Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography


David Michaelis - 2007
    Now, acclaimed biographer David Michaelis gives us the first full-length biography of Schulz: at once a creation story, a portrait of a hidden American genius, and a chronicle contrasting the private man with the central role he played in shaping the national imagination. The son of a barber, Schulz was born in Minnesota to modest, working class roots. In 1943, just three days after his mother′s tragic death from cancer, Schulz, a private in the army, shipped out for boot camp and the war in Europe. The sense of shock and separation never left him. And these early experiences would shape his entire life.With Peanuts, Schulz embedded adult ideas in a world of small children to remind the reader that character flaws and childhood wounds are with us always. It was the central truth of his own life, that as the adults we′ve become and as the children we always will be, we can free ourselves, if only we can see the humour in the predicaments of funny-looking kids. Schulz′s Peanuts profoundly influenced the country in the second half of the 20th century. But the strip was anchored in the collective experience and hardships of Schulz′s generation-the generation that survived the Great Depression and liberated Europe and the Pacific and came home to build the post-war world.

Piano Girl: A Memoir: Lessons in Life, Music, and the Perfect Blue Hawaiian


Robin Meloy Goldsby - 2005
    Sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, this is the story of a young woman's accidental career as a cocktail lounge piano player, and the adventures and encounters that follow.

The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics


Bill Blackbeard - 1977
    and Doonesbury. Old favourites Katzenjammer Kids, Mutt and Jeff, Gasoline Alley, Bringing up Father, Mickey Mouse, Little Orphan Annie, Dick Tracy, L'il Abner, Barnaby, Pogo and many more fill this collection of American comic classics.

Be Gay, Do Comics


Matt BorsDelta Vasquez - 2020
    The life of a gay and Jewish Nazi-fighter. A gender reveal party that tears apart reality. These are the just some of the comics you'll find in this massive queer comics anthology from The Nib.Be Gay, Do Comics is filled with dozens of comics about LGBTQIA experiences, ranging from personal stories to queer history to cutting satire about pronoun panic and brands desperate to co-opt pride. Brimming with resilience, inspiration, and humor, an incredible lineup of top indie cartoonists takes you from the American Revolution through Stonewall to today's fights for equality and representation.Featuring more than 30 cartoonists including Hazel Newlevant, Joey Alison Sayers, Maia Kobabe, Matt Lubchansky, Breena Nuñez, Sasha Velour, Shing Yin Khor, Levi Hastings, Mady G, Bianca Xunise, Kazimir Lee, and many, many more!

MAD's Greatest Artists: The Completely MAD Don Martin


Don Martin - 1976
    His immediately recognizable style--featuring bulbous noses, wild sound effects, and the legendary "hinged feet"--was filled with broad and daring slapstick and routinely broke new ground. A surprisingly quiet man, Martin's work spoke volumes as he left an indelible mark on several generations, influencing the style of many illustrators while shaping the sense of humor of countless misguided youths. He was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2004. Says Gary Larson, creator of The Far Side: "Don Martin was the one who really stood out."Now, it is with great pride that Running Press, in collaboration with MAD, launches the MAD’s Greatest Artists: The Completely MAD Don Martin (MAD’s Greatest Artists Series). For the first time ever, here is the complete collection of every piece of art Don Martin published in MAD throughout his extraordinary thirty-year tenure (1957-1987). With all of Martin's strips, covers, posters, and stickers--presented in chronological order--it is nothing less than a masterpiece of comic genius. Complementing Martin's opus of published works are letters, sketches, and rare photos providing an in-depth look at the artist at work. Plus, scattered throughout are notes and original illustrations--commissioned for this volume--paying tribute to the artist and penned by MAD's most-notable personalities, including Al Jaffee, Mort Drucker, Jack Davis, Sergio Aragonés, and more. There are also notes by the likes of Jim Davis (Garfield) and a foreword by Gary Larson. A collector's item and object d'art in its own right, this deluxe two-volume slipcased edition will be the season's must-have gift book for the millions whose childhoods--and subsequent adulthoods--would not have been the same without MAD MAGAZINE and Don Martin.

The Complete Peanuts, Vol. 1: 1950-1952


Charles M. Schulz - 2004
    (Among other things, three major cast members—Schroeder, Lucy, and Linus—initially show up as infants and only "grow" into their final "mature" selves as the months go by. Even Snoopy debuts as a puppy!) Thus The Complete Peanuts offers a unique chance to see a master of the art form refine his skills and solidify his universe, day by day, week by week, month by month.This volume is rounded out with Garrison Keillor's introduction, a biographical essay by David Michaelis (Schulz and Peanuts) and an in-depth interview with Schulz conducted in 1987 by Gary Groth and Rick Marschall, all wrapped in a gorgeous design by award-winning cartoonist Seth.

Our Super American Adventure: An Our Super Adventure Travelogue


Sarah Graley - 2019
    UK webcomic star Sarah Graley and her partner Stef chronicle all of their American adventures in Los Angeles, San Diego, and New York City in the latest installment in the Our Super Adventure series!Traveling with your partner brings out the best (and maybe sometimes the worst) in your relationship! Whether it's using them as an airplane pillow, melting together in the sun at Disneyland, or bonding over beers cooled in the hotel sink, some of the best adventures are made while abroad! In this Our Super Adventure Travelogue book, Sarah and Stef leave England to find the sweaty magic of L.A, the secret celebrities of San Diego Comic-Con, and the soaring heights of NYC! Plus, bonus photos from their trip!

Tijuana Bibles: Art and Wit in America's Forbidden Funnies, 1930s-1950s


Bob Adelman - 1997
    Reprint.

