Aaron Rose, the curatorial mastermind behind Beautiful Losers, produced this in association with zine magnate Nieves for his Other Scenes show at the Roberts & Tilton Gallery in Los Angeles. There's contributions (paintings, photos, found art) from Ryan McGinley, Daniel Higgs, Rita...
expand review Ackermann, Gee Vaucher, Becca Mann, Daido Moriyama, Raymond Pettibone, Gusmano Cesaretti, and Jockum Nordstrum. 30 pages, color and b+w. -C'mish
"Donde Esta Mi Corazon" is like a gallery tour of the unique street art and graffiti culture from South America. Most of the work is from Chilean artist Basco (who works with a lot of colorful native imagery - skeletons, religious icons,...
expand review animals, etc), but there are also several pages of photos, collages, murals, and collabos with notable South American artists like Os Gemeos, Agotok, Herbert Baglione and photographer Paloma. Even if you've seen a dozen street art books, this one is unique in that there is a distinct DIY feel with an obvious Latin influence to the art. 96 pages, hardcover. -snackmaster
For all fans of film noir and graphic novels, I present "M." Photo-realistically painted by Jon J Muth, this was originally released as a four part graphic series in 1990 and has finally been compiled into one beautiful hardcover. It's an epic...
expand review remake of Fritz Lang's original serial killer thriller released in 1931. If you don't know Lang already, you might have heard of his famous sci-fi film Metropolis. This was his first film with sound and has gone down in history for laying the groundwork for every serial killer movie following it. The graphic adaptation was painstakingly painted over two years by Muth, focusing heavily on the Noir element in page after page of beautiful tonal watercolors. You really won't believe your eyes. Even I was like, "That's a painting?" As for the story, it's a beast of a tale that involves the hunt for a whistling pedophile child murderer by police in the Berlin underground. Sounds pretty dark, eh? It only gets intensified by the pages. Hardcover, 189 pages. -C'mish
Fuck This Life is a NY-based zine that chronicles Weirdo Dave's demented and curious collection of physically found(!) images. You may have heard of Dave' from his presence on Aron's Glob (compatriot Neck Face has done some past covers and writes the...
expand review foreword here), but actually locating the zine has been a difficult task. Fatal, the eleventh issue, comes out of its xeroxed exoskeleton, and gets reborn as this 12" x 9" softcover book. It's actually an anthology of the series thus far and it's so potent (and brain popping), you should only digest a couple pages per day (equally to savor and to protect your mind). Recommended. -the mgmnt
Get into the minds of 19 boundary-pushing creative designers and production companies who have produced beautiful and stunning music videos for the likes of Beck, RJD2, Fischerspooner, Gwen Stefani and other huge music acts. The book and DVD combo works perfectly in...
expand review this case, as the book gives insight on the creative process and production, while the DVD features all the finished music videos in their entirety. A good look for designers (especially motion graphic designers) wanting to trigger inspiration and techniques from some of the best in the business. 112 pages, 7.7 x 5.4 x 0.7 inche softcover. -snackmaster
Ahh James Jarvis, master of drawing potato-heads and pear-shaped bodies in a myriad of hysterical ways. For those unfamiliar, he is also the co-founder of Amos Toys, has made numerous designs for SILAS and other boutique brands and went to a couple...
expand review of England's most prestigious art schools (where he studied illustration of course). For "Selected Drawings" Jarvis has picked out his favorite drawings from 2001 to 2007. Tons of great material here - from raw sketches, illustrations for commercial work, t-shirt graphics, mini comic strips and other randomness. It's pretty cool to see the thought process on how some of these small doodles get turned into a finished product. Not to be missed for fans of Jarvis' work. 240 pages, softcover. Completely black & white. -snackmaster
I've been familiar with James Jarvis' work for sometime now (the funny, potato-headish characters that have an alternative Simpsons-like quality) and his shit always cracks me up. You've probably seen his various toy/design projects (like the ICWF wrestler guys, the King Ken...
