Neon Visions

Neon Visions PDF Author: Brannon Costello
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807168076
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 554

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Book Description
In the 1980s, Howard Chaykin broke new ground in American comic books with a series of formally innovative, iconoclastic works that turned the traditional action-adventure tales of mainstream comics into a platform for personal expression, political engagement, and aesthetic experimentation. His original creations American Flagg!, Time2, and the notorious Black Kiss, along with his reshaping of familiar titles like The Shadow and Blackhawk, generated acclaim and often controversy as they challenged expectations of the visual design and subject matter permissible in popular comics. Today, Chaykin remains a vital and prolific artist, but despite the original and influential nature of his work, he receives scant critical attention. In Neon Visions, Brannon Costello offers the first book-length critical evaluation of Chaykin’s work and confronts the blind spots in comics scholarship that consign this seminal artist to the margins. He argues that Chaykin’s contributions are often overlooked because his comics eschew any pretensions to serious literature. Instead, Chaykin’s work revels in the cliffhanger thrills of heroic-adventure genres and courts outrage with transgressive depictions of violence and sexuality. Examining Chaykin’s career from his early successes to compelling contemporary series such as City of Tomorrow, Dominic Fortune, and the controversial Black Kiss 2, Costello explores how this inventive body of work, through its evolving treatment of the theme of authenticity, incisively investigates popular culture’s capacity to foster or constrain individual identity and political agency. Challenging prevailing assumptions about the types of comics deemed worthy of scholarly attention, Costello reveals that the work of an artist as distinctive as Howard Chaykin demands a nuanced reading—one that confronts his unique approach to the comics medium, his blending of autobiographical themes and genre trademarks, and his engagement with comic books as artifacts of consumer culture.

Neon Visions

Neon Visions PDF Author: Brannon Costello
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807168076
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 554

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Book Description
In the 1980s, Howard Chaykin broke new ground in American comic books with a series of formally innovative, iconoclastic works that turned the traditional action-adventure tales of mainstream comics into a platform for personal expression, political engagement, and aesthetic experimentation. His original creations American Flagg!, Time2, and the notorious Black Kiss, along with his reshaping of familiar titles like The Shadow and Blackhawk, generated acclaim and often controversy as they challenged expectations of the visual design and subject matter permissible in popular comics. Today, Chaykin remains a vital and prolific artist, but despite the original and influential nature of his work, he receives scant critical attention. In Neon Visions, Brannon Costello offers the first book-length critical evaluation of Chaykin’s work and confronts the blind spots in comics scholarship that consign this seminal artist to the margins. He argues that Chaykin’s contributions are often overlooked because his comics eschew any pretensions to serious literature. Instead, Chaykin’s work revels in the cliffhanger thrills of heroic-adventure genres and courts outrage with transgressive depictions of violence and sexuality. Examining Chaykin’s career from his early successes to compelling contemporary series such as City of Tomorrow, Dominic Fortune, and the controversial Black Kiss 2, Costello explores how this inventive body of work, through its evolving treatment of the theme of authenticity, incisively investigates popular culture’s capacity to foster or constrain individual identity and political agency. Challenging prevailing assumptions about the types of comics deemed worthy of scholarly attention, Costello reveals that the work of an artist as distinctive as Howard Chaykin demands a nuanced reading—one that confronts his unique approach to the comics medium, his blending of autobiographical themes and genre trademarks, and his engagement with comic books as artifacts of consumer culture.

Neon Visions

Neon Visions PDF Author: Brannon Costello
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807168068
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
Neon Revelations tracks the groundbreaking career of comics innovator and iconoclastic auteur Howard Chaykin and the impact of his work on the transformation of American comic books in the 1980s. Acclaimed (and often controversial) projects such as American Flagg!, Time2, and Black Kiss turned action-packed adventure tales of mainstream comics into a platform for personal expression, political engagement, and aesthetic experimentation. Chaykin remains a vital and prolific artist today, yet despite the original and influential nature of his comics, he has received scant critical attention. Spanning Chaykin’s career from his 1980s heyday to the contemporary period, the first book-length study of Chaykin’s work locates the unique power of Chaykin’s comics in their inventive explorations of the question of authenticity in popular culture. It examines the ways in which Chaykin’s work, which demands a mode of reading that is alive to the distinct affordances of the comics medium and the complexities of its history, reveals the limitations of valuing comics narrowly as "literature."

