Join series creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino for an unprecendented behind-the-scenes look at hundres of pieces of concept, design, and production art--most of which Nickelodeon has never before released to the public--as they take you on a guided tour through the development of this smash-hit television series. Learn how Avatar: The Last Airbender took shape, from the very first sketch to the series finale, and beyond!

    While on a trip to Morocco, Lydia notices a small mark on her hand which begins to grow and spread in thin, tattooed lines that only she can see. Eventually, the marks reveal themselves to be a detailed map of an unknown land, and Lydia begins to understand that these marks, invisible to all but herself and a mysterious Moroccan man named Layesh, will lead her on a strange and perilous journey. The Tattooed Map is Lydia's journal of the days and weeks leading up to her disappearance. Each page contains her daily experiences--her growing shock and fear as the map unfolds itself, her deteriorating relationship with Christopher, her conversations with strangers--as well as the memorabilia she collects along the way: maps and postcards, train tickets and postage stamps, lists of books she's reading and souvenirs she's bought--all pasted in the margins of the journal. When Lydia disappears midway through the journey, her friend Christopher takes up the journal, using it first as a means of recording his search for her and then, increasingly, as a clue to her fate. A combination travelogue, mystery, and ghost story, The Tattooed Map is a mesmerizing, physically beautiful book. Each page is gloriously decorated with the kinds of fascinating flotsam and jetsam that travelers find cluttering their pockets and notebooks at the end of a trip, making The Tattooed Map a book you'll want to return to again and again.

    In other words, perfect." - The Huffington PostAn amusing and captivating tale that's a delightful primer for laughing at the inevitable: If you're a dinosaur, all of your friends are dead. If you're a pirate, all of your friends have scurvy. If you're a tree, all of your friends are end tables. Each page of this laugh-out-loud, illustrated humor book showcases the downside of being everything from a clown to a cassette tape to a zombie. Cute and dark all at once, this hilarious children's book for adults teaches valuable lessons about life.From the sock whose only friends have gone missing to the houseplant whose friends are being slowly killed by irresponsible plant owners (like you), All My Friends Are Dead presents hilariously entertaining stories about life and existential predicaments.The simple yet effective imagery, the personification of inanimate objects, and short, hilarious quips come together to create an amusing adventure through each character's unique grievance and wide-eyed dilemmas.Written by Avery Monsen, an actor, artist, and writer and Jory John, a writer, editor, and journalist. They are friends, and neither is dead. Yet.All My Friends Are Dead is both the saddest funny book and the funniest sad book you'll ever read.Children's book written for adults Displayed in an accessible cartoon form

    Spivet for iPad. A brilliant, boundary-leaping debut novel tracing twelve-year-old genius map maker T.S. Spivet's attempts to understand the ways of the worldWhen twelve-year-old genius cartographer T.S. Spivet receives an unexpected phone call from the Smithsonian announcing he has won the prestigious Baird Award, life as normal-if you consider mapping family dinner table conversation normal-is interrupted and a wild cross-country adventure begins, taking T.S. from his family ranch just north of Divide, Montana, to the museum's hallowed halls. T.S. sets out alone, leaving before dawn with a plan to hop a freight train and hobo east. Once aboard, his adventures step into high gear and he meticulously maps, charts, and illustrates his exploits, documenting mythical wormholes in the Midwest, the urban phenomenon of "rims," and the pleasures of McDonald's, among other things. We come to see the world through T.S.'s eyes and in his thorough investigation of the outside world he also reveals himself. As he travels away from the ranch and his family we learn how the journey also brings him closer to home. A secret family history found within his luggage tells the story of T.S.'s ancestors and their long-ago passage west, offering profound insight into the family he left behind and his role within it. As T.S. reads he discovers the sometimes shadowy boundary between fact and fiction and realizes that, for all his analytical rigor, the world around him is a mystery. All that he has learned is tested when he arrives at the capital to claim his prize and is welcomed into science's inner circle. For all its shine, fame seems more highly valued than ideas in this new world and friends are hard to find. T.S.'s trip begins at the Copper Top Ranch and the last known place he stands is Washington, D.C., but his journey's movement is far harder to track: How do you map the delicate lessons learned about family and self? How do you depict how it feels to first venture out on your own? Is there a definitive way to communicate the ebbs and tides of heartbreak, loss, loneliness, love? These are the questions that strike at the core of this very special debut.Now a major motion picture directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Kyle Catlett and Helena Bonham Carter.