expand review toys, and his stuff for SILAS), but It's cool to see him go all out in comic book form (I see you comic book heads!) and give context to his funny characters. With Vortigern's Mansion, Jarvis illustrates the story of two unsuspecting young dudes who go on a "magical" adventure that takes them from the streets of the city to the ends of the universe and back to uncover some of life's most pressing metaphysical questions. Sound a little trippy? Yeah, it is - but if you wanna see some uber-cool drawings and read a very fun story, then this one's for you. It's got everything from Patwah speaking Brits, a mysterious mansion, psychadelic substances and alternative realities, strange tribes and weird rituals, a cyclops and more good stuff. I hope they make this into a cartoon. 48 technicolor pages. -snackmaster
Finally! Too Black For B.E.T.: Episodes I & II from Jayson Scott Musson (aka Plastic Little's Packofrats) collects up all of Musson's posters/essays from the last 5 years in one big ass, funny ass book. For a while, these "pieces" could...
expand review be seen all over Philly, posted up with a big picture of Chewbacca and the caption "MY FAVORITE WHITE RASTA," or Osama next to Jesus with the tag "BEWARE! OF PERSUASIVE MEN WITH BEARDS" in Impact bold. Aside from the LOL visual gags, Musson gets pretty deep/political with some of these writings... you know, real world issues, like wanting to bang Hermione from Harry Potter or proposing a reality show where you drop a white contestant off in a black neighborhood. So says Free News: "The best toilet reading passing as art since the Bible!" -Chris Lemon-Red
You guys know Jeremy Fish. The SF based artist does those weird, non-sensical skull-animal hybrid illustrations that people seem to love (personally I don't get it). He's definitely come up the past few years, doing stuff for Nike Skateboarding, Upper Playground, Aesop...
expand review Rock and even those pic disc Serato records some of you might own. "Once Upon A Time" collects a bunch of his work from the 2005-2008, all in super crispy full-color. Bunny fish, rooster guns, beaver boards, and pirate skulls all present and even some photo collages of the man at work. About 120 pages, leather hard-bound with gold embossing and gold leaf pages. Fancy! -snackmaster
The inaugural release from GH avisualagency's new publishing imprint GHava{Press}. This 96 page book focuses solely on the illustrations of J. Penry. Penry's work might be familiar to some, as he's done artwork for prominent NYC bands such as Fiery Furnaces, Blood...
expand review On The Wall, Panthers, and Love As Laughter. His gritty, black ink illustrations are full of character and depth.. dude must have been the top doodler in his high school. The occasional color usage makes the book pop even more like a real good lapdance. Check out the closeup details, it's got that seeping effect. Softcover, 6.625 x 8.875. Limited edition run of 1200. -the mgmnt
Graphic novel slash comic book from Kid Acne. You might be familiar with Kid's work from those irresistible Chocolate Industries covers (Caural to be exact). A muscular little book with thick matte paper, and coming in around 60 pages. Includes a sticker...
expand review sheet featuring characters from the book. Imported. -mgmnt
No matter what phase I seem to be going through at the time, one thing that consistently brings me joy is the feeling of being in a really good junk shop. This is the feeling this book recalls, but instead of a...
expand review really good junk shop, think the best junk shop in the world. The author, Mark Dion, created this mock-department in the Manchester Museum and "documents his encounters with the Museum's neglected drawers and overlooked recesses that are home to redundant labels, orphaned mounts, defunct teaching models, botanical freaks, Egyptian fakes and the minutiae that have fallen through the cracks of museum practice and lain abandoned." The books is full of the best kind of surrealism, not the forced I'll put a melting clock by an eyelash one, rather, the naturally occurring, incidental kind. The book is rich with the most random photographs featuring objects and scenes that demand further investigation. This book is fucking awesome with superior, quirky book design to match. Hardcover, 128 pages. Recommended. -the mgmnt
Mike Mills is huge in our world, but when we're gray-haired, him and all his crew will be Julian Schnabel huge. Better reason to pick up this Nieves zine of his fireworks drawings, a series which coincided with his use of anti-depressant...
