Book picks similar to
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog: The Book by Joss Whedon
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fantasy
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Luke Skywalker Can't Read: And Other Geeky Truths
Ryan Britt - 2015
Alternating between personal anecdote, hilarious insight, and smart analysis, Luke Skywalker Can’t Read contends that Barbarella is good for you, that monster movies are just romantic comedies with commitment issues, that Dracula and Sherlock Holmes are total hipsters, and, most shockingly, shows how virtually everyone in the Star Wars universe is functionally illiterate. Romp through time and space, from the circus sideshows of 100 years ago to the Comic Cons of today, from darkest corners of the Galaxy to the comfort of your couch. For anyone who pretended their flashlight was a lightsaber, stood in line for a movie at midnight, or dreamed they were abducted by aliens, Luke Skywalker Can't Read is full of answers to questions you haven't thought to ask, and perfect for readers of Chuck Klosterman, Rob Sheffield, and Ernest Cline.
Prez, Vol. 1: Corndog-in-Chief
Mark Russell - 2016
In a nation where corporations can run for office, the poor are used as human billboards, and tacos are delivered by drone, our only hope is this nineteen-year-old Twitter sensation. But the real question isn’t whether she’s ready for politics—it’s whether politics is ready for her.Writer Mark Russell (God Is Disappointed in You) and artist Ben Caldwell (Star Wars: Clone Wars) take on a very unusual hero in these stories from PREZ #1-6, along with the Sneak Peek story from CONVERGENCE: BATGIRL #2.
Clockwork Boys
T. Kingfisher - 2017
It’s not the start of a joke, but rather an espionage mission with deadly serious stakes. T. Kingfisher’s new novel begins the tale of a murderous band of criminals (and a scholar), thrown together in an attempt to unravel the secret of the Clockwork Boys, mechanical soldiers from a neighboring kingdom that promise ruin to the Dowager’s city. If they succeed, rewards and pardons await, but that requires a long journey through enemy territory, directly into the capital. It also requires them to refrain from killing each other along the way! At turns darkly comic and touching, Clockwork Boys puts together a broken group of people trying to make the most of the rest of their lives as they drive forward on their suicide mission.
The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases
Jeff VanderMeerBrendan Connell - 2003
From Delusions of Universal Grandeur to Twentieth Century Chronoshock, this amusing pocket guide to concocted diseases - designed and illustrated by John Coulthart - features an anthology of slightly morbid, darkly humorous ailments and prognosis srved up by such renowned luminaries as Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Michael Moorcock, Gahan Wilson, Brian Stableford, and Michael Bishop.
Doctor Who: The Visual Dictionary
Jason Loborik - 2007
This highly successful title is now updated and expanded to include the latest Doctor Who lore from series three and four and the 2008 Christmas special.The book goes beyond the story lines to examine the characters, aliens, weapons and curiosities that are all in a day's work for the Doctor. Entries are illustrated with annotated photography and specially commissioned cross-section artworks.
Doctor Who The Visual Dictionary
updates the entries of old favorites like Davros and his Daleks, the rhino-headed Judoon and the Doctor's companions Martha Jones and Captain Jack. Forty additional pages introduce and explore all-new characters like the formidable Donna Noble, the Family of Blood and their Scarecrow Henchmen, the warmongering Sontaran and the childlike, but deadly, Toclafane.
Superman: American Alien
Max LandisRyan Sook - 2015
With the tone of each issue ranging from heartwarming and simple, to frighteningly gritty and violent, to sexy, sun-kissed and funny, SUPERMAN: AMERICAN ALIEN is unlike anything you’ve seen before. This new hardcover includes special bonus features.
The Book of Bunny Suicides
Andy Riley - 2003
We'll never quite know why, but sometimes they decide they've just had enough of this world- and that's when they start getting inventive. The Book of Bunny Suicides follows over one hundred bunnies as they find ever more outlandish ways to do themselves in. From an encounter with the business end of Darth Vader's lightsaber, to supergluing themselves to a diving submarine, to hanging around underneath a loose stalactite, these bunnies are serious about suicide. Illustrated in a stark and simple style, The Book of Bunny Suicides is a collection of hilarious and outrageous cartoons that will appeal to anyone in touch with their evil side.
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
Charles Yu - 2010
. . through quantum space–time. Minor Universe 31 is a vast story-space on the outskirts of fiction, where paradox fluctuates like the stock market, lonely sexbots beckon failed protagonists, and time travel is serious business. Every day, people get into time machines and try to do the one thing they should never do: change the past. That’s where Charles Yu, time travel technician—part counselor, part gadget repair man—steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he’s not taking client calls or consoling his boss, Phil, who could really use an upgrade, Yu visits his mother (stuck in a one-hour cycle of time, she makes dinner over and over and over) and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. Accompanied by TAMMY, an operating system with low self-esteem, and Ed, a nonexistent but ontologically valid dog, Yu sets out, and back, and beyond, in order to find the one day where he and his father can meet in memory. He learns that the key may be found in a book he got from his future self. It’s called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and he’s the author. And somewhere inside it is the information that could help him—in fact it may even save his life.
Invisible Kingdom, Vol. 2: Edge of Everything
G. Willow Wilson - 2020
And when their crew encounters a group of ruthless spacefaring privateers, they might not be safe for long either.Volume two of the sweeping sci-fi saga is beautifully crafted by Hugo Award winner G. Willow Wilson (Wonder Woman, Ms. Marvel, acclaimed novelist of The Bird King and Alif the Unseen), and realized through the bold and singular art of Eisner winner Christian Ward (Black Bolt).Collect Invisible Kingdom #6-#10.