A Vision of Neon

A Vision of Neon PDF Author: Angela M. Graziano
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780983828976
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
A Vision of Neon is a story of two friends - one who survives the complex years of adolescence and one who does not - and the unconditional love and commitment between these young girls. Wild, sharp-tongued red-head Kelsey embodies the confidence that her shy and quiet best friend, the story's narrator, only dreams of. But as time passes, Kelsey's seeming confidence and acts of teenage rebellion become overshadowed by day-long crying spells, invented stories of fictitious friends and thin slashes of scab that mark her skin. In high school, Kelsey descends into mental illness, while the narrator attempts to maintain a normal teenage life, despite continuing efforts to support her suicidal friend. However, both girls must ultimately face one difficult fact: regardless of their longings, Kelsey's sickness has a debilitating stranglehold on them both.

Benchmarking for Best Practice

Benchmarking for Best Practice PDF Author: Mohamed Zairi
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1136426566
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
Benchmarking for Best Practice uses up-to-the-minute case-studies of individual companies and industry-wide quality schemes to show how and why implementation has succeeded. For any practitioner wanting to establish best practice in a wide variety of business areas, this book makes essential reading. It is also an ideal textbook on the applications of TQM since it describes concepts, covers definitions and illustrates the applications with first-hand examples. Professor Mohamed Zairi is an international expert and leading figure in the field of benchmarking. His pioneering work in this area led to the implementation of sixty comprehensive benchmarking projects in companies worldwide. He has written several books on this subject including 'Practical Benchmarking' in 1992.

Steve Gerber

Steve Gerber PDF Author: Jason Sacks
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496823036
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Steve Gerber (1947–2008) is among the most significant comics writers of the modern era. Best known for his magnum opus Howard the Duck, he also wrote influential series such as Man-Thing, Omega the Unknown, The Phantom Zone, and Hard Time, expressing a combination of intelligence and empathy rare in American comics. Gerber rose to prominence during the 1970s. His work for Marvel Comics during that era helped revitalize several increasingly clichéd generic conventions of superhero, horror, and funny animal comics by inserting satire, psychological complexity, and existential absurdism. Gerber's scripts were also often socially conscious, confronting, among other things, capitalism, environmentalism, political corruption, and censorship. His critique also extended into the personal sphere, addressing such taboo topics as domestic violence, racism, inequality, and poverty. This volume follows Gerber’s career through a range of interviews, beginning with his height during the 1970s and ending with an interview with Michael Eury just before Gerber’s death in 2008. Among the pieces featured is a 1976 interview with Mark Lerer, originally published in the low-circulation fanzine Pittsburgh Fan Forum, where Gerber looks back on his work for Marvel during the early to mid-1970s, his most prolific period. This volume concludes with selections from Gerber’s dialogue with his readers and admirers in online forums and a Gerber-based Yahoo Group, wherein he candidly discusses his many projects over the years. Gerber’s unique voice in comics has established his legacy. Indeed, his contribution earned him a posthumous induction into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.

Parable Visions - the Art of Cameron Gray

Parable Visions - the Art of Cameron Gray PDF Author: Cameron Gray
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1411668596
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 139

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Book Description
Digital Art, Photography and Written Works by Australian artist Cameron Gray.

Flickering Light

Flickering Light PDF Author: Christoph Ribbat
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 178023127X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Without neon, Las Vegas might still be a sleepy desert town in Nevada and Times Square merely another busy intersection in New York City. Transformed by the installation of these brightly colored signs, these destinations are now world-famous, representing the vibrant heart of popular culture. But for some, neon lighting represents the worst of commercialism. Energized by the conflicting love and hatred people have for neon, Flickering Light explores its technological and intellectual history, from the discovery of the noble gas in late nineteenth-century London to its fading popularity today. Christoph Ribbat follows writers, artists, and musicians—from cultural critic Theodor Adorno, British rock band the Verve, and artist Tracey Emin to Vladimir Nabokov, Langston Hughes, and American country singers—through the neon cities in Europe, America, and Asia, demonstrating how they turned these blinking lights and letters into metaphors of the modern era. He examines how gifted craftsmen carefully sculpted neon advertisements, introducing elegance to modern metropolises during neon’s heyday between the wars followed by its subsequent popularity in Las Vegas during the 1950s and '60s. Ribbat ends with a melancholy discussion of neon’s decline, describing how these glowing signs and installations came to be seen as dated and characteristic of run-down neighborhoods. From elaborate neon lighting displays to neglected diner signs with unlit letters, Flickering Light tells the engrossing story of how a glowing tube of gas took over the world—and faded almost as quickly as it arrived.

