Will Eisner's innovations in the comics, especially the comic book and the graphic novel, as well as his devotion to comics analysis, make him one of comics' first true auteurs and the cartoonist so revered and influential that cartooning's highest honor is named after him. His newspaper feature "The Spirit" (1940-1952) introduced the now-common splash page to the comic book, as well as dramatic angles and lighting effects that were influenced by, and influenced in turn, the conventions of film noir. Even in his tales of crime fighting, Eisner's writing focused on everyday details of city life and on contemporary social issues. In 1976, he premiered "A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories," a collection of realist cartoon stories that paved the way for the modern "graphic novel." His 1985 book, "Comics and Sequential Art," was among the first sustained analyses and overviews of the comics form, articulating theories of the art's grammar and structure. Eisner's studio nurtured such comics legends as Jules Feiffer, Wally Wood, Lou Fine, and Jack Cole.

"Will Eisner: Conversations," edited by comics scholar M. Thomas Inge, collects the best interviews with Eisner (1917-2005) from 1965 to 2004. Taken together, the interviews cover the breadth of Eisner's career with in-depth information about his creation of "The Spirit" and other well-known comic book characters, his devotion to the educational uses of the comics medium, and his contributions to the development of the graphic novel.

The Comics of Joe Sacco addresses the range of his award-winning work, from his early comics stories as well as his groundbreaking journalism Palestine (1993) and Safe Area to Gorazde (2000), to Footnotes in Gaza (2009) and his most recent book The Great War (2013), a graphic history of World War I. First in the new series, Critical Approaches to Comics Artists, this edited volume explores Sacco's comics journalism, and features established and emerging scholars from comics studies, cultural studies, geography, literary studies, political science, and communication studies. Sacco's work has already found a place in some of the foundational scholarship in comics studies, and this book solidifies his role as one of the most important comics artists today. Sections focus on how Sacco's comics journalism critiques and employs the ""standard of objectivity"" in mainstream reporting, what aesthetic principles and approaches to lived experience can be found in his comics, how Sacco employs the space of the comics page to map history and war, and the ways that his comics function in the classroom and as human rights activism. The Comics of Joe Sacco offers definitive, exciting approaches to some of the most important--and necessary--comics today, by one of the most acclaimed journalist-artists of our time.

A Kenyan upbringing is the ticket to this voyage into a remarkably real created world entered via carved, integrating frames. Twice TVs pick of the show at the Royal Academies and with crowds and fan mail at a third RA Summer Exhibition, James remains a virtual unknown in his own country. A production rate averaging just one painting a year may account for this, but in an Art World where price is all, his output is sufficient to net him a viable living selling internationally. Also introducing the remarkable paintings of his artist son Alexander James. Together their art is akin to a vigorous breath of fresh air in a stuffy room.

Hokusai: the blue, foam-crested wave rearing above Mount Fuji; the celebrated volcano idealized and reinventedby the artist in every nuance of view, season and painting; extraordinary bridges, the waterfalls of Japan, the contortions, costumes, gestures – the very breath of men, women, peasants, townsmen, warriors, artisans, leaping horses, birds, insects, fish, almost live on the ground on which they are painted – the countless imaginative drawings or the lively sketches done on the spot for the Manga, Hokusai’s record of shapes and forms drawn from life or imagined over time. With a body of work comprising more than 30,000 drawings and paintings, Hokusai (1760–1849) was the most prolific, varied and indisputably the most creative artist of old Japan. A universal genius in everything that constituted drawing and painting in his time, he practised all genres of ukiyo-e, those ‘images of the floating world’, as his contemporaries liked to describe their pleasures and their daily life.

This book traces the career of this child from a working-class district of old Tokyo, then known as Edo, evoking the special atmosphere of this great city and of Japanese life, when Japan – closed to foreigners – developed in a vacuum a powerfully original culture. Hokusai became one of the great masters of the woodcut, this ‘brush gone wild’, as he called himself, being rediscovered by the Impressionists and aesthetes at the end of the 19th century. He remains one of the greatest and – thanks to his personality – one of the most attractive figures of world art.

