Larry Gonick is a veteran American cartoonist best known for his delightful comic-book guides to science and history, many of which have previews online. Chief among them is his long-running
Cartoon History of the Universe (later
The Cartoon History of the Modern World), a sprawling multi-volume opus documenting everything from the Big Bang to the Bush administration. Published over the course of three decades, it takes a truly global view -- its time-traveling Professor thoroughly explores not only familiar topics like Rome and World War II but the oft-neglected stories of Asia and Africa, blending caricature and myth with careful scholarship (cited by
fun illustrated bibliographies) and tackling even the most obscure events
with intelligence and wit. This savvy satire carried over to Gonick's
Zinn-by-way-of-
Pogo chronicle
The Cartoon History of the United States, along with a bevy of
Cartoon Guides to other topics, including
Genetics, Computer Science, Chemistry, Physics, Statistics, The Environment, and (yes!)
Sex. Gonick has also maintained a few sideprojects, such as
a webcomic look at Chinese invention,
assorted math comics (
previously), the
Muse magazine mainstay
Kokopelli & Co. (featuring the shenanigans of his
"New Muses"), and
more. See also
these lengthy interview snippets, linked
previously. Want more? Amazon links to the complete oeuvre inside!
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Jun 6, 2011 -
29 comments
The book “
Traumgedanken” (“Thoughts about dreams”) contains a collection of literary, philosophical, psychological and scientifical texts which provide an insight into different dream theories. To ease the access to the elusive topic, the book is designed as a model of a dream about dreaming. Analogue to a dream, where pieces of reality are assembled to build a story, it brings different text excerpts together. They are connected by threads which tie in with certain key words.
posted by chavenet
on Dec 29, 2010 -
8 comments
Nearly three decades ago, folklorist
Alvin Schwartz published
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, the first of three horror anthologies that would go on to become
the single most challenged book series of the 1990s. But most of the
backlash was against not the stories themselves (which were fairly tame), but rather the illustrations of artist
Stephen Gammell. His bizarre, grotesque, nightmarish black-and-white inkscapes suffused every page with an eerie, unsettling menace. Sadly, the series has since been
re-issued with
new illustrations by Brett Helquist, of
A Series of Unfortunate Events fame. Luckily for fans of Gammell's dark vision, copies of the old artwork abound online, including in these three image galleries:
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones. Interested in revisiting the stories themselves? Then don't miss
the virtual re-enactments of YouTube user MoonRaven09, or
the dramatic readings of fellow YouTuber daMeatHook.
posted by Rhaomi
on Oct 29, 2010 -
48 comments
It's like a concert tour but with sketchbooks. Get a sketchbook, fill it based on a theme (you can pick one or have one assigned randomly) by a certain date, then let it go on tour and eventually be a barcoded, checkout-able book in the Brooklyn Art Library that you can track. I love this idea.
posted by jragon
on Jul 10, 2010 -
17 comments
There are
Real Fake Buildings,
Real Fake Watches,
real fake books, and of course, "
The Internet's LARGEST Selection of Real Fake Rocks!"
But for truly high-end fakes -- the "realest" of the fakes -- there's the
Museum of Fakes in
Southern Italy, or even better, the
Museum of Art Fakes in Vienna, which includes etchings from "last living master forger from Germany."
"The Museum of Art Fakes, almost directly opposite the Hundertwasserhaus, is unique in Europe. It is filled with paintings from not only world famous forgers (such as van Meegeren, Tom Keating, David Stein, Konrad Kujau, Edgar Mrugalla, Lothar Malskat), but also so-called ‘identical-forgeries’ of Schiele, Klimt, Monet, Raffael and many more."
posted by not_the_water
on Jun 4, 2010 -
19 comments
The book is an account of the battle of Adrianopolis (Turkey) in 1912 in which the author volunteered as a Futurist-soldier.
Futurism (1909-1944) was perhaps the first movement in the history of art to be engineered and managed like a business.
posted by Meatbomb
on Aug 2, 2007 -
14 comments
Book. For thirty-six weeks, a sketchbook was sent in random order between four artists: two in Brooklyn, two in Belfast. Every Wednesday, one participant would receive book. In order to maintain schedule, it was sent out the following Monday, giving each artist five days to complete a spread in response to the one that preceded it. A small portion of each entry extends on to the following page. Beyond this, there was no communication between the artists concerning the content of book during its making. Book's first trip across the Atlantic was on 2 June, 2003. Its final trip was on 2 February, 2004. By the time it was completed, book had travelled over sixty thousand miles.
posted by amro
on Aug 24, 2006 -
12 comments
At least one commander told him, "Follow the soldiers' instructions, because they'll put their lives at risk to save you." But no one tried to censor his drawings or discourage him from going out on missions. -- Steve Mumford is a New York painter who was embedded as a "combat artist" in Iraq. The archives of his
Baghdad Journal make for fascinating reading. He has recently published a large
book of the art he created on this voyage.
posted by Gator
on Dec 18, 2005 -
9 comments
Snap to Grid: A User's Guide to Digital Arts, Media, and Cultures is one of the best readings on the interactions between artists, technology, and culture I've found so far.
I found a quote here by Sir Isaiah Berlin which is very appropriate to my experience and perhaps those who search for sites like Metafilter:
Loneliness is not just the absence of others but far more living among people who do not understand what you are saying.
posted by Taken Outtacontext
on Jul 3, 2000 -
1 comment
