52. Percy Gloom

By: Cathy Malkasian

Earlier this year I decided that I disliked surrealism in fiction. Percy Gloom has caused me to reconsider.

Poor Percy, all he wants is to be left alone and secure a job as a Cautionary Writer. However, his journey to a secure a new job has placed him in a strange foreign land where, although he speaks the language, has a hard time finding his daily diet of freshly squeezed lemon juice and muffins (which is the only thing that he can digest that won't give him nightmares). In this new town he meets Tammy, a cultish leader in the town who demands babies from Gloom - as soon as he sees to having his lazy eye fixed. Tammy's goal is to destroy death (although she never learns that Percy cannot die), so as people in the town get closer to death, they get smaller until they disappear. Oh, and Percy's head turns on and off like a light bulb, although the significance of this is negligible.

Confused? The book can hardly be defined by its plot. Rather, look to the beautiful illustrations, the mood and tone that Malkasian creates- one that would certainly fail in any other medium, yet makes this book stand out as a keystone of the fictional surreal.

51.The Engines of God

By: Jack McDevitt

Its been a long time since I've reread a book, but when I found out that McDevitt has written a number of 'sequels' to The Engines of God, I wanted to start from the beginning again. I first read EoG when it first came out about 10 years ago, and was riveted by its portrayal of archeology in the future. McDevitt creates a captivating story around aliens who have been dead for thousands of years- a pretty challenging feat, as most sci-fi goes straight for the excitement of contact.

Engines of God follows a team of Archaeologists who are investigating the history of a race which they refer to as "The Monument Makers", a culture which have left inexplicable monuments on various worlds. The most bizarre of these is a giant city of solid blocks, that indicates no functionality.

With the archaeologists is pilot Priscilla Hutchins, who becomes caught up in their expedition as the mystery of the monument makers grows more and more complex. The group is in a race against time however, as their key site for exploration is also scheduled for tera-forming because of its earth-like habitat. Time is of the essence because earth is becoming more and more uninhabitable. However, the mystery of the Monument Makers may reveal the key to a puzzle that is just as crucial to the survival of the human race.

Stephen King's quote on the book cover claims McDevitt as the logical heir to Asimov and Heinlin. It is an appropriate title to bestow upon him, as his books delve into the human aspect of a believable future with an eye towards scientific advancement and human fallibility.

10 out of 10- I started digging into the first sequel, Deep Six as soon soon as I put down the first.

50. Making Comics

By: Scott McCloud


Ed note: cross posting this at Carrot Revolution, just mention this because otherwise some of the references don't make sense.

Making Comics is Scott McCloud's third book in his trilogy of non-fiction medium-exploring graphic novels. Like Understanding Comics, (and to a slightly lesser extent Reinventing Comics), Making Comics is an amazing resource for artists and art teachers alike. It is also a resource that will likely go largely unnoticed outside his audience of comic artists and graphic novel readers.

That is unfortunate, because McCloud's books supply lessons that go way beyond their genre. As I mentioned in a much earlier post, McCloud's books provide a unique view on the nature of art and the artistic process.

For example, in his new book, McCloud identifies five choices that cartoonists regularly make with each new panel (and often between panels); and many of these choices are ones that we want our students to make as well in the planning stages of their projects.

Choice of moment. What point in time is shown, and why choose that point?


Choice of frame. Choosing the distance and angle of your composition.


Choice of image. What style best represents your theme?


Choice of word. How words are used in a composition to convey information


Choice of Flow. How compositions relate to one another.

The last two probably aren't as universal considerations for artwork outside of the comics genre (although are important to consider in work that does integrate written words or appears in a series.

One of the most interesting sections of Making Comics is McCloud's description of the process of rendering facial expressions. He asks his readers to consider a larger range of facial expressions in their artwork than "happy" or "sad". Through mixing simple emotions and varying intensity, new emotions can be represented. Anger + Sadness = Betrayal. Joy + Sadness= Faint Hope. Of course, these equations have no definitive mathematical results, but thinking about them can help students examine a deeper range of facial expressions in their work, whether they're doing drawings, paintings, or comics.

49. Water for Elephants

By: Sarah Gruen
There's something about Bestsellers. Not all, some get there because they're just as good as they can be. They're groundbreaking, lifechanging, unique, whatever. But some bestsellers, it seems, are just bestsellers because they're safe.