The Rapture of the Nerds
Cory Doctorow - 2012
For the most part, they are happy with their lot, living in a preserve at the bottom of a gravity well. Those who are unhappy have emigrated, joining one or another of the swarming densethinker clades that fog the inner solar system with a dust of molecular machinery so thick that it obscures the sun.The splintery metaconsciousness of the solar-system has largely sworn off its pre-post-human cousins dirtside, but its minds sometimes wander...and when that happens, it casually spams Earth's networks with plans for cataclysmically disruptive technologies that emulsify whole industries, cultures, and spiritual systems. A sane species would ignore these get-evolved-quick schemes, but there's always someone who'll take a bite from the forbidden apple.So until the overminds bore of stirring Earth's anthill, there's Tech Jury Service: random humans, selected arbitrarily, charged with assessing dozens of new inventions and ruling on whether to let them loose. Young Huw, a technophobic, misanthropic Welshman, has been selected for the latest jury, a task he does his best to perform despite an itchy technovirus, the apathy of the proletariat, and a couple of truly awful moments on bathroom floors.
Finding Lost: The Unofficial Guide
Nikki Stafford - 2006
The perplexing plotlines and bewildering array of characters on the Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning television program "Lost" are analyzed and pieced together in this in-depth exploration.
Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy
Judd Apatow - 2015
At fifteen, he took a job washing dishes in a local comedy club—just so he could watch endless stand-up for free. At sixteen, he was hosting a show for his local high school radio station in Syosset, Long Island—a show that consisted of Q&As with his comedy heroes, from Garry Shandling to Jerry Seinfeld. They talked about their careers, the science of a good joke, and their dreams of future glory (turns out, Shandling was interested in having his own TV show one day and Steve Allen had already invented everything).Thirty years later, Apatow is still that same comedy nerd—and he’s still interviewing funny people about why they do what they do.Sick in the Head gathers Apatow’s most memorable and revealing conversations into one hilarious, wide-ranging, and incredibly candid collection that spans not only his career but his entire adult life. Here are the comedy legends who inspired and shaped him, from Mel Brooks to Steve Martin. Here are the contemporaries he grew up with in Hollywood, from Spike Jonze to Sarah Silverman. And here, finally, are the brightest stars in comedy today, many of whom Apatow has been fortunate to work with, from Seth Rogen to Amy Schumer. And along the way, something kind of magical happens: What started as a lifetime’s worth of conversations about comedy becomes something else entirely. It becomes an exploration of creativity, ambition, neediness, generosity, spirituality, and the joy that comes from making people laugh.Loaded with the kind of back-of-the-club stories that comics tell one another when no one else is watching, this fascinating, personal (and borderline-obsessive) book is Judd Apatow’s gift to comedy nerds everywhere.Praise for Sick in the Head“I can’t stop reading it. . . . I don’t want this book to end.”—Jimmy Fallon “An essential for any comedy geek.”—Entertainment Weekly “Fascinating . . . a collection of interviews with many of the great figures of comedy in the latter half of the twentieth century.”
—The Washington Post
“Open this book anywhere, and you’re bound to find some interesting nugget from someone who has had you in stitches many, many times.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times “An amazing read, full of insights and connections both creative and interpersonal.”—The New Yorker “Fascinating and revelatory.”
—Chicago Tribune
“For fans of stand-up, Sick in the Head is a Bible of sorts.”—Newsweek“These are wonderful, expansive interviews—at times brutal, at times breathtaking—with artists whose wit, intelligence, gaze, and insights are all sharp enough to draw blood.”—Michael Chabon “Anyone even remotely interested in comedy or humanity should own this book. It is hilarious and informative and it contains insightful interviews with the greatest comics, comedians, and comediennes of our time. My representatives assure me I will appear in a future edition.”—Will FerrellFrom the Hardcover edition.
The Sheriff of Yrnameer
Michael Rubens - 2009
His sidekick just stole his girlfriend. The galaxy's most hideous and feared bounty hunter wants to lay eggs in his brain. And the luxury space yacht Cole just hijacked turns out of be filled with interstellar do-gooders, one especially loathsome stowaway, and a cargo of freeze-dried orphans.Reluctantly compelled to deliver these defenseless, fluidless children to safety, Cole gathers a misfit crew for a desperate journey to the far reaches of the galaxy. Their destination: the mysterious world of Yrnameer, the very last of the your-name-heres—planets without corporate sponsors. But little does Cole know that this legendary utopia is home to a murderous band of outlaws bent on destroying the planet's tiny, peaceful community.Follow Cole's adventures through a delightfully absurd science-fiction universe, where the artificial intelligence is stupid, dust motes carry branding messages, and middle-management zombies have overrun a corporate training satellite. In the spirit of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, The Sheriff of Yrnameer is sci-fi comedy at its best—mordant, raucously funny, and a thrilling page-turner.
Woman World
Aminder Dhaliwal - 2018
Dhaliwal’s infectiously funny instagram comic follows the rebuilding process, tracking a group of women who have rallied together under the flag of “Beyonce’s Thighs.” Only Grandma remembers the distant past, a civilization of segway-riding mall cops, Blockbuster movie rental shops, and “That’s What She Said” jokes. For the most part, Woman World’s residents are focused on their struggles with unrequited love and anxiety, not to mention that whole “survival of humanity” thing.
Rocket Raccoon, Volume 1: A Chasing Tale
Skottie Young - 2015
Because really, this is the only Guardian of the Galaxy you actually care about, right?Collecting: Rocket Raccoon 1-6