Our picks this month. Click the links to order from Amazon.
A mainstay of countless American childhoods, MAD magazine exploded onto the scene in the 1950s and gleefully thumbed its nose at all the postwar pieties. MAD became the zaniest, most subversive satire magazine ever to be sold on America’s newsstands, anticipating the spirit of underground comix and ’zines and influencing humor writing in movies, television, and the internet to this day.
Edited by David Mikics, The MAD Files celebrates the magazine’s impact and the legacy of the Usual Gang of Idiots who transformed puerile punchlines and merciless mockery into an art form. 26 essays and comics present a varied, perceptive, and often very funny account of MAD’s significance, ranging from the cultural to the aesthetic to the personal.
- Art Spiegelman reflects on how he “couldn’t learn much about America from my refugee immigrant parents—but I learned all about it from MAD”
- Roz Chast remembers how the magazine was “love at first sight. . . . It was one of my first inklings that there were other people out there who found the world as ridiculous as I did.”
- David Hajdu and Grady Hendrix zero in on MAD’s hilarious movie spoofs
- Liel Leibovitz delves into the Jewishness behind the magazine’s humor
- and Rachel Shteir amplifies the often unsung contributions of MAD’s women artists.
Several essays are admiring profiles of the individual creators that made MAD what it was: Mort Drucker, Harvey Kurtzman, Al Jaffee, Antonio Prohias, and Will Elder. For longtime fans and new readers alike, The MAD Files is an indispensable guide to America’s greatest satire magazine.
One Tough Dame: The Life and Career of Diana Rigg offers a sweeping portrait of the revered performer’s life and career. Deemed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1994, Diana Rigg (1938–2020) initially found fame as super sleuth Mrs. Emma Peel in the 1960s BBC/ABC-TV espionage series The Avengers. A classically trained and multi-award-winning thespian, Rigg is known for her diverse body of work ― from her big-screen debut in 1969 as Countess Teresa di Vincenzo, wife of James Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, to her Tony Award–winning, leading role in Medea on Broadway, culminating with her Emmy-nominated portrayal as Lady Olenna Tyrell on the heralded small-screen gem Game of Thrones.
This eclectic volume traces Rigg’s career as a renowned star of television, film, and the stage. The author includes insights from rare, archived interviews, encompassing both video dialogues conducted by the University of Kent and Oxford Union. The meticulously curated archival material is further complemented by equally rare photos and retrospections drawn from diverse media sources and hitherto unpublished accounts from the people who knew Rigg best, affording readers an unprecedented, all-encompassing glimpse into her private world.
With exclusive commentary from Rupert Macnee (son of Riggs’s Avengers costar and dear friend Patrick Macnee); the show’s stunt coordinator/director Ray Austin; actors Samuel West, Bernie Kopell, Barbara Barrie, Juliet Mills, John Schuck, and Damon Evans; director Bruce Beresford; and documentarian David Naylor, among others, One Tough Dame delivers an in-depth perspective of a beloved, brave, brilliant, and trailblazing actor.
In 1974, a fledgling company called Tactical Studies Rules published a fantasy game inspired by medieval Europe.
The original Dungeons & Dragons introduced magic items, fearsome monsters, unique character abilities, and myriad elements that have endured throughout the game’s many iterations.
Fifty years later, Dungeons & Dragons is more popular than ever, with film and TV adaptations and millions of players worldwide.
This special edition of TIME chronicles the beloved tabletop game. Dive into D&D’s history, from its start as a small game created by a Midwestern dad to an expansive media franchise, with an in-depth timeline marking all its big moments and landmark editions.
Discover how D&D is being used to treat mental health conditions, and dive into the social and emotional benefits of roleplay games.
Plus, visit the world of actual play through the prolific voices of Dungeon Masters and players, including Critical Role’s Matthew Mercer and Dimension 20’s Brennan Lee Mulligan. \
J.R.R. Tolkien aspired to be a poet in the first instance, and poetry was part of his creative life no less than his prose, his languages, and his art. Although Tolkien’s readers are aware that he wrote poetry, if only from verses in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, its extent is not well known, and its qualities are underappreciated. Within his larger works of fiction, poems help to establish character and place as well as further the story; as individual works, they delight with words and rhyme. They express his love of nature and the seasons, of landscape and music, and of words. They convey his humor and his sense of wonder.