And that's not to say that this is by any means a bad book. Quite the opposite, its enjoyable, well written, and extreamly well researched. Its just a safe book. I don't even know why I'm thinking that's such a big deal to even mention that here. Its just has "best seller material" written on every page. Good story, page turning, safe. WfE the story of this guy who loses his family and joins the circus. He's dropped out of vetrinary school, and luckily he stumbles upon the caravan just as their prize horse is developing some hoof issues. There he falls in love with a performer who is in an abusive relationship, makes friends with a grumpy dwarf, and train an elephant. The story begins and ends on a circus tradgedy in which animals escape and people get killed in the ensuing chaos.

Gruen does a fantastic job of creating a well researched and believable depression-era story. She weaves what were real circus stories and events into a fictional framework, and paints a great picture of one slice of life in a very different time. She also does a very good job at educating her readers about elephants.

Smart animals, them.

48. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

By: David Sedaris

As Kim and I were trading this book back and forth during our flight for our Chinese National holiday, she remarked how that now she can't read Sedaris without hearing his voice. Not only do I agree with that, but for me, it makes the experience of reading his books ten times better. When I read his second book Naked, I had no idea who he was- or hadn't made the connection between the author's name and the stories I'd heard on NPR. However, reading Me Talk Pretty One Day at some point later was an entirely different experience. I was by then familiar with Sedaris' style and had often heard him on the radio. Now, reading DYFICAD i can hear Sedaris' voice in my head- I'd even bet that I'd get the pauses and reflections right, as well as the passages where he dips into his sarcastic voice.

Perhaps that's what has made DYFICAD my favorite Sedaris book so far (although I'd have to go back and read the other ones for reference again). Although it could certainly be the content as well. Two of his stories I've got on the ol' ipod and have listened to a dozen times, and so in reading them, I could hear his voice completely. Six to Eight Black Men explains how in the Netherlands Santa is accompanied by, wait for it, six to eight black men instead of reindeer (you think they'd be able to get an accurate head count in the last few hundred years, Sedaris explains). They may bring you candy, they may pretend to kick you, and they may kidnap you and bring you back to Spain with them.

Another favorite story Repeat After Me is about his sister Lisa, and her parrot, who is trained to repeat motivational sentiments and immitate the espresso machine. The story goes on to be a slightly postmodern examination of how his family responds to being the consistent subjects of his unflattering books, and his unkept promises to leave out certain details. Without giving anything away, he ties his own struggles with his family, and the presence of the parrot together in a beautiful finish.

47. Five Minds for the Future

By: Howard Gardner

Five Minds for the Future is an interesting book to read alongside Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind- as they take a similar approach to preparing the next generation of thinkers, and even reach similar conclusions. Pink identifies six senses, Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning. The cultivation of these senses, he claims, will prepare people with the types of skills that will be most needed in what he calls the "conceptual age". As opposed to the 'information age' which is about the control and accumulation of knowledge, the 'conceptual age' is about how that information is understood and managed.

Gardner identifies five minds, and there is some overlap with Pink's senses (although there is some conflict as well) - the disciplined mind, the synthesizing mind, the creating mind, the respectful mind, and the ethical mind.

Obviously, the attributes of Gardner's 'respectful' and 'ethical' minds have some similarities with the attributes Pink ascribes to 'empathy'. They also reach similar conclusions in their ideas about the 'synthesizing mind' (Gardner), and 'symphony' (Pink). They diverge slightly more in other areas- Gardner refers to the 'creative mind' as one of the five, where Pink identifies creativity as a basis for all six of his senses.

Interestingly, Gardner (attributing Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) describes creativity in a way in which I'm not terribly comfortable- and I feel awkward even criticizing his definition, as he's shaped so much of what we understand about critical pedagogy. However, this is the part with which I disagree:

According to Csikszenmtihalyi, creativity occurs when- and only when- an individual or group product generated in a particular domain is recognized by the relevant field as innovative and, in turn, sooner or later, exerts a genuine, detectable influence on subsequent work in that domain. This perspective applies to the full range of creations, across spheres and across various degrees of innovation (from the littlest c to the biggest C). (p.81)

This seems to me to be a surprisingly narrow and elitist view of creativity! He goes with an example of life in the United States in the 1980s:

Everyone wanted to be creative: too many persons believed that they were creative, even though they had scarcely begun to master a domain, and even though no expert in the field would have judged them as creative. (p.85)

It sounds like he is describing innovation, not creativity. If not, this must ring false to any art teacher who has seen the burst of creative energy in a student who has simply managed to discover that red and blue make purple for the first time. However, this complaint is indeed just a tangent. You don't need to accept or agree with his definition of creativity to appreciate his overall message.

