I just want to be known as a clown because to me that's the height of my profession. It means you can do everything-sing, dance, and above all, make people laugh.” – Red Skelton “All I want to do is to make people laugh, to take the word ‘heartache’ out of their vocabulary” – Red Skelton A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history’s most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors’ American Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America’s most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known. Among radio personalities and television entertainers, almost nobody had a career as long or storied as Red Skelton, one of America’s foremost comedians during the 20th century. Over the course of 70 years, Skelton made crowds laugh from vaudeville to performing as a clown, and while he is best known for The Red Skelton Show and his other variety shows, he also managed a 45 year stage career, as a pantomime or one of the other characters he created over the years. Although Skelton was extremely popular in America at the peak of his career, his entertainment was also a throwback to the early 20th century, which compelled television studios to balk at the notion of continuing to air his shows by 1970, even though his shows had spent almost two straight decades with Top 10 ratings on the air. Understandably bitter, Skelton refused to have his shows in syndication until the 1980s, and by then, the same concerns about his appeal to younger crowds had only gotten worse as he and his show had aged. Skelton is still best remembered for his performances and his television career, but he was also a noted artist who fittingly excelled at depicting clowns on canvas. Despite the seemingly silly content of his work, Skelton’s skills as an artist were so impressive that he made millions of dollars a year selling his art and having it displayed. By the time he died in 1997, it’s estimated that he may have made more money through art than through performing. American Legends: The Life of Red Skelton chronicles the life and career of one of America’s most beloved comedians. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Red Skelton like never before, in no time at all.

    Some of the objects are described by future historians; others through found materials, short stories, or dialogues. All come from a very real future.

    

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    

    Bahlool who lived in Baghdad, circa the 8th century AD, feigned madness to escape the oppression of the ruling class. Now free of the burden of normalcy he dispensed wisdom in strange and amusing ways.The Wise Fool of Baghdad is a collection of these true stories, richly illustrated in the Turkish-Iranian miniature style. Every story is followed by sacred verses of the Qur'an and traditional sayings, inscribed in Arabic By Muqtar Ahmed, one of India's finest Islamic calligraphers.Get the book. In the crazy times we live in, you'll probably need a fool to make sense of it all.http://www.suficomics.com

    (Neil Gaiman)Drawn from Gaiman's trove of published speeches, poems and creative manifestos, 'ART MATTERS' is an embodiment of this remarkable multimedia artist's vision - an exploration of how reading, imagining, and creating can transform the world and our lives. 'ART MATTERS' brings together four of Gaiman's most beloved writings on creativity and artistry:❖1❖"CREDO", his remarkably concise and relevant manifesto on free expression, first delivered in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings❖2❖"MAKE GOOD ART", his famous 2012 commencement address delivered at the Philadelphia University of the Arts❖3❖"MAKING A CHAIR", a poem about the joys of creating something, even when the words won't come❖4❖"ON LIBRARIES", an impassioned argument for libraries that illuminates their importance to our future and celebrates how they foster readers and daydreamers.'ART MATTERS' is a stirring testament to the freedom of ideas that inspire us to make art in the face of adversity and dares us to choose to be bold.RUNNING TIME ⇰ 49mins.©2018 Neil Gaiman (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers

    The colors are delicately applied, a visual feast. In short, not only is this tome exemplary of the cartoonist's art, it is similarly an exemplar of the printer's. A well-made book." - Comics Buyer's Guide, on MUTTS' first Sunday treasury, MUTTS SundaysMUTTS is known for its straight-forward, delightful artwork, its positive messages, and, of course, the antics of its charming furry protagonists, Earl the dog and Mooch the cat. But MUTTS has also garnered praise for its creative and colorful Sunday strips.Sunday Mornings is a collection of MUTTS Sunday strips hand-picked by creator Patrick McDonnell. Monday through Saturday, readers of every generation have wide-ranging reasons why they love MUTTS. But Sunday is a special visual adventure. The logo panel is almost a strip unto itself, often paying homage to cartooning of yesteryear, with Mooch and Earl in a comic book cover tribute or parodying a strip from decades gone by. Some readers may have never seen the logo panel, since they are sometimes dropped for space. Those cheated readers, as well as those who have come to love MUTTS' special Sunday full-color strips, will cherish this vibrant collection.

