Media Nugget

The Complete Far Side

Gary Larson
The Complete Far Side
2003

If you've been missing The Far Side since the brilliant one-panel strip went off the air in 1995, here's your chance to relive the magic. Of course, you'll need to hit the gym before attempting to heft either one of the two 10-pound volumes. Still, it's well worth the effort to down some Wheaties, strain a muscle, and get the chance to dive into Larson's truly perverse menagerie of dinosaurs, giant insects, cavemen, and bespectacled housewives with beehive hair-dos. Each and every one of the artist's more that 4,000 panels is lovingly reproduced, including many that are presented in color for the first time. This hardback edition is such a gorgeous set, but it's surely for the serious collector. Casual fans should definitely wait for the paperback.

Jay's Journal of Anomalies

Ricky Jay
Jay's Journal of Anomalies
2003

Here Ricky Jay -- magician, actor, archivist -- leads the reader through an awe-inspiring pantheon of entertainers plucked lovingly from antiquity. This volume collects 16 issues of Jay's original Journal, each concerning a different historical example of a popular entertainer who made his/her/its living through some kind of oddity or chicanery, and each magnificently illustrated with printed artifacts from the time. We meet Monetto, the time-telling dog, as well as Signor Hervio Nano (aka Henry Leach), the "gnome fly," who was able to walk on ceilings. The flea circus, human levitation, dentist magicians -- all your favorites are here. And if they're not, judging by Jay's prodigous body of knowledge, you might just find them in his other book, Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women.

You Back the Attack!

Micah Ian Wright
You Back the Attack!
We'll Bomb Who We Want!
2003

Former U.S. Army Ranger Television writer and animator Micah Ian Wright had a moment of clarity in 1989 after witnessing the effects of stray American bombs on a poor residential neighborhood during the invasion of Panama. The culmination of that disillusionment is this clever and chilling book of "remixed war propaganda." Forty pieces of vintage World War Two artwork with Wright's new text are accompanied by commentary from the Center for Constitutional Rights. The original posters are included, so you can see that the source for Wright's pre-Abu Ghraib "Torture Works!" poster urged 1940s factory workers to guard against industrial accidents. A foreward by Kurt Vonnegut and an introduction by Howard Zinn are also included.

Our Band Could Be Your Life

Michael Azerrad
Our Band Could Be Your Life
2001

Subtitled Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991, Michael Azerrad's book profiles thirteen pioneering bands that picked up the various embers of punk rock and fanned the flames into something altogether different. Indie rock, Alternative, Post-punk: whatever you want to call it, it wouldn't exist today without bands such as Black Flag, Minor Threat, the Minutemen, Mission of Burma, and Big Black. Azerrad relates the well known band origins, but also more personal stories of individual members. He even sets straight some Indie myths that have long been held as gospel: the circumstances of Lou Barlow's exit from Dinosaur Jr., and the fact that while Husker Du's Bob Mould and Grant Hart are both gay, they were never involved with each other. So whether you're a certified fanboy or you think that Thurston was the old, rich guy on Gilligan's Island, Azerrad's book makes for a compelling read.

I.D. magazine

Julie Lasky
I.D. magazine
bimonthly

There are some magazines I won't subscribe to. I.D. is at the top of that very short list. You see, magazine subscriptions sometimes arrive after the current issue has hit the newsstand. Tragic, but true. I never want to be a position to have to pass up a copy of I.D. just because I've got one coming in the mail. In any case, why am I so fond of the International Design Magazine? After all, I'm not a designer. To put it in the words of editor-in-chief Julie Lasky, "almost everything has to do with design." Happily, I.D. feels free explore the whole spectrum of human creativity, whether it's Lasky's wonderful comparison of Michael Moore's recent documentary and the book that inspired it, or amazing design competitions that offer dozens of awe-inspiring objects and ideas, or just design-focussed reviews of products, books, exhibitions, web sites, and more. The look of I.D. is just what you'd expect -- it's well designed, but not overdesigned. It's definitely not "design for design's sake." It's just a design for a really good magazine.

The Great Brain

John D. Fitzgerald
The Great Brain
1967

The first installment of a seven book series, The Great Brain details the good-natured profiteering of Tom D. Fitzgerald, the middle of three brothers growing up in 1890s Utah. I remember loving these books as a kid, and rereading them brought no disappointments. Guided by the narrator, Tom's younger brother J.D., the reader spends the entire book gleefully at Tom's side, rooting for him, the prototypical sympathetic scoundrel, as he threads his way in and out of dozens of unlikely schemes. Perhaps this is where I picked up my love of literature and films that portray the confidence game. The entire Great Brain series is illustrated nicely by Mercer Mayer, who later went on to create the popular Little Critter character.

Consumed

Rob Walker
Consumed
The New York Times Magazine

I used to get the Sunday New York Times, until they switched delivery services and the new management decided I only wanted to read the paper one weekend out of three. Actually, on a percentage basis, they weren't far off. Most of the Old Gray Lady used to sit unopened on my Old Green Couch while I skimmed a few sections and eventually made my way to the best part -- "Consumed," a column in the magazine by Rob Walker that looks at the products people buy, sell, covet, market, and generally place at the center of our materialistic little lives. The columns are always packed with unique information about the products, which run the gamut from dish soap to dolls, from plasma screens to pimped rides. Add Walker's subtle wit and keen insights on the appeal of certain products and you've got a journalistic product well worth its modest price tag. Check it out on Walker's site, at the Times online, or, if you're feeling lucky, get the Sunday paper delivered right to your door.

The Crying of Lot 49

Thomas Pynchon
The Crying of Lot 49
1966

Regarded as Pynchon's most accessible work, The Crying of Lot 49 still manages to achieve a critical density. This short, comic novel offers the usual Pynchonian tapestry of paranoia, entropy, and quantum mechanics. Oedipa Maas, assigned the task of executing her former lover's will, careens around the West Coast, chasing down clues in hopes of unlocking the mystery of "Tristero." Is it a massive conspiracy involving everyone from the Pope to the postman, or just a massive put-on? In the end, the journey is more enlivening than the destination, yet Pynchon's humorous take on American culture is well worth the occasional bouts of befuddlement that accompany his manic prose.

1-Up MegaZine

Raina Lee
1-Up MegaZine

There are plenty of magazines that deal with video games, and probably even a few that get down with gaming culture, but none do it with the panache of 1-Up MegaZine. Beautifully designed in a 100-page perfectbound format, the latest issue offers a great mix of memories, minutiae, interviews, comix, and arcade-inspired art. There's a feature-filled section on Street Fighter II, "the mother of all fighting games," plus an interview with the reigning king of Pac-Man, Billy Mitchell. If you grew up with video games and made an emotional connection with the titles you played, then 1-Up will probably resonate with you.

You Are Here

Katharine Harmon
You Are Here
2004

There are a lot of intriguing instances of imaginary maps online these days, from globes painted from memory to the world envisioned by fools. Of course, even "real" maps come with a point of view. That's where You Are Here comes in, offering three essays and scores of color illustrations on "personal geographies." One of my favorite imaginary maps is by noted Jazz Age illustrator John Held, Jr., entitled "Americana," which shows the rough outline of the U.S. and doesn't bother with much interior detail, except to dot the landscape with gas stations, billboards, and the Twenties equivalent of fast food (Hot Dogs, Orange Drink).