The Scholar, the Sphinx and the Shades of Nyx


Book Description

Cervera, Spain, 1852. David Sandoval is a sixteen-year-old genius on many different subjects, yet he is more content studying than becoming close with family or friends. When he accepts an apprenticeship offer from a French architect, he is convinced that this will be the biggest achievement of his life. While on his travels to Paris, a foolhardy decision on his part gets him abducted by a gypsy caravan, owned by a living Grecian sphinx. The sphinx, seemingly intrigued by the fearless young man, takes him through the Curtain, the gateway between our world and the worlds of the "unseen," where many creatures of myth and legend reside. When David discovers that he has unwittingly proposed to the sphinx--who appears pleased to have him as a potential mate--he attempts to escape back through the Curtain to the human world, only to be sent to Kyoto, Japan, and that is only the beginning of his problems. On his adventure to return home, he learns a dark secret: a Shade, an extension of the shadowy Night Goddess Nyx, is slowly draining the sphinx of her most precious talents. David might be the only human on earth with the knowledge of how to save the sphinx from a lethal blight imposed on her by Nyx, and he must also save his new friends from a ruthless adversary, the Teumessian. Can one normal boy truly undo the inflictions of a goddess, and rescue both the seen and unseen worlds from her dark intentions?




Comic Agony


Book Description

A companion volume to Contradictory characters, this book analyzes the juxtaposition of the tragic and the comic in modern drama.




Comic Drunks, Crazy Cults, and Lovable Monsters


Book Description

Contradictory to its core, the sitcom—an ostensibly conservative, tranquilizing genre—has a long track record in the United States of tackling controversial subjects with a fearlessness not often found in other types of programming. But the sitcom also conceals as much as it reveals, masking the rationale for socially deviant or deleterious behavior behind figures of ridicule whose motives are rarely disclosed fully over the course of a thirty-minute episode. Examining a broad range of network and cable TV shows across the history of the medium, from classic, working-class comedies such as The Honeymooners, All in the Family, and Roseanne to several contemporary cult series, animated programs, and online hits that have yet to attract much scholarly attention, this book explores the ways in which social imaginaries related to "bad behavior" have been humorously exploited over the years. The repeated appearance of socially wayward figures on the small screen—from raging alcoholics to brainwashed cult members to actual monsters who are merely exaggerated versions of our own inner demons—has the dual effect of reducing complex individuals to recognizable "types" while neutralizing the presumed threats that they pose. Such representations not only provide strangely comforting reminders that "badness" is a cultural construct, but also prompt audiences to reflect on their own unspoken proclivities for antisocial behavior, if only in passing.




Hellboy's World


Book Description

Hellboy, Mike Mignola’s famed comic book demon hunter, wanders through a haunting and horrific world steeped in the history of weird fictions and wide-ranging folklores. Hellboy's World shows how our engagement with Hellboy's world is a highly aestheticized encounter with comics and their materiality. Scott Bukatman’s dynamic study explores how comics produce a heightened “adventure of reading” in which syntheses of image and word, image sequences, and serial narratives create compelling worlds for the reader’s imagination to inhabit. Drawing upon other media—including children’s books, sculpture, pulp fiction, cinema, graphic design, painting, and illuminated manuscripts—Bukatman reveals the mechanics of creating a world on the page. He also demonstrates the pleasurable and multiple complexities of the reader’s experience, invoking the riotous colors of comics that elude rationality and control and delving into shared fictional universes and occult detection, the horror genre and the evocation of the sublime, and the place of abstraction in Mignola’s art. Monsters populate the world of Hellboy comics, but Bukatman argues that comics are themselves little monsters, unruly sites of sensory and cognitive pleasures that exist, happily, on the margins. The book is not only a treat for Hellboy fans, but it will entice anyone interested in the medium of comics and the art of reading.




Educational Times


Book Description










Ammianus Marcellinus


Book Description

Examines the work of Ammianus Marcellinus, who has often been underestimated as a writer while lauded as an historian. This book portrays him as a subtler writer and more manipulative and partial historian, using allusion to the classical past to insinuate different meanings.




The Comedy of Charlie Chaplin


Book Description

From his early shorts in the 1910s through his final film in 1967, Charlie Chaplin's genius embraced many arts: mime, dance, acting, music, writing, and directing. The Comedy of Charlie Chaplin: Artistry in Motion examines Chaplin's fusion of these arts in his films, providing new understanding of how movement communicates, how comedy routines are structured, and how stage skills can be translated to the screen. An acclaimed comic performing artist himself, Dan Kamin brings a unique insider's perspective to the subject. He explores how Chaplin's physical virtuosity led him to create the timeless visual comedy that brought silent films to their peak. Kamin uncovers the underlying principles behind the filmmaker's gags, illuminating how Chaplin conjured comedy from the fundamental physical laws of movement. He then presents provocative new interpretations of the comedian's sound films, showing how Chaplin remained faithful to his silent comedy roots even as he kept reinventing his art for changing times. Kamin also offers new insights into how Chaplin achieved rapport with audiences and demonstrates how comedy created nearly a century ago is still fresh today. Lavishly illustrated with many never-before-published images, The Comedy of Charlie Chaplin provides the only in-depth analysis of Chaplin as a movement artist and physical comedian. Revealing the inner working of Chaplin's mesmerizing art, this book will appeal not just to Chaplin fans but to anyone who loves comedy. This paperback edition features an annotated bibliography and a foreword by Scott Eyman, author of Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille and Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford.




The Literary World


Book Description