The critical conclusion that both books reach is the same- there is a new skill set that will define success in the 21st century. More importantly, whether we refer to these disciplines as "minds" or "senses" - it is clear that traditional modes of learning are no longer adequate for navigating an interconnected and rapidly changing world. Both Gardner and Pink suggest that these new perspectives are necessary for progressing forward.

Both of these books hold deep significance for all teachers, but specifically, they embrace the kind of learning that takes place in art classrooms- an unending investigation into new possibilities.

46. The Riddle-Master of Hed

By: Patricia A. McKillip

Despite glowing reviews on Amazon, and a high recommendation from Meezly, I found this book to be tedious and rough around the edges. I didn't find the world that McKillip created to be that interesting, the characters didn't seem very well defined- even the writing seemed awkward at times. Theres very little that's descriptive, which I find necessary in creating a believable fantasy world. Finally, as Joseph Campbell points out, many heroes refuse the call when it is first brought to them- but our hero from Hed refuses the call way to long, to the point of which it becomes the main focus of the first book. That being said, I'm curios to go on to the second book because one of the first reviews on Amazon suggests that the first book is by far the weakest link in the series...

@Meez- did you find this to be true?

On the other hand, because of the praise this series has received, I thought I must be missing something, and so I plowed on. The book does have an interesting cliff-hanger ending that would lead me to consider reading further. I'll wait for Meezley's answer about the other two books as far as that goes. In the meantime, however, I'll put this one down for now.

45. War of the Worlds

By: H.G. Wells
Illustration by: Ian Edington D'Israeli

At first I wasn't so impressed by the faithful reproduction of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds in graphic novel form. The familiar opening that I once read not so long ago, and saw reproduced in three movie versions didn't seem to hold any new insights into this classic. The illustration didn't strike me as anything special, and this graphic novel came quickly on the heels of the second installment of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen- a unique and new retelling Wells' story.

However, after a bit of time with it, it delivers. I'm a big fan of the original novel and the classic film (and I have to say, as stupid as it it, I did enjoy the Tom Cruise remake for pure giant-machines-blowing-shit-up factor). Hohttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifwever, neither film visualize the original Victorian setting that Wells described, and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen doesn't focus on the story in the same way. There was another terrible movie adaptation of the original story, but its not even worth mentioning as a serious effort. In fact, I showed it to my students one day as a joke.

Once D'Israeli's version gets rolling, the imagery brings new life to the story. The panels are often drawn from extreme angles that give a sense of how small the humans are compared to their massive invaders.

The nice thing is, that the whole graphic novel is available online for free. Thanks, Dark Horse!

44. Snake Agent

By: Liz Williams

Detective Inspector Chen's latest case is to find a missing girl. The problem is, that the missing girl is dead. That wouldn't be so unusual, except that her death isn't the mystery- its what happened to her after she died- and that wouldn't be as unusual, except that its not her body that is missing, its her ghost.

Detective Chen is The Singapore 3 (Singapore is now a chain city) police department's Snake Agent, the one who deals with their supernatural cases.

SA is an interesting book, the problem is that it crosses too many genres. Its sort of Blade Runner, meets The Matrix meets John Constantine. If that sounds like a lot of genre bending, let's remember that Blade Runner is also Film Noir meets Sci Fi, The Matrix is cyberpunk meets hong kong action.

In other words, Snake Agent is a Hard-Boiled-Sci-Fi-Cyberpunk-Kung-Fu-Film-Noir-Fire-and-Brimstone-Fantasy. Theres even a little Lovecraft "ancient gods" thing thrown in there for good measure.

Yes, its a little too much of everything.

The universe that Williams' creates is so dependent on all of these different worlds working together, which I'm not entirely sure that they do. The cyberpunk theme gets kind of lost in the middle, the Noir comes and goes. The Constantine-in-Asia thing gets most of the attention, and some of the other pieces just get distracting.

The characters are familiar and flat, and talk in smart dialog as if they expect to be in a movie version soon.