Paul Brown is the definitive book on an artist who is widely regarded as the preeminent American illustrator of equestrian subjects. Based on extensive interviews with Brown's family, friends, and artistic contemporaries, Paul Brown includes a biography of the man and contains a complete listing of all the published works that include Brown's art as well as listings of all of Brown's prints, items sometimes attributed to Brown, and methods of identifying first editions of Paul Brown's art. Although Brown is primarily known for his wonderful paintings, drawings and sketches of horses and equestrian sports, he is also well known for his elegant and prolific illustrations for Brooks Brothers catalogs over three decades.

Born in Mexico in 1907, Frida Kahlo learned about suffering at an early age. She fell victim to polio at the age of six, and was then seriously hurt in a bus accident at eighteen, resulting in injuries that affected her for the rest of her life. The young and indomitable Frida met Diego Rivera, the great mural painter, when Mexico was at a great cultural and political crossroads. They formed a legendary partnership, with a strong attachment to Mexican folk art, a deep commitment to the Communist struggle and a raging artistic ambition that survived all the trials of their marriage. Admired by the Surrealists and photographed by the greatest, Frida was most renowned for her self-portraits and unusual still lifes. This book traces the extraordinary life of this artist whose unforgettable imagery combined cruelty and wit, honesty and insolence, pain and empowerment.

David Hockney is possibly the world's most popular living painter, but he is also something else: an incisive and original thinker on art. Here are the fruits of his lifelong meditations on the problems and paradoxes of representing a three-dimensional world on a flat surface. How does drawing make one `see things clearer, and clearer, and clearer still', as Hockney suggests? What significance do different media - from a Lascaux cave wall to an iPad - have for the way we see? What is the relationship between the images we make and the reality around us? How have changes in technology affected the way artists depict the world? The conversations are punctuated by wise and witty observations from both parties on numerous other artists - Van Gogh or Vermeer, Caravaggio, Monet, Picasso - and enlivened by shrewd insights into the contrasting social and physical landscapes of California, where Hockney lives, and Yorkshire, his birthplace. Some of the people he has encountered along the way - from Henri Cartier-Bresson to Billy Wilder - make entertaining appearances in the dialogue.

Even during the artist's lifetime, contemporary art lovers considered Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) to be an exceptional artist. In this revelatory sequel to the acclaimed Rembrandt: The Painter at Work, renowned Rembrandt authority Ernst van de Wetering investigates the painter's considerations that determined the striking changes in his development from an early age onwards. This gorgeously illustrated book explores how Rembrandt achieved mastery by systematic exploration of the 'foundations of the art of painting'. According to written sources from the seventeenth century, which were largely misinterpreted until now, these 'foundations' were considered essential at that time. From his first endeavours in painting, Rembrandt embarked on a journey past these foundations, thus becoming the 'pittore famoso', whom Count Cosimo the Medici visited at the end of his life. Rembrandt never stopped searching for solutions to the pictorial problems that confronted him; this led over time to radical changes that cannot simply be attributed to stylistic evolution or natural development. In a quest as rigorous and novel as the artist's, Van de Wetering reveals how Rembrandt became the revolutionary painter that would continue to fascinate the art world. This ground breaking exploration reconstructs Rembrandt's theories and methods, shedding new light both on the artist's exceptional accomplishments and on the theory and practice of painting in the Dutch Golden Age.

Even during the artist's lifetime, contemporary art lovers considered Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) to be an exceptional artist. In this revelatory sequel to the acclaimed Rembrandt: The Painter at Work, renowned Rembrandt authority Ernst van de Wetering investigates the painter's considerations that determined the striking changes in his development from an early age onwards. This gorgeously illustrated book explores how Rembrandt achieved mastery by systematic exploration of the 'foundations of the art of painting'. According to written sources from the seventeenth century, which were largely misinterpreted until now, these 'foundations' were considered essential at that time. From his first endeavours in painting, Rembrandt embarked on a journey past these foundations, thus becoming the 'pittore famoso', whom Count Cosimo the Medici visited at the end of his life. Rembrandt never stopped searching for solutions to the pictorial problems that confronted him; this led over time to radical changes that cannot simply be attributed to stylistic evolution or natural development. In a quest as rigorous and novel as the artist's, Van de Wetering reveals how Rembrandt became the revolutionary painter that would continue to fascinate the art world. This ground breaking exploration reconstructs Rembrandt's theories and methods, shedding new light both on the artist's exceptional accomplishments and on the theory and practice of painting in the Dutch Golden Age. Everyone who is interested in the art of painting should read this phenomenal book, because it was written with incredible knowledge and experience on the subject. It shows in a clear and simple way how Rembrandt worked and the things he had to take into account. At the same time it offers a fantastic sample of Rembrandt's life's work, thanks to the well-chosen selection of illustrations. David Rijser, NRC Handelsblad

