographs


Joel Meyerowitz - 2001
    Each volume is dedicated to the work of one key photographer who, through a series of bite-sized lessons and ideas, tells you everything you always wanted to know about their approach to taking photographs. From their influences, ideas and experiences, to tech tips and best shots. The series begins with Joel Meyerowitz, who will teach you, among other essentials: How to use a camera to reclaim the streets as your own, why you need to watch the world always with a sense of possibility, how to set your subjects at ease, and the importance of being playful and of finding a lens that suits your personality.

The Marquis de Sade: A Life


Neil Schaeffer - 1999
    Against a magnificently embroidered backdrop of eighteenth-century France, he shows us Sade's incredible life of sexual appetite, adherence to Enlightenment principles, imprisonment, scandal, and above all inexhaustible imagination. Based on a decade of research and utilizing work never before published in English, The Marquis de Sade is a definitive work that confronts nearly two hundred years of myth to reveal a Promethean figure of astonishing complexity.

The Complete Engravings, Etchings & Drypoints of Albrecht Dürer


Albrecht Dürer - 1972
    Among them are his most famous works, Knight, Death and Devil; Melencolia I; and St. Jerome in His Study. Also included are portraits of his contemporaries, including Erasmus of Rotterdam and Frederick the Wise, as well as six engravings formerly attributed to Dürer.

Dreaming in Pictures: The Photography


Lewis Carroll - 2001
    But before achieving fame as an author, Carroll was a prolific and sophisticated photographer, acutely engaged in the art world of Victorian England. This illustrated volume examines Carroll's photographs not as the sideline of a celebrated writer, but as the creations of a serious photographic artist, and demonstrates their importance to the history of photography. Douglas Nickel traces the evolution in thought about Carroll's photography in the period since his death, demonstrating the ways it has been viewed largely through the filter of his literary reputation. Key to this have been certain preconceptions built up around Carroll's attitudes toward children, especially Alice Liddell, the inspiration for his first book and the subject of a number of his photographs. Nickel demonstrates how, by overturning the modern myths that have attached themselves to Carroll's photography, the works themselves can be seen again as they were by their original Victorian viewers. This analysis is designed to reveal not only Carroll's signal achievement in the medium, but also a new understanding of Victorian art photography in general.