Book picks similar to
Hellboy's World: Comics and Monsters on the Margins by Scott Bukatman
comics
nonfiction
non-fiction
fantasy-theory
Immortal: Curse of the Deathless
Derek Edgington - 2016
Basically all he has going for him is an edgy sense of humor-- and, of course, that he can't die. As a small-time fixer, he's about to field a job request best left to the pros, because once he gets involved with witches and the supernatural, there's no turning back. While Asher becomes immersed in the secret world of the supernatural, he makes few allies and some very powerful enemies. At least traveling across space and time will bring him some unexpected romance, right? Immortal: Curse of the Deathless is a humorous, action-filled story with gritty, sometimes horror-inspiring elements. Over its three parts, the book spans multiple worlds: a modern, urban city of the 21st Century, as well as Tír na nÓg, a land that's home to the Fae (Sídthe) from classic Celtic Mythology.
Manga: 60 Years of Japanese Comics
Paul Gravett - 2004
Featuring striking graphics and extracts from a wide range of manga, the book covers such themes as the specific attributes of manga in contrast to American and European comics; the life and career of Osamu Tezuka, creator of Astro Boy and originator of story manga; boys' comics from the 1960s to the present; the genres and genders of girls' and women's comics; the darker, more realistic themes of gekiga -- violent samurai, disturbing horror and apocalyptic science fiction; issues of censorship and protest; and manga's role as a major Japanese export and global influence.
Pen & Ink: Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them
Isaac Fitzgerald - 2014
These most permanent and intimate of body adornments are hidden by pants legs and shirttails, emblazoned on knuckles, or tucked inside mouths. They are battle scars and beauty marks, totems and mementos. Pen & Ink grants us access to the tattoos—and the stories behind them—of writers Cheryl Strayed and Roxane Gay; rockers in the bands Korn, Otep, and Five Finger Death Punch; and even a porn star. But it also illuminates the tattoos of the ordinary people living in our midst—from professors to thrift store salespeople, cafe owners to librarians, union organizers to administrators—and their extraordinary lives.Curated and edited by Isaac Fitzgerald, who sports twelve tattoos himself, each story “is like being let in on . . . secrets by . . . strangers who passed you on the street or sat across from you on the train” (Strayed) and features Wendy MacNaughton’s gorgeously rendered full-color illustrations of the tattoos on black-and-white drawings of the bearer’s body. At its heart, beneath its colorful skin, Pen & Ink is an exploration of the decision to scar one’s self with a symbol and a story.
The Art of Alice: Madness Returns
Dave Marshall - 2011
Eleven years later, McGee returns with a sequel just as groundbreaking as his critically acclaimed classic - Alice: Madness Returns!Just in time for Alice: Madness Returns, Dark Horse and Spicy Horse Games invite Alice fans to take a journey through the wonderland of American McGee's imagination for an unprecedented look at this creation of this magnificent and disturbing world. Featuring an introduction by McGee, The Art of Alice: Madness Returns offers an intimate look into the stunning and terrifying artwork behind this blockbuster reinterpretation of Lewis Carroll's enduring masterpiece.
The Book of Genesis
Robert Crumb - 2009
Crumb, the legendary illustrator, reveals here the story of Genesis in a profoundly honest and deeply moving way. Originally thinking that he would do a take off of Adam and Eve, Crumb became so fascinated by the Bible’s language, “a text so great and so strange that it lends itself readily to graphic depictions,” that he decided instead to do a literal interpretation using the text word for word in a version primarily assembled from the translations of Robert Alter and the King James bible.As Crumb writes in his introduction, “the stories of these people, the Hebrews, were something more than just stories. They were the foundation, the source, in writing of religious and political power, handed down by God himself.” Crumb’s Book of Genesis, the culmination of 5 years of painstaking work, is a tapestry of detail and storytelling.
Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book
Gerard Jones - 2004
"This history of the birth of superhero comics highlights three pivotal figures. The story begins early in the last century, on the Lower East Side, where Harry Donenfeld rises from the streets to become the king of the 'smooshes'-soft-core magazines with titles like French Humor and Hot Tales. Later, two high school friends in Cleveland, Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, become avid fans of 'scientifiction,' the new kind of literature promoted by their favorite pulp magazines. The disparate worlds of the wise guy and the geeks collide in 1938, and the result is Action Comics #1, the debut of Superman. For Donenfeld, the comics were a way to sidestep the censors. For Shuster and Siegel, they were both a calling and an eventual source of misery: the pair waged a lifelong campaign for credit and appropriate compensation." -The New Yorker
Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal
Jeffrey J. Kripal - 2011
From Superman and Batman to the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, these pop-culture juggernauts, with their "powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men," thrilled readers and audiences—and simultaneously embodied a host of our dreams and fears about modern life and the onrushing future.But that's just scratching the surface, says Jeffrey Kripal. In Mutants and Mystics, Kripal offers a brilliantly insightful account of how comic book heroes have helped their creators and fans alike explore and express a wealth of paranormal experiences ignored by mainstream science. Delving deeply into the work of major figures in the field—from Jack Kirby’s cosmic superhero sagas and Philip K. Dick’s futuristic head-trips to Alan Moore’s sex magic and Whitley Strieber’s communion with visitors—Kripal shows how creators turned to science fiction to convey the reality of the inexplicable and the paranormal they experienced in their lives. Expanded consciousness found its language in the metaphors of sci-fi—incredible powers, unprecedented mutations, time-loops and vast intergalactic intelligences—and the deeper influences of mythology and religion that these in turn drew from; the wildly creative work that followed caught the imaginations of millions. Moving deftly from Cold War science and Fredric Wertham's anticomics crusade to gnostic revelation and alien abduction, Kripal spins out a hidden history of American culture, rich with mythical themes and shot through with an awareness that there are other realities far beyond our everyday understanding.A bravura performance, beautifully illustrated in full color throughout and brimming over with incredible personal stories, Mutants and Mystics is that rarest of things: a book that is guaranteed to broaden—and maybe even blow—your mind.
Something Terrible
Dean Trippe - 2013
It is intended for grownups.
Eternally Bad: Goddesses with Attitude
Trina Robbins - 2001
Feminist cartoonist Robbins takes off the gloves and tells the tales of twenty not-so-sweet, totally immoderate, and utterly enjoyable goddesses, including Jezebel, Kali, and others.
101 Movies to Watch Before You Die
Ricardo Cavolo - 2017
Taking the form of a diary, this vibrant graphic novel takes the reader from Goodfellas to The Goonies, Harry Potter to Apocalypse Now in a zany and hilarious exploration of the movies that have shaped Cavolo's life and the lives of his generation.
The Center of the World
Thomas Van Essen - 2013
M. W. Turner and his circle of patrons and lovers. It is also the story of Henry Leiden, a middle-aged family man with a troubled marriage and a dead-end job, who finds his life transformed by his discovery of Turner’s The Center of the World, a mesmerizing and unsettling painting of Helen of Troy that was thought to have been lost forever. This painting has such devastating erotic power that it was kept hidden for almost two centuries, and was even said to have been destroyed...until Henry stumbles upon it in a secret compartment at his summer home in the Adirondacks. Though he knows it is an object of immense value, the thought of parting with it is unbearable: Henry is transfixed by its revelation of a whole other world, one of transcendent light, joy, and possibility. Back in the nineteenth century, Turner struggles to create The Center of the World, his greatest painting, but a painting unlike anything he (or anyone else) has ever attempted. We meet his patron, Lord Egremont, an aristocrat in whose palatial home Turner talks freely about his art and his beliefs. We also meet Elizabeth Spencer, Egremont’s mistress and Turner’s muse, the model for his Helen. Meanwhile, in the present, Henry is relentlessly trailed by an unscrupulous art dealer determined to get his hands on the painting at any cost. Filled with sex, beauty, and love (of all kinds), this richly textured novel explores the intersection between art and eroticism.