That being said, the book is still an enjoyable read. The plot is certainly original, the smart dialog is... smart. I'm not sure that I'll run out to get the next "Inspector Detective Chen" novel, but if it looks like it finds its ground a little better, I could be persuaded to pick it up.

43. Marvel's Eternals

By: Neil Gaiman
Illustrated by: John Romita Jr.

The Eternals is Gaiman's re-envisioning of a Marvel franchise from the 60's, about immortal guardians of the earth with super human powers- more powerful than your average super-hero - but significantly less powerful than the giant god-like Celestials that come back to visit earth to check on things every once in a while.

Although familiar to the superhero genre, Romita's beautiful panels do take a step above your run-of-the-mill comic. His compositions have great depth and color, and the scenes with the gargantuan eternals and puny humans are fantastic.

Gaiman's writing is engaging and he certainly breathes new life into the series (it seems as if this is just the beginning). However, he certainly doesn't take the same risks that he took in re-imagining Sandman, which remains unchallenged by The Eternals as his masterpiece.

42. Demo

By: Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan

I've read a good series of great to decent graphic novels this year after being deprived of anything from that medium for about 10 months. Demo represents the end of that run.

The idea behind Demo is that its a series of unrelated vignettes about kids with superpowers who are struggling to make sense of their lives when they reach some kind of crossroads. Sounds like an ok premise- a Gen Y (or is it Z now?) alternative take on the superhero topic. Guarenteed to have some angst and sullen teens with super powers.

However.

The stories start off pretty well. A young girl who can't control her destructive power begs her boyfriend to take her away as she weans herself off the meds that keep her in check. Kids and their angst about overprescribed meds. I can buy that one.

Then it begins to go downhill. A superstrong guy stops a robbery. Ok. A girl finds out she can't die when her brother proves it to her by driving into a tree after their father's funeral. Meh. As the stories wind down, we find one story where its unclear if the teen has a super power or is just super-manipulative. The last two stories don't even have characters with super powers in them. I'm not even sure that they have a point.

As to the artwork, Cloonan's style goes back and fourth between gritty and edgy to anime-inspired, which is anything but versitle. If the story is serious, its gritty. If its humorus, its anime.

Somewhere along the line this writer/illustrator team had a good idea. Then they tried to make a series out of it. The stupid thing about this is that there are so many possibilities how does the well run dry after just a few? Sloppy. Lazy.

Skip it. Go watch Heroes instead.

41. Jailbird

By: Kurt Vonnegut


You have to wonder about someone as briliant as Vonnegut. If he never wrote Slaughterhouse Five or Cat's Cradle or Breakfast of Champions - would his lesser known works stand out as masterpieces with no greater work by their author to overshadow them? I wonder, because in comparison to those (as well as one of my favorites, The Sirens of Titan), Jailbird is not particularly remarkable. However, although it is absent the Science Fiction that makes Vonnegut's books so bizzare, it is still chock full of its own vonnegoodness.

I'm spacing out the last few Vonnegut books I haven't read yet (since there will be no more), and I started this one because I wanted to see what wisdom his book about a corrupt government official would reveal. Would this book, written in 1980 still be relevent today?

"You know what is finally going to kill this planet?" I said.

"Cholesterol!" said Frank Ubriaco.

"A total lack of seriousness," I said. "nobody gives a damn anymore about what's really going on, what's going to happen next, or how we ever got into such a mess in the first place".

Bingo.

40. A Whole New Mind

By: Daniel Pink

As more people develop a a design sensibility, we'll increasingly be able to deploy design for its ultimate purpose: changing the world.

That was the statement that most resonated with me from this book. Its a powerful thought and a challenge to art educators, as we consider how to prepare students for the "real world".

Here is how he supports that statement: he discusses design as the meaning that is added to the function. His example - the toaster. The toaster spends about 1% of its existence in its functional role - making toast. It spends the other 99% of its existence in its design role- looking nice in your kitchen. Design, therefore drives economy. Design changes history- had the "butterfly ballot" in Palm Beach County, Florida been designed better, residents would not have mistakenly voted en-masse for Pat Buchanan over Al Gore, affecting the entire future of the country. Design is how we shape the world, and how we give meaning to our lives, as Pink describes it "To be a designer is to be an agent of change".

What an amazing challenge for art education.

