New York : a photographer’s city edited by Marla Hamburg Kennedy
Rizzoli, 2011
Nightmarish images of New York have been in the news a lot recently with the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, so this collection of photographs from over 100 photographers is a welcome reminder of the myriad other faces of this great city. Great too that the New York depicted here isn’t just confined to the island of Manhattan but takes in all of its teeming boroughs.
The Hammer story : the authorised history of Hammer Films by Marcus Hearn & Alan Barnes
Titan, 2007
Of course I couldn’t resist highlighting this new arrival! In the 1950s the Hammer studios in England virtually reinvented the look and style of the classic horror movie, a landscape that had been all but vacated by Hollywood since the great days of the Universal Studio in the 1930s. The golden days of Hammer have also now passed, but their gruesome legacy remains as a source of both entertainment and scholarship.
Antarctic eye : the visual journey by Lynne Andrews
- Studio One, 2007
The extraordinary and truly chilling beauty of Antarctica is brought fully to life in this wonderful survey of its visual depiction and documentation over the centuries. Starting off with Ptolemy’s 2nd century “imaginative” map (something had to be down there!), author Lynne Andrews leads us on an utterly fascinating art historical trip that reveals how one of the world’s most inaccessible and challenging landscapes has managed over the years to inspire some of the most beautiful and dramatic landscape art imaginable.
Fire & water : Bill Everett, the Sub-Mariner, and the birth of Marvel Comics by Blake Bell
Fantagraphics Books, 2010
People might be surprised to learn that the Sub-Mariner was the very first superhero title to be published by Marvel Comics way back in 1939, not Spiderman who came much later. Bill Everett was the artist behind this most anti of anti-heroes, and this marvellous volume from the ever-fantastic Fantagraphics Books is the first dedicated to one of the most talented artists of the golden age of comics. As usual from this source, lavishly illustrated!