    His impeccably researched drawings, rich with detail, fastidiously reproduce the minutiae of the expedition.Children will love examining the diagrams of the peculiar provisions and the individual drawings of each sled dog and packhorse. This book takes the academic and historical information behind the expedition and reinterprets it for a young audience.

    This book features the most original and sought-after map illustrators whose work is in line with the zeitgeist. Drawing a map means understanding our world a bit better. For centuries, we have used the tools of cartography to represent both our immediate surroundings and the world at large--and to convey them to others. On the one hand, maps are used to illustrate areal relationships, including distances, dimensions, and topographies. On the other, maps can also serve as projection screens for a variety of display formats, such as illustration, data visualization, and visual storytelling. In our age of satellite navigation systems and Google Maps, personal interpretations of the world around us are becoming more relevant. Publications, the tourism industry, and other commercial parties are using these contemporary, personal maps to showcase specific regions, to characterize local scenes, to generate moods, and to tell stories beyond sheer navigation. A new generation of designers, illustrators, and mapmakers are currently discovering their passion for various forms of illustrative cartography. A Map of the World is a compelling collection of their work--from accurate and surprisingly detailed representations to personal, naive, and modernistic interpretations. The featured projects from around the world range from maps and atlases inspired by classic forms to cartographic experiments and editorial illustrations.

    Martin’s beloved Song of Ice and Fire series, which started with A Game of Thrones, is bursting with a variety and richness of landscapes — from bitter tundra to arid wasteland and everything in between — that provide a sense of scale unrivaled in contemporary fantasy. Now this dazzling set of maps, featuring original artwork from illustrator and cartographer Jonathan Roberts, transforms Martin’s epic saga into a world as fully realized as the one around us.The centerpiece of this gorgeous collection is guaranteed to be a must-have for any fan: the complete map of the known world, joining the lands of the Seven Kingdoms and the lands across the Narrow Sea for the first time in series history. But this is just one of many unique maps that aren’t available anywhere else. There is an alternate version that tracks the movements of the series’ protagonists throughout their vast world, along with more detailed versions of the western, middle, and eastern thirds of the world; a full map of Westeros, combining North and South; one of the Dothraki Sea and the Red Wastes; and the Braavos city map. And here, too, are fan favorites detailing everything from urban sprawl to untamed wilds: maps of King’s Landing; The Wall and Beyond the Wall; the Free Cities; and Slaver’s Bay, Valyria, and Sothyros.Never before has the entire scope of Martin’s universe been so exhaustively and fascinatingly depicted. The maps in this beautiful, one-of-a-kind atlas will enrich your reading or viewing experience, provide another view of your favorite characters’ epic journeys, and open up captivating new worlds — plus, they’ll look great on any castle wall.