Visions In Poetry

Visions In Poetry PDF Author: Jackie Hardcastle
Publisher: Balboa Press
ISBN: 1452586403
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 499

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Book Description
Jackie's journey into the unravelling mysteries of the spiritual realm started as a casual glance into her clairvoyant skills, a cute hobby, to pass the evenings away. The Angels had other plans. This story is the unravelling of the information, about the spiritual world through her eyes, as she discovers more about herself, her gifts, and her visions that turned into poetry. Written as a firsthand, introductory account of her awakening spiritual awareness, this book is set in a semi biography format, interlaced with spiritually inspired poetry. The reader is ushered through a variety of personal life lessons that eventually lead into discovering Love, Forgiveness, Gratitude, and Truth. Jackie shares with us experiences, which lead her to feel directed to share the messages, the questions, and inspirational thoughts that came through. The reader is encouraged to ask questions, and form their own opinions as Jackie's quest for knowledge opens the doors for people to explore their own views and experiences about the spiritual realm, and to learn more about the Truth of who they are.

Ayahuasca Jungle Visions

Ayahuasca Jungle Visions PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781611250534
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Color your way to understanding the interconnectedness of all life

Neon Leviathan

Neon Leviathan PDF Author: T. R. Napper
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780648663584
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
A collection of stories about the outsiders - the criminals, the soldiers, the addicts, the mathematicians, the gamblers and the cage fighters, the refugees and the rebels. From the battlefield to alternate realities to the mean streets of the dark city, we walk in the shoes of those who struggle to survive in a neon-saturated, tech-noir future. Twelve hard-edged stories from the dark, often violent, sometimes strange heart of cyberpunk, this collection - as with all the best science fiction - is an exploration of who were are now. In the tradition of Dashiell Hammett, Philip K Dick, and David Mitchell, Neon Leviathan is a remarkable debut collection from a breakout new author. "Haunting and iridescent--combines the paranoid weirdness of the best Philip K Dick, the chilly but cool-as-fuck future gleam of cyberpunk, and an achingly beautiful literary inflection reminiscent of mainstream heavyweights like Murakami or Ishiguro. T. R. Napper's futures feel at once gritty and vertiginous and close-focus human in the way only the best SF can manage. Whatever roadmap he's working from, I can't wait to see where he's taking us next." Richard Morgan, author of Altered Carbon "It is easier to write about violence than to write about the aftermath--the grief, the guilt, the long-held trauma. It's easier to write about the shouted argument than the taut silence which follows it. It's easier to write about dreamlike unreality than it is to invest a reader in the mundane and the everyday. And yet the stories within Neon Leviathan balance all these competing demands with a deft and masterful hand." Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of Children of Time "Heartbreaking... it evokes the depth of Chinese history, the successive wars, the poetry that expresses both the love of the landscape and the pain of the soldier leaving home, perhaps never to return." (for Dark on a Darkling Earth) Lois Tilton, Locus Magazine "T. R. Napper's cyberpunk story is a standout [in the collection], featuring a download with the tension of a high-speed chase" (for Twelve Minutes to Vinh Quang) Publisher's Weekly "The story is by turns blackly funny, speculatively impressive, and bleakly moving." (for A Strange Loop) Rich Horton, Locus Magazine "Wonderfully strange" (for An Advanced Guide to Successful Price-Fixing in Extra-Terrestrial Betting Markets) Sci Fi Review "Darkly gonzoid" (for An Advanced Guide to Successful Price-Fixing in Extra-Terrestrial Betting Markets) Lois Tilton, Locus Magazine "Thrilling and Moving" (for Ghosts of a Neon God) Rocket Stack Rank "The whole reads like a fever dream" (for Great Buddhist Monk Beat Down) Tangent Online