The earliest work in this collection, written for his beloved, is dated to 1910, when Tolkien was eighteen. More poems would follow during his years at Oxford, some of them very elaborate and eccentric. Those he composed during the First World War, in which he served in France, tend to be concerned not with trenches and battle, but with life, loss, faith, and friendship, his longing for England and the wife he left behind. Beginning in 1914, elements of his legendarium, “The Silmarillion,” began to appear, and the “Matter of Middle-earth” would inspire much of Tolkien’s verse for the rest of his life.
The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien presents almost 200 works across three volumes, including more than 60 that have never before been seen. The poems are deftly woven together with commentary and notes by world-renowned Tolkien scholars Christina Scull & Wayne G. Hammond, placing them in the context of Tolkien’s life and literary accomplishments and creating a poetical biography that is a unique and revealing celebration of J.R.R. Tolkien.
By the early 1960s nearly everybody paying attention to country music agreed that George Jones was the greatest country singer of all time. After taking honky-tonk rockers like “White Lightning” all the way up the country charts, he revealed himself to be an unmatched virtuoso on “She Thinks I Still Care,” thus cementing his status as a living legend. That’s where the trouble started. Only at this new level of fame did Jones realize he suffered from extreme stage fright. His method of dealing with that involved great quantities of alcohol, which his audience soon discovered as Jones more often than not showed up to concerts falling-down drunk or failed to show up at all. But the fans always forgave him because he just kept singing so damn good. Then he got married to Tammy Wynette right around the time she became one of the most famous women alive with the release of “Stand by Your Man.”
Tammy Wynette grew up believing George Jones was the greatest country singer of all time. After deciding to become a country singer herself, she went to Nashville, got a record deal, then met and married her hero. With the pop crossover success of “Stand by Your Man” (and the international political drama surrounding the song’s lyrics) came a gigantic audience, who were sold a fairy tale image of a couple soon being called The King and Queen of Country Music. Many fans still believe that fairy tale today. The behind-the-scenes truth is very different from the images shown on album covers.
Illustrated throughout by singular artist Wayne White, Cocaine & Rhinestones is an unprecedented look at the lives of two indelible country icons, reframing their careers within country music as well as modern history itself.
Before it premiered in the fall of 2004, LOST looked doomed to be an expensive, disastrous plane crash of a TV show. Instead, LOST was a massive hit, debuting with the biggest audience for a new drama on ABC in over a decade, reaching heights of over 23 million viewers at its peak, and holding on to a hefty fan-base for its entire six-season run.
The elements that made the series seem like a boondoggle proved, instead, to be a big part of its appeal. Audiences loved the exotic island setting, became invested in the morally compromised characters, and feverishly tried to unravel the show’s many mysteries.
In LOST: Back to the Island, TV critics and veteran LOST recappers Emily St. James and Noel Murray revisit what made the show such a success and an object of enduring cultural obsession, twenty years later.
Through essays, episode summaries, and cultural analysis, they take us back to the island and examine LOST’s lasting impact—and its complicated, sometimes controversial legacy—with a clear-eyed and lively investigation.
When the very first animated films appeared, there were no directors. With no actors, sets, costumes, or sound, what appeared onscreen was simply decided and drawn by an animator. Since early films were usually made by only one or two artists, there was little need for planning. Organization was loose. When Walt Disney started animating on shorts and advertising projects in Kansas City, Missouri, he followed that process, along with fellow artist and friend Ub Iwerks.
Walt found that his strength was in story and character. He began writing outlines, describing what would appear scene by scene. Soon the text was accompanied by a sketch previsualizing the layout, giving all animators working on a film a clear vision of how their parts fit into the whole. Ultimately, Walt shepherded stories from their inception through every revision and gag. He approved every camera angle. He dictated what happened in every shot, sometimes every frame, obsessing over every detail. While not credited as such onscreen, Walt was the first Disney director.
As the Disney studio grew, Walt organically evolved the role of director, reflecting the amount of trust he had in those he worked with, his interest in a specific project, and what other projects he had on his plate. Walt expected his directors to follow his instructions—and to improve the work at every turn.
Directing at Disney: The Original Directors of Walt's Animated Films offers the little-known history behind Walt's foundational directors, such as Wilfred Jackson, Clyde Geronimi, and Dave Hand. These talents directed some of the most beloved films in existence—Snow White and Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, and One Hundred and One Dalmatians—yet virtually no one has heard of them . . . until now.