expand review drugs. 16 pages, full color with glossy cover. -the mgmnt
LAB EXCLUSIVO: These copies are all signed by the artists. New book from our 20 Jay St neighbors! Morning Breath is Doug Cunningham (aka Dugone) and Jason Noto's design firm. These guys started working together at Think Skateboards back in 1996 and...
expand review formed MB in 2002. Since then they've done a lot of commercial work for hip hop and punk/indy projects (a lot of you will also recognize Dug from his work for the Skratch Piklz and animated movie Wavetwisters), but like most people- that's just the stuff to pay the bills. This book collects the artwork they do on the side- lots of screenprinting, illustration, painting, plus shots of them at work in the studio. Their stuff draws inspiration from tats, muscle cars, pointed push up bras and russ meyer babes, the back of comic books, bail bonds, mexican wrestlers and little kids. It's real refreshing in this world of fake irony, overused influences and "look how cool I am" bullshit. Sure you'll find plenty to smirk at in here, but it's like laughing and sharing a cigarette with a drunken stranger rather than walzing in somewhere and checking to see if anybody's looking at your sneakers. Nahmean? Approx 100 pages. -the mgmnt
Norman Hathaway does all us record nerds, designers, and illustration fanatics a favor by presenting Overspray, a collection of LA's finest airbrush art compiled from the top artists from the 70's. Rock, funk and disco provided the sounds as LA's glamourous palm...
expand review tree lined streets, sexy bikini's, and neon nightlife provided all the visual inspiration for the era. Before you knew it, portraits weren't just stale faces but glistening with colored lights, products were gleaming with dewdrops, and everything shined like chrome. Although it was highly influential to the illustration of the 80's, the artform took the backseat in the 90's when computers began to make their rise, but is now highly jocked and imitated by hot young artists. Check the tour de force of west coast airbrush masters: Dave Willardson, Charles E White III, Peter Palombi and Peter Lloyd. Definitely a collection not to be missed. Recommended. -C'mish
"Forecast revisualizes abstractions about everything from our environ-ment to our waistlines, from the stock market to the Middle East through the eyes of cartoonists and graphic designers who have made comics with a conscience: Ward Sutton imagines a nation divided into a...
expand review red and a blue zone; Paula Scher maps out the Northern Hemisphere of 2100; Elizabeth Amon interviews New Yorker journalist Elizabeth Kolbert on global warming; and Tom Tomorrow looks back on the legacy of Bush-Cheney. Ultimately, Forecast is an optimistic book: using humor, it encourages all of us to take responsibility for predictions of the future and to take action to affect change. Forecast is the latest installment of Nozone. Featured in the Cooper Hewitt's Design Triennial, Nozone is a decade-old political graphic design and comics zine, edited around a theme." Softcover, 7" x 10", 168 pages. -the mgmnt
If you need some grown man business in your book collection, check out this hardcover facsimile of Picasso's sketchbook from the early 70s. Starting at the exterior, this book features a cloth bound cover embossed with Picasso's own handwriting. On the interior,...
expand review you'll notice that the pages are very similar to a high quality sketchbook. Then you'll start to notice things like marker bleeding through to the next 2 pages, and you'll ask yourself what's going on. Yes, this is a facsimile, so the detail is impeccable. You even see pencil rub wear on the opposite page and stray watercolor marks. The first two-thirds are filled with Picasso's signature drawings of voluptuous tang (I see the Reas link now). The last third includes analysis and thumbnails. Hardcover, 88 pages total. -the mgmnt
Oh damn, remember Pre-emptive strike!?! It was Shadow's 2LP of rare singles, featuring those ill Phil Frost's faces that twisted your mind. For some, that was the introduction into his tribalistic urban style which has now grown into an art monster....
expand review Since then, he's been gettin' real busy gracing galleries with his huge murals, large totems, interactive installations, and abstract characters. It's was a real treat to see his stuff live back in 2004. His painstaking tribal patterns are the perfect balance of positive and negative space. Catch up with the man's decorated career in this huge book featuring an inside looks at shows, studiowork, sketches, street pieces, and murals. A must have for any fan and an awesome introduction to those interested.
