Art & Art Instruction

Shaun Tan is one of the world's most highly acclaimed narrative artists--his stories and images are loved by countless young and not-so-young readers around the world. Drawing upon 25 years as a picture book and comics creator, painter, and film-maker, Creature explores the central obsession of this visionary artist, from casual doodles to studied oil-paintings.

Beyond sketches for acclaimed works such as The Arrival, The Lost Thing, and Tales From Outer Suburbia, this volume collects together for the first time unseen and stand-alone illustrations, each resonant with unwritten tales of their own. Detailed commentary by the artist offers an entertaining insight into the endless allure of imaginary, non-human beings and what they might tell us about our so-called "normal" human selves.

Artists, writers, students, dreamers, and anyone interested in the deeper undercurrents of creativity, myth, and visual metaphor will find inspiration in these pages.

P R A I S E

"Weird and wonderful. Tan often explores the junction between adult experience and childhood memory."
--The Sydney Morning Herald

"A strange beast: dark, whimsical and deeply moving."
--The Guardian

"Like Miyazaki, Tan engages audiences across a wide range of age and sophistication."
--The New York Times

Every so often, a pairing comes along that seems completely unlikely--until it's not. Peanut butter and jelly, Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong Un, ducks and puppies, and now: Dickens and Prince.

Equipped with a fan's admiration and his trademark humor and wit, Nick Hornby invites us into his latest obsession: the cosmic link between two unlikely artists, geniuses in their own rights, spanning race, class, and centuries--each of whom electrified their different disciplines and whose legacy resounded far beyond their own time.

When Prince's 1987 record Sign o' the Times was rereleased in 2020, the iconic album now came with dozens of songs that weren't on the original-- Prince was endlessly prolific, recording 102 songs in 1986 alone. In awe, Hornby began to wonder, Who else ever produced this much? Who else ever worked that way? He soon found his answer in Victorian novelist and social critic Charles Dickens, who died more than a hundred years before Prince began making music.

Examining the two artists' personal tragedies, social statuses, boundless productivity, and other parallels, both humorous and haunting, Hornby shows how these two unlikely men from different centuries "lit up the world." In the process, he creates a lively, stimulating rumination on the creativity, flamboyance, discipline, and soul it takes to produce great art.

A delightful romp through the surprising subcultures of an obsolete format

This volume explores the curious afterlives of the floppy disk in the 21st century through the work of those involved with the medium today. The book reflects on notions of obsolescence, media preservation and nostalgia, and challenges these by showing the endurance and versatility of this familiar piece of technology. From floppy filmmakers to floppy painters and beyond: what drives people to continue working with the medium that is typically deemed obsolete? What challenges and affordances does it provide? And what does the future hold in store for the familiar black square?
By looking at the current presence of past technology we can assess our present-day situation and speculate on the future developments of our media landscape. After all, the technology of the past is also part of our future. This volume features interviews with key players in the contemporary floppy-disk world, including not only artists and filmmakers using floppy disks in their practice but also businessmen, archivists and museum proprietors working to preserve the medium.
Interviewees include: Jason Scott, the founder of archive.org; Tom Persky, founder of floppydisk.com, often dubbed the "last man standing in the floppy disk business"; Florian Cramer; Jason Curtis, founder of the Museum of Obsolete Media; Adam Frankiewicz, founder of Pionierska Records; Foone Turing; Clint Basinger, creator of a YouTube channel called Lazy Game Reviews; Nick Gentry; Joerg Droege and AJ Heller, cofounders of the popular diskmag Scene World; and Bart van den Akker, founder of the Helmond Computer Museum.

A style icon, a trendsetter, a princess: Lady Diana epitomised 80s and 90s style.

With a well-earned place in the fashion hall of fame, Diana's style choices have influenced decades of style. From her ultimate 80s wedding dress to her off-duty sporty looks, and from classic Sloane Ranger preppiness to killer glamor, as celebrity fan Rihanna has said, "Every look was right".

Featuring over 100 stunning photographs of Diana's key looks, Icons of Style: Diana explores how and why she chose the designers and styles she returned to time and time again, and what we can learn from her iconic wardrobe to cultivate our own style.

A fun and complete guide to a modern-day icon's signature style.