W. Heath Robinson is best known for his hilarious drawings of zany contraptions, though his work ranged across a wide variety of topics covering many aspects of British life in the decades following the First World War. Starting out as a watercolour artist, he quickly turned to the more lucrative field of book illustration and developed his forte in satirical drawings and cartoons. He was regularly commissioned by the editors of Tatler and The Sketch and in great demand from advertising companies. Collections of his drawings were subsequently published in many different editions and became so successful as to transform Heath Robinson into a household name, celebrated for his eccentric brand of British humour. Presenting such innovations as the 'Zip-Opening Bonnet', the 'Duo-car for the Incompatible' and the handy 'New Rear Wheel Gear for Turning the Car in One Movement', this volume of Heath Robinson illustrations with commentary by K.R.G. Browne will appeal to 'everybody who is ever likely to drive, be driven in, or get run over by a mechanically propelled vehicle'.

The legend of Jean-Michel Basquiat is as strong as ever. Synonymous with 1980s New York, the artist first appeared in the late 1970s under the tag SAMO, spraying caustic comments and fragmented poems on the walls of the city. He appeared as part of a thriving underground scene of visual arts and graffiti, hip hop, post-punk, and DIY filmmaking, which met in a booming art world. As a painter with a strong personal voice, Basquiat soon broke into the established milieu, exhibiting in galleries around the world. Basquiat's expressive style was based on raw figures and integrated words and phrases. His work is inspired by a pantheon of luminaries from jazz, boxing, and basketball, with references to arcane history and the politics of street life-so when asked about his subject matter, Basquiat answered "royalty, heroism and the streets." In 1983 he started collaborating with the most famous of art stars, Andy Warhol, and in 1985 was on the cover of The New York Times Magazine. When Basquiat died at the age of 27, he had become one of the most successful artists of his time. First published in an XXL edition, this unprecedented insight into Basquiat's art is now available in a compact, accessible volume in celebration of TASCHEN's 40th anniversary. With pristine reproductions of his most seminal paintings, drawings, and notebook sketches, it offers vivid proximity to Basquiat's intricate marks and scribbled words, further illuminated by an introduction to the artist from editor Hans Werner Holzwarth, as well as an essay on his themes and artistic development from curator and art historian Eleanor Nairne. Richly illustrated year-by-year chapter breaks follow the artist's life and quote from his own statements and contemporary reviews to provide both personal background and historical context. About the series TASCHEN is 40! Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible publishing, helping bookworms around the world curate their own library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia at an unbeatable price. Today we celebrate 40 years of incredible books by staying true to our company credo. The 40 series presents new editions of some of the stars of our program-now more compact, friendly in price, and still realized with the same commitment to impeccable production.

In a 2019 interview with the webzine DC in the 80s, Jeff Lemire (b. 1976) discusses the comics he read as a child growing up in Essex County, Ontario-his early exposure to reprints of Silver Age DC material, how influential Crisis on Infinite Earths and DC's Who's Who were on him as a developing comics fan, his first reading of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, and his transition to reading the first wave of Vertigo titles when he was sixteen. In other interviews, he describes discovering independent comics when he moved to Toronto, days of browsing comics at the Beguiling, and coming to understand what was possible in the medium of comics, lessons he would take to heart as he began to establish himself as a cartoonist. Many cartoonists deflect from questions about one's history with comics and the influences of other artists, while others indulge the interviewer briefly before attempting to steer the questions in another direction. But Lemire, creator of Essex County Trilogy, Sweet Tooth, The Nobody, and Trillium, seems to bask in these discussions. Before he was ever a comics professional, he was a fan. What can be traced in these interviews is the story of the movement from comics fan to comics professional. In the twenty-nine interviews collected in Jeff Lemire: Conversations, readers see Lemire come to understand the process of collaboration, the balancing act involved in working for different kinds of comics publishers like DC and Marvel, the responsibilities involved in representing characters outside his own culture, and the possibilities that exist in the comics medium. We see him embrace a variety of genres, using each of them to explore the issues and themes most important to him. And we see a cartoonist and writer growing in confidence, a working professional coming into his own.