Hardcover, 162 pgs, 10.75 x 10.75 x 0.75 (W x H x D) -C'mish
First, let's acknowledge the irony in this impressive visual document of the hardcore scene being published by MTV, who would never in a million years play any of these bands on their channel. That said, wow. Not just another book of mosh...
expand review pit and shirtless double-clutch screaming into a microphone photography (though there is a bit of that, too), authors Nathan Nedorostek and Anthony Pappalardo - lifelong hardcore fans both - have exhaustively documented the "style" of the era in a clean, concise fashion. Photos of ancient t-shirt and patch-covered leather jackets, scans of impossibly rare 7" pic discs and cassette covers, stickers, handwritten postcards from label owners - everything which embodies the hardcore/DIY aesthete is here except for the music itself (and let's face it, they were equally important). If you ever doodled the Minor Threat sheep on a notebook, dreamt of hitting up CBGB or ABC No Rio to see an all-day show, or were briefly "edge" in middle school, there's lots to be interested in here. Softcover; 10.7" x 7.2"; 224 pages. -Van Hammersly
The first premiere issue from Rebel 8! Goathedz is a bike culture mag that focuses on art, writing and photos made by bikers for bikers. Made by Mike Giant and friends, it includes photo essays of cycling in Japan by Michael LeSage,...
expand review a look into dharma with art by Mike Giant, and photographs of cycling in China by Eden Batki. Also features illustrations by Stephanie Wilson and Adrian Sanchez, and end papers by Morning Breath.
dimension: 6" x 6"
paperback: 56 pages -C'mish
New book from Gingko Press showcasing the work of Rchard Colman in beautiful form. The rich colors pop out all the sad, morbid, sexually awkward, lonely and fantastic moments in Colman's work. Hailing from Los Angeles, CA, you can see the influence...
expand review of the strong West Coast art movement at the turn of the century in his work. Imagine Beautiful Losers meets Edward Gorey, Henry Darger and Marcel Dzama. This book collects a massive amount of his paintings and tour photos, as well as a truckload of personal sketches. Hardcover, weighs in at a heavy 148 pages. -C'mish
I hate cool. I hate records. I hate trendy hot girls. I hate shopping. I hate Fader magazine. This is what has happened to me. What initially drew me to this line of work, has sucked the sweet materialist out of me....
expand review Now I concentrate on food and multiplying funds. That's what happens when you mix business with pleasure. The key seems to be the ability to straddle the line and this idea was indirectly explored in Ryan McGinness latest show at the BLK MRKT gallery earlier this year. Entitled "Sponsorship: The Fine Art of Corporate Sponsorship / The Corporate Sponsorship of Fine Art". The show completely bypassed RM's signature visual style, and aimed at exploring corporate ties in the creative world. By getting corporate sponsors for a show about corporate sponsors, RM directly exposed those ties and the (insert your college skills here). Anyway, the show was amusing, but the exhibition book is down right educational. Recommended reading for anyone who works in a creative field, this book explores the inevitable run in with the corporate world, how to handle it and how to get bunged in the glory hole by it. Ryan abstracts essays and interviews from trailblazers and veterans of this struggle with such big wigs as Shepard Fairey, KR, Dalek, Ease, Skwerm, Futura, Green Lady, Evan Hecox, Reas, Kaws, Twist, Rostarr, Adam Glickman, Espo and more. The writing and responses are quite insightful, discussing some very visible projects in today's media (Nike, Levis). Reflecting the real life subject matter, the design is straight forward with no pictures and only some stylish type treatments to chew on. Almost looks like a corporate manual. Overall, this is one of the more functional pieces of concept art you are likely to run into. Includes a $1.00 Energizer coupon. 150 pages. -mgmnt
LAB EXCLUSIVO: Each copy of E Pluribus Venom purchased at the Lab is signed by artist Shepard Fairey.