Pink's book serves as a road map for educating students in the 21st century. At the end of the information age, the need for rote memorization and fact recall becomes less important. The internet brings facts instantly to our fingertips. Now, in what Pink refers to as the dawn of the Conceptual age the ability to synthesize information is the key to success as we prepare students for both business and in life.

Pink describes six aptitudes that are necessary for this synthesis, and for surviving in the conceptual age. Here's the 'cliff notes' version:

Design: The ability to create something that is beautiful and meaningful.
Story: The ability to communicate and become self-aware.
Symphony: The ability to see the big picture.
Empathy: The ability to understand others.
Play: The ability to engage humor and balance seriousness.
Meaning: The ability to pursue purpose.

Of course, that quick description doesn't do his thesis any justice. I may be preaching to the converted, but Pink's book is a must read for all educators, especially art educators.

39. American Born Chinese

By: Gene Luen Yang

ABC is a fantastic combination of three separate stories, the myth of the monkey king, a teenager who is troubled by his cousin "Chin-Kee" the embodiment of chinese stereotype, and a young boy uncomfortable with his identity. Wonderfully conceived, the stories are simple and humorous, and yet reflect and play off each other in a surprising manner.

Although this isn't an autobiography, its great reading to follow Persepolis and Blankets as a graphic novel about identity. Add in Art Spiegelman's Maus and you've got enough a nice little series of personal tales in graphic novels- A girl growing up in Iran during the revolution, a man struggling through the holocaust (and later a son in America who is trying to relate to him), A young man struggling with hypocrisies and abuses in middle America, and a Chinese American struggling to decide who he is.

38. Blankets

By: Craig Thompson
Blankets is an interesting book to follow Persepolis, as it is also an autobiographical graphic novel - although the similarities between the books are few. In Persepolis 1 & 2 I felt the child-like drawings and lack of a real integration of words and images disengaged me from the story. The drawings did nothing but illustrate what the narrator described. in Blankets, however, Thompson's expressive style and use of images to communicate ideas that words cannot (and vice versa) make this work much more engaging. This was important, becase Blankets is not the kind of story that I could see myself easily getting in to. The story bounces back and fourth between the author's life as a fifth grader and a high school student. We find that as a child he is abused and feels like a failure for being unable to prevent his brother from the same abuse. As a high school student, he is caught between his first true love and his love of God.

Yeah, not my cup of tea. And the whole thing about falling out of love with god because you realize that the people who are preaching to you (a) don't walk the talk, (b) walk the talk and are therefore small minded, or (c) downright hypocrites - is obvious and familiar. And so if we're going to read another story / watch another movie / listen to another song about this sort of thing, it has to be unique in other ways.

And here, it is. Thompson's inner struggle is realized in the comic form in a way that it couldn't be represented in any other medium -and it is a perfect example of why comics should be taken seriously - because it is simply another form of expression. A painting exists in one medium, movies exist in one medium - and "good comics" have often been seen only as a prelude to a movie or TV version.

Basically, its an overly sentimental, somewhat familiar, story of a first love, which adds up to something that I'd probably have avoided it had I read a synopsis first. That being said, it was actually quite good.

37. Ancient Shores

By: Jack McDevitt

McDevitt is a master of writing engaging, suspenseful, science fiction that never falls outside of a reasonable suspension of disbelief. He also likes archeaology and works it into his novels quite well. Now all he needs is a publisher who will provide him with some decent cover art. Look at this book! What junky typeface! Whats with the 1980's Grace Jones haircut? Who put a red and yellow title on a gray book with a splash of green and purple in between?

Honestly, I wouldn't even have picked this up if I hadn't noticed "Author of Engines of God" in the little print under his name.

I had picked up Engines of God, McDevitt's debut novel, a few years back when it first came out. I knew nothing about it (and the cover was slightly less appalling), but whatever bookstore I was at was highlighting it because he had just done a big signing.

Anyway, I picked it up, and tore through it- Engines of God was a brilliant story about archeology in the future, as an ancient mysterious alien civilization is uncovered. Absolute page turner from beginning to end, highly recommended. I had lent the book out at some point, and forgotten the author's name, and he'd fallen off my radar- it seems that he's written a few books in the intervening years!

Ancient Shores is almost as good. Great story, engaging from the beginning, and while the ending isn't bad, its a little bit clunky- and it veers in a slightly less interesting direction than the book would previous indicate.