    How charming. That is, unless you have the misfortune of finding yourself in an English Murder Village, where danger lurks around each picturesque cobblestone corner and every sip of tea may be your last. If you insist on your travels, do yourself a favor and bring a copy of this little book. It may just keep you alive. Brought to life with dozens of Gorey-esque drawings by illustrator Jay Cooper and peppered with allusions to classic crime series and unmistakably British murder lore, Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village gives you the tools you need to avoid the same fate, should you find yourself in a suspiciously cozy English village (or simply dream of going). Good luck, and whatever you do, avoid the vicar.

    In the seventy years since, his wit (and the occasional ‘gaffe’) has continued to endear him to the nation, as he travelled the world taking his unique and charmingly British sense of humour to its far-flung corners. Hailed as a god by a tribe in Vanuatu, the Prince has had his fair share of brickbats from the media nearer home, but his outspokenness never fails to raise laughs – and eyebrows.From notorious one-liners to less newsworthy witticisms and from plain speaking to blunt indifference, the Prince does what we all wish we could do now and again – forgets polite conversation and says what he thinks. In the year in which the Prince has stepped down from his royal duties, this joyous and timely book celebrates his wry humour and supremely wicked wit.

    Country musicians and magicians, professional wrestlers and rock stars, all have turned to Nashville's historic Hatch Show Print to create showstopping posters. Established in 1879, Hatch preserves the art of traditional printing that has earned a loyal following to this day (including the likes of Beck, Emmylou Harris, and the Beastie Boys). Hatch Show Print: The History of a Great American Poster Shop is the first fully illustrated tour of this iconic print shop and also chronicles the long life and large cast of employees, entertainers, and American legends whose histories are intertwined with it. Complete with 190 illustrations--as well as a special book jacket that unfolds to reveal an original Hatch poster on the reverse--Hatch Show Print is a dazzling document of this legendary institution.

    He can be elegant as a slow blues." The Nick Tosches Reader is the author's own selection of his best work over the past thirty years, including fiction, poetry, interviews, rock writing, investigative journalism, and criticism. First published in major magazines, obscure underground periodicals, and his own best-selling books, many of these selections deal with rock 'n' roll and cultural icons—but there are also pieces on everything from William Faulkner to organized crime to heavyweight boxing, including the Vanity Fair feature that gave rise to Tosches's major new book on Sonny Liston, published by Little, Brown. Here is "a unique and darkly impressionistic cultural history" of the last three decades as only Nick Tosches could write it.

    Each volume in the collection contains about 100 illustrations.

    Changing the function of a word, or a room, can produce surprise and meaning. In How to Architect, Patt--an architect and the creator of a series of wildly popular online videos about architecture--presents the basics of architecture in A-Z form, starting with A is for Asymmetry (as seen in Chartres Cathedral and Frank Gehry), detouring through N is for Narrative, and ending with Z is for Zeal (a quality that successful architects tend to have, even in fiction--see The Fountainhead's architect-hero Howard Roark.)How to Architect is a book to guide you on the road to architecture. If you are just starting on that journey or thinking about becoming an architect, it is a place to begin. If you are already an architect and want to remind yourself of what drew you to the profession, it is a book of affirmation. And if you are just curious about what goes into the design and construction of buildings, this book tells you how architects think. Patt introduces each entry with a hand-drawn letter, and accompanies the text with illustrations that illuminate the concept discussed: a fallen Humpty Dumpty illustrates the perils of fragile egos; photographs of an X-Acto knife and other hand tools remind us of architecture's nondigital origins.How to Architect offers encouragement to aspiring architects but also mounts a defense of architecture as a profession--by calling out a defiant verb: architect!

    Explore computer buildings (datacenters), the flat rocks we live on (tectonic plates), the things you use to steer a plane (airliner cockpit controls), and the little bags of water you're made of (cells).