Take a journey back to the original LAND OF THE LOST Saturday morning television series from 1974-1976. From beginning to end, this book will reveal how the miniature environments, the construction of the dinosaurs and the stop motion animation were created. This book is beautifully illustrated with over 300 photographs, 257 which have never been published until now. Harry Walton, one of the animators and dinosaur creators, will take you through the entire process with his recollections and personal collection of behind-the-scenes photographs and diagrams.
Author and lifelong Bewitched expert Mark R. Simpson – who has been organizing “witch con” Bewitched Fan Fare for over two decades – brings together knowledge gleaned from exhaustive research, collecting memorabilia, and meeting actors and executives from its eight-year run to zap up his own series premiere, Bewitchedopedia: an introductory volume following the creative journey of Bewitched's first episode.
With insider information taken directly from Simpson's exclusive personal archives, this installment of Bewitchedopedia is a magical directory that chronicles the budding comedy's search for writers and sponsors (and a title), the evolution of script drafts (complete with excerpts), where Samantha's famous witch twitch came from – and it even unearths a comprehensive list of casting alternatives for eventual stars Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York, and Agnes Moorehead...all in a cauldron bubbling over with rare photos.
The Art of Marvel Studios’ What If…? takes fans behind the scenes of Marvel Studios’ first animated series. Reimagining famous events from the Marvel Cinematic Universe in unexpected ways, and featuring a voice cast that includes Hayley Atwell, Tom Hiddleston, Chadwick Boseman, and many other stars reprising their roles from the films, the Emmy Award–nominated What If…? creates alternate worlds from the ones you know and opens up a plethora of vast new realities.
With each story, The Watcher (Jeffrey Wright) acts as a guide through these various timelines and raises such questions as: What if Ultron successfully defeated the Avengers and acquired the Infinity Stones? What if Peggy Carter was injected with Super Soldier Serum instead of Steve Rogers? What if T’Challa became Star-Lord? Filled with striking imagery and a bold color palette, these timelines are brought to life in an animation style that is complementary to the look and feel of the MCU and features designs by the guiding hand of Ryan Meinerding, giving the series a cohesive look and feel with the films.
Through interviews with the animators, designers, producers, and writers of the series, readers will discover everything that goes into translating their favorite heroes and villains from live action to animation and how exciting new possibilities for storytelling can open up if you only ask, “What if…?”
In November 1936, publisher Henry R. Luce launched Life as a photo-led weekly news magazine with a clear purpose: “To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events.” Before readers’ attention was consumed by television, Life served as their window to the world, and by the late 1940s, it was being viewed by 1 in 3 Americans. Jean Harlow was the first movie star to appear on a Life cover in 1937, and from then until 1972 over 200 covers featured Hollywood-related subjects, illustrating the strength of the bond between Life and the film industry.
Matching the splendor of the finest Hollywood production, this two-volume epic blockbuster tells the intertwined story of a magazine and an art form that embodied the pinnacle of American imagination. Meticulously researched and curated, it features over 600 images from the magazine’s archives—well over half previously unseen—and stars icons such as Bette Davis, Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, Clark Gable, Steve McQueen, Sophia Loren, Alfred Hitchcock, Sidney Poitier, Paul Newman, Jane Fonda, Brigitte Bardot and many more. Life had special access to these celebrities following them on set, to extravagant parties, Oscar nights and at home, providing readers with intimate glimpses of their lives away from the spotlight.
Volume 1 (1936-1950s) covers the Golden Age of Hollywood: dashing leading men, glamorous starlets, powerful studio moguls, and opulent lifestyles. Witness how Life didn’t just indulge fantasy, but also documented the inner workings of the industry and the collective effort that went into creating the illusions on the screen, from screenwriters and composers to publicists and acting coaches. Volume 2 (1950s-1972) focuses on the New Hollywood, in which major studios gradually lost their stronghold, marked by a shift toward independent films, international stars, and a more diverse array of voices and faces. See how Life reported from the sets of classic movies such as The Godfather, Guys and Dolls, and The Ten Commandments;¬ and with the aid of exclusive editorial materials like contact sheets, tear sheets from the stories, and internal editorial notes, we learn how Life planned and framed their innovative photo-essays.
Featuring introductory texts by photography critic Lucy Sante, captions by film historian Justin Humphreys, and over 70 legendary Life photographers such as Alfred Eisenstaedt, Peter Stackpole, Gordon Parks, Lisa Larsen, Margaret Bourke-White, Gjon Mili, and many others, Life. Hollywood is a celebration of the 20th century’s most important photography magazine and the irresistible allure of Hollywood and movie magnificence.
Comments
Post a Comment