The story opens as a farmer and his son dig up a small triangular object on their farm that reveals a larger yacht... only there hasn't been a lake for sailing in the vicinity for 10,000 years- and the boat is in perfect condition.

35 & 36: Persepolis 1 & 2

By: Marjane Satrapi

These two books comprise the autobiography of author Marjane Satrapi's life growing up in Iran. Persepolis 1 is the story of her life as a child, growing up during the cultural revolution. Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return is about Satrapi's return to Iran as a teenager after being sent to Austria to escape the lunacy of the regime.

Both books provide an excellent and in depth view of life in Iran in a time when it is caught between fundamentalism and westernization. It portrays the country in a way rarely seen in the west- from the point of view of a child who wants to listen to rock music and dress in modern fashions. Whose immediate family opposes the mullahs in secret, and whose relatives do in the open, and pay the consequences. The illustration however, doesn't seem to add much to the story. Satrapi's images are very plain, with most drawn from a similar point of view and distance from the subject. The illustrations simply support the story. Unlike Moonshadow, the images and the text do not seem to be inexorably linked.

Overall a good read, specifically for the insight into life in Iran, over the period of about 20 years; but as a graphic novel, it doesn't have a life of its own.

34. Moonshadow

By: John Marc DeMatteis
Illustrated by: Jon J. Muth

I was thinking about this book when I went home for the summer and dug it out of my piles of packed-away books because I had an intense desire to read it again. After reading it the first time, it quickly became one of my favorite graphic novels (along with the Sandman series and Maus). And yet, I liked it even more this time.

One thing that I hadn't liked about Moonshadow was the inconsistency - Muth's beautiful watercolors are often broken up by ridiculously proportioned cartoons- however, this time however, I enjoyed that aspect of it more. Where on first reading I found the variations in style distracting, this time I appreciated more how his changing images better supported the changing tones of the story.

Moonshadow was born in a Zoo, but not just any zoo. A human zoo, kept by a strange race of sentient orbs called G'L-Doses - their only trait besides their odd appearance is their penchant for chaos. They act without reason, without moral code, or even an adherence to the laws of physics (or reality, for that matter). In one such act of random chaos, one of the G'L-Doses marries a human and fathers the son that will one day be Moonshadow.

From the Zoo, Moonshadow embarks on an epic journey that takes him across the universe with a few different companions. The most notable of these is Ira, a Cousin-It looking thing with a bowler hat and a penchant for anything inappropriate. Moon's journey takes him through encounters with death, war, love, religion gone wrong, capitalism gone wrong, and capitalistic religion gone very wrong.

The real gem of the story though, is the epilouge, the content of which I won't spoil here. It is unexpected, unlike the rest of the book, and beautifully done by both artist and writer.

Moonshadow tells a story that is unique through its combination of the surreal, the tragic, and the humorous in an epic story. However, it is also the beautiful artwork by Jon Muth that really sets this one apart - almost every page is a masterpiece.

33. The Crystal Cave

By: Mary Stewart

What I find most remarkable about this book, which has easily slipped into the list of my favorite fantasy books of all time- is that there is actually very little in the way of fantasy at all. For a book about one of the most famous wizards of all time, there is almost no magic. Not one spell cast, no mention of faeries, no goblins or elves. There is only the mysterious visions of the crystal cave, the uncontrolled premonitions, and a single glance in a crystal ball.

Just as ironic is the fact that I happened to love a book is predicated on something I have absolutly no belief in - a divine will, a master plan, an unquestioning surrender to the will of god. What makes Mary Stewart's writing so brilliant that she can write a nearly magic-less story about a magician, and enthrall a staunch believer in free will to a story of fate? It must be magic.

Thanks, Castaway, for reminding me about this one. I'm glad I got into this series after failing to breech it years ago back in middle school. The only problem now is finding a copy of The Hollow Hills in China!

32. 99 Ways to Tell a Story

By: Matt Madden

Matt Madden's book takes a cue from Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics by using comics to teach about comics. Of course, the book is really about style, and can be applied to any art form.

The image at the side here is not the cover, it is the "Template" comic, which Madden recreates 99 times in 99 different styles. His approaches vary from truly interesting reinterpretations to hackneyed tributes to other artists. Overall, however, this is quite a useful book for students or artists who need a reminder that any given creative problem has an unlimited number of approaches and solutions.