Miles and me


Quincy Troupe - 2000
    It is also an engrossing chronicle of the author's own development, both artistic and personal. As Davis's collaborator on Miles: The Autobiography,Troupe--one of the major poets to emerge from the 1960s--had exceptional access to the musician. This memoir goes beyond the life portrayed in the autobiography to describe in detail the processes of Davis's spectacular creativity and the joys and difficulties his passionate, contradictory temperament posed to the men's friendship. It shows how Miles Davis, both as a black man and an artist, influenced not only Quincy Troupe but whole generations. Troupe has written that Miles Davis was "irascible, contemptuous, brutally honest, ill-tempered when things didn't go his way, complex, fair-minded, humble, kind and a son-of-a-bitch." The author's love and appreciation for Davis make him a keen, though not uncritical, observer. He captures and conveys the power of the musician's presence, the mesmerizing force of his personality, and the restless energy that lay at the root of his creativity. He also shows Davis's lighter side: cooking, prowling the streets of Manhattan, painting, riding his horse at his Malibu home. Troupe discusses Davis's musical output, situating his albums in the context of the times--both political and musical--out of which they emerged. Miles and Me is an unparalleled look at the act of creation and the forces behind it, at how the innovations of one person can inspire both those he knows and loves and the world at large.

The Best American Comics 2006


Harvey PekarAlison Bechdel - 2006
    The inaugural volume includes stories culled from graphic novels, pamphlet comics, newspapers, magazines, mini-comics, and the Web.Contributors include Robert Crumb, Chris Ware, Kim Deitch, Jaime Hernandez, Alison Bechdel, Joe Sacco, and Lynda Barry—and unique discoveries such as Justin Hall, Esther Pearl Watson, and Lilli Carré.

Birth Of The Cool: Beat, Bebop, and the American Avant Garde


Lewis MacAdams - 2001
     What do all these people have in common? Fame, of course, and undeniable talent. But most of all, they were cool. Birth of the Cool is a stunningly illustrated, brilliantly written cultural history of the American avant-garde in the 1940s and 1950s -- the decades in which cool was born. From intimate interviews with cool icons like poet Allen Ginsberg, bop saxophonist Jackie McLean, and Living Theatre cofounder Judith Malina, award-winning journalist and poet Lewis MacAdams extracts the essence of cool. Taking us inside the most influential and experimental art movements of the twentieth century -- from the Harlem jazz joints where Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker invented bebop to the back room at Max's Kansas City when Andy Warhol was holding court to backstage at the Newport Folk Festival the night Bob Dylan went electric, from Surrealism to the Black Mountain School to Zen -- MacAdams traces the evolution of cool from the very fringes of society to the mainstream. Born of World War II, raised on atomic-age paranoia, cast out of the culture by the realities of racism and the insanity of the Cold War, cool is now, perversely, as conventional as you can get. Allen Ginsberg suited up for Gap ads. Volvo appropriated a phrase from Jack Kerouac's On the Road for its TV commercials. How one became the other is a terrific story, and it is presented here in a gorgeous package, rich with the coolest photographs of the black-and-white era from Robert Doisneau, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Man Ray, and many others. Drawing a direct line between Lester Young wearing his pork-pie hat and his crepe-sole shoes staring out his hotel window at Birdland to the author's three-year-old daughter saying "cool" while watching a Scooby-Doo cartoon at the cusp of a new millennium, Birth of the Cool is a cool book about a hot subject...maybe even the coolest book ever.

I Just Remembered


Carl Reiner - 2014
    At least that’s how it works when you’re dealing with the legendary mind of Carl Reiner. In his 2013 memoir, “I Remember Me,” Carl treated us to ninety years of professional and personal anecdotes, ranging from witty, weird and heartwarming to insightful, informative, and always funny – usually a combination of at least two, sometimes three or four, of the aforementioned. Carl had taken us on a nostalgic trip through every corner, every nook and cranny, of his life. Or so we thought. But over the next two years, new “old memories” kept coming… and coming… and coming… until, before too long, another book was born. In addition to the above adjectives, “I Just Remembered” adds a whole new batch: the mysterious saga of the gold money clip and the rubber bands; the beautiful and bizarre Joyce Kuntz; the shocking story of Jack Parr and Fidel Castro; never before heard revelations about William Shakespeare; whimsical journeys down the information superhighway via Twitter, Google and YouTube; and for good measure, truly useful health tips for a long and happy life. “I Just Remembered” is the perfect companion to “I Remember Me,” and it will have you asking, over and over, “How could he have forgotten that?!” He didn’t. He just remembered.

Chip Kidd


Veronique Vienne - 2003
    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.

Chainmail Bikini: The Anthology of Women Gamers


Hazel Newlevant - 2015
    The comics in Chainmail Bikini explore the real-life impact of entering a fantasy world, how games can connect us with each other and teach us about ourselves.

Books of Adam: The Blunder Years


Adam Ellis - 2013
    The professor loved it. Baffled by the praise his classmate receives, and intent on becoming an artist on his own terms, Adam plots his escape to Portland, Oregon to begin his life in the real world--only to realize that adulthood is a lot harder than it looks. Based on the blog of the same name, Book of Adam details Adam's hilarious trials and tribulations in his attempt to become a functioning member of society. From his arrest after shoplifting a bottle of chocolate milk to a misguided attempt to make friends that lands him in a shack with a hippie couple who have just skinned a rabbit and are trying to entice him into a three-some, Adam is an amicable guy who can't seem to keep himself out of trouble. Paired with his signature black and white illustrations, Adam's stories weave together an uproariously funny and ultimately charming narrative about a young man trying to find his place in the world.