    These marvellous and mysterious phantoms - non-existent islands, invented mountain ranges, mythical civilisations and other fictitious geography - were all at various times presented as facts on maps and atlases. This book is a collection of striking antique maps that display the most erroneous cartography, with each illustration accompanied by the story behind it.      Exploration, map-making and mythology are all brought together to create a colourful tapestry of monsters, heroes and volcanoes; swindlers, mirages and murderers. Sometimes the stories are almost impossible to believe, and remarkably, some of the errors were still on display in maps published in the 21st century. Throughout much of the 19th century more than 40 different mapmakers included the Mountains of Kong, a huge range of peaks stretching across the entire continent of Africa, in their maps - but it was only in 1889 when Louis Gustave Binger revealed the whole thing to be a fake. For centuries, explorers who headed to Patagonia returned with tales of the giants they had met who lived there, some nine feet tall. Then there was Gregor MacGregor, a Scottish explorer who returned to London to sell shares in a land he had discovered in South America. He had been appointed the Cazique of Poyais, and bestowed with many honours by the local king of this unspoiled paradise. Now he was offering others the chance to join him and make their fortune there, too - once they had paid him a bargain fee for their passage...       The Phantom Atlas is a beautifully produced volume, packed with stunning maps and drawings of places and people that never existed. The remarkable stories behind them all are brilliantly told by Edward Brooke-Hitching in a book that will appeal to cartophiles everywhere.

    Now he gives birth to a cast of gruesomely sympathetic children – misunderstood outcasts who struggle to find love and belonging in their cruel, cruel worlds. His lovingly lurid illustrations evoke both the sweetness and the tragedy of these dark yet simple beings – hopeful, hapless heroes who appeal to the ugly outsider in all of us, and let us laugh at a world we have long left behind (mostly anyway).

    It's Pixar's first feature film driven by a female lead and its first set in an ancient historical period. Against a backdrop of castles, forests, and highlands, Brave follows the fiery Merida as she clashes with the duty of her royal life and embarks on a journey through the rugged landscape of the dark ages of Scotland. At once epic and intimate, the latest Pixar masterpiece weaves a story of magic, danger, and adventure and the fierce bonds of family. Featuring behind-the-scenes interviews with the film's many artists and filmmakers, The Art of Brave showcases the gorgeous concept art that went into the making of this movie, including color scripts, storyboards, character studies, environment art, sculpts, and more. A Foreword by Brenda Chapman and Mark Andrews, the film's directors, and a preface by Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter shed light on the creation of this landmark film.

    So here is the place where the Grim Reaper can kick back and take the load off his scythe. Here's the golf course that's not so much crazy as insane, and the useless maze, and the dark gardens - all brought (incongruously) to life. And here, for the first time ever, you will find out the reason why Death can't understand rockeries, and what happens to garden gnomes.As Death rides Binky into the sunset (of other people's lives), you can at last see what he gets up to when he's not at work.

    300 stunning maps from all periods and from all around the world, exploring and revealing what maps tell us about history and ourselves.

    Now, The Lost Spells, a book kindred in spirit and tone, continues to re-wild the lives of children and adults.The Lost Spells evokes the wonder of everyday nature, conjuring up red foxes, birch trees, jackdaws, and more in poems and illustrations that flow between the pages and into readers’ minds. Robert Macfarlane’s spell-poems and Jackie Morris’s watercolour illustrations are musical and magical: these are summoning spells, words of recollection, charms of protection. To read The Lost Spells is to see anew the natural world within our grasp and to be reminded of what happens when we allow it to slip away.

    This volume presents the work of Edward Gorey, the American artist and writer perhaps best known for his witty opening credits for PBS's Myster! series and for such books as Amphigorey, The Doubtful Guest and The Unstrung Heart.

    This eponymous comic became an instant hit when it went live on The Oatmeal.com and was liked on Facebook by 700,000 fans. Now fans will have a keepsake book of this comic to give and to keep.In My Dog: The Paradox, Inman discusses the canine penchant for rolling in horse droppings, chasing large animals four times their size, and acting recklessly enthusiastic through the entirety of their impulsive, lovable lives. Hilarious and heartfelt, My Dog: The Paradox eloquently illustrates the complicated relationship between man and dog.We will never know why dogs fear hair dryers, or being baited into staring contests with cats, but as Inman explains, perhaps we love dogs so much “because their lives aren’t lengthy, logical, or deliberate, but an explosive paradox composed of fur, teeth, and enthusiasm.”