Shepard Fairey's work really needs no introduction. His Obey campaign has blown up to epic proportions spawning everything from a clothing line to his own...
expand review record label. It's incredible to think that it all began with a simple sticker featuring the face of a beloved dead wrestler. His latest book entitled "E Pluribus Venom" features his recent works that were up in the Jonathan Levine Gallery (NYC). This massive book features both the Chelsea and the Dumbo gallery shows beautifully photographed highlighted with the technical details of each piece. When it comes down to it, Fairey's style and message has remained consistent throughout. The iconic red, black, and tan colors and message of dissent to authority and questioning the government is still a constant and doesn't look like it'll be changing any time soon. About 140 pages, hard cover. Recommended. -snackmaster
Impressivo. This substantial book is the definitive book on the graf and artwork of Shepard Fairey. The book begins with Fairey's original Andre the Giant sticker and expands into Fairey's many different progressions and transformations. The book approaches the subject at very...
expand review grounded level, as most of the writing and all the captioning is in the first person. Fairey tells you the origins of his work, his favorite spots to bomb, influences, and all the interesting details. You really feel like you're having a detailed conversation with the man himself. In addition to showing the widest array of Fairey's work (the original artwork for Andre, all the Andre variations, the propaganda phase, those portraits, museum work, etc.), Fairey unveils many additional parts of his story like old vandalism tickets, newspaper clippings, letters, and much more. This is truly one of the best executed artist books I've encountered as it is very comprehensive, but more importantly it gets you behind the scenes. As I said, this book is rather substantial, measuring 12.5" x 9.5" and 2"(!) deep. The 425 pages are cased in a cloth-bound hardcover. Highly recommended. -the mgmnt
This is the latest in the hipper-than-hip world of cool design/art books. Silas (also known as Silas And Maria) has been doing their strange thing as a British clothing manufacturer for a number of years now, basing their collections around an odd...
expand review aesthetic that includes anything from storytelling to pencil drawings to heavy psych to rocks and trees to the art/comics of James Jarvis (currently catching fame for his In-Crowd series of toys). The book collects an incredible cross-section of the art and design that drives those inspirations, neatly wrapped up as the fictional history of Silas Holmes. The main portion is 192 pages of full color pieces on varying grades of paper, with artwork by James Jarvis, Ben Sansbury, Will Sweeney and about 25 others. Also included is a slide out, full-sized paperback (44 pages) that details the fantastic world of Silas and cohorts through words and pictures. We hate to admit it, but the Brits make really cool shit sometimes. -mgmnt
Surely you recognize Che's iconic face (probably even had a Che poster on your wall in college), saw The Motorcycle Diaries and own a "Che Poppa" shirt, but do you REALLY know the story of Ernesto "Che" Guevara? I thought I knew...
expand review the full deal... till I started flipping through this graphic novel that is. This book delves deep into the life of one of the most iconic revolutionaries and political figures in the world. Che's story comes to life through powerful black and white artwork by artist Manuel "Spain" Rodriguez (famous for his work in Underground Comix of the 60's and 70's and collaborating with R.Crumb and others) whose seemingly simple convey the dramatic experiences in a very effective way. Learn about the motorcycle journey through Latin America, how he got his nickname, his rise to prominence as leader in Castro's revolutionary movement, his travels to Africa, and the involvement in the insurgency that lead to his death in Bolivia. 106 pages, softcover. -snackmaster
The evolution of Espo from graf artist to fine artist has been quite amazing. Not to take anything away from his graf career, but he has taken his letterforms, subversive quotes, and sign painting styles to unexplored territory. This latest book, on...
expand review occasion of his recent show at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, is yet another step into the unknown. Espo created this world of signs and iconography that hits you like a powerful blues song. Not sure what the message is, but it hits you in some dark places despite the bright palettes. But if you don't want to go there, just step back an admire the perfect lettering, throwback graphics, and humorous details. For an Espo fans, this is probably his finest book yet. Hardcover, 115 pages. -the mgmnt
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