A blackout leads two teens to discover the intimacy and vulnerability that can only be shared in darkness, in this fully illustrated YA novella from celebrated Angolan author Ondjaki. A blackout leads two teens to discover the intimacy and vulnerability that can only be shared in darkness in Our Beautiful Darkness , a fully illustrated YA novella from celebrated Angolan author Ondjaki and illustrator Ant ó nio Jorge Gon ç alves . Translated from Portuguese by Lyn Miller-Lachmann A Kirkus Best YA Book of 2024 Selected for the USBBY Outstanding International Book List, 2025 Selected for the shortlist for the 2025 Global Literature in Libraries Initiative Translated Young Adult Book Prize A Five Books Best New Book for Teens of 2024 The light goes out suddenly. And in this absence of light, a pair of teenagers bare their souls. Into the warm silence of the night, they share a conversation filled with their stories and dreams… and maybe even a first kiss. Set against the backdrop of the civil war that ravaged Angola in the 1990s, this book weaves the country’s history with a teenage boy’s family stories. But when a power outage shrouds the neighborhood in darkness, everyday realities fade away… As the boy and a girl sit talking in the backyard, memory gives way to imagination and vulnerability, and the space between them becomes charged with emotional electricity. Their resulting conversation is both a meditation on the storytelling impulse and a gripping narrative of first love that, through its particulars, ascends to the universal.

In the 1970s, Jean Giraud started producing science fiction works under the name of Moebius. This first book-length, English-language study of Moebius finally brings international attention to an artist whose influence on the medium was profound and immediate, making him a role model for aspiring comics creators throughout his career. Jean Giraud (1938–2012) started drawing comics in the late 1950s for a variety of French comics magazines. Under his real name, he found success in 1963 with the western series Blueberry, written by Jean-Michel Charlier and published in Pilote magazine. In the 1970s, he started producing science fiction works under the name of Moebius, which brought him international success, and which included works such as Arzach. He died in 2012, as a global celebrity in the comics world and a major influence across visual media. He was widely imitated while at Métal Hurlant in the 1970s, was "prominent among the spiritual fathers of the comic book rebels" in the 1990s, and again an example for the independent artists identified as the "new bande dessinée" in France in the early 2000s. Featuring close readings of key texts, including Blueberry, the Airtight Garage of Jerry Cornelius, and "The Long Tomorrow," this volume examines Moebius’s style and aesthetic achievement. Notably, this volume explores the tension between Giraud and Moebius—one name for westerns, the other for science fiction; one name for the domestic market, another as a global brand; one name for the brush, another for the pen; one for the mainstream and the other for the underground. Labarre challenges those dichotomies, especially in the later phases of Moebius’s career, unveiling the complex evolution of this understudied but influential artist.

Over thirty years after his initial ascent to super stardom, Todd McFarlane (b. 1961) remains one of the most popular and contentious comic artists ever. The interviews compiled in this volume offer a nuanced portrait of McFarlane’s polarizing character. Beginning with his earliest days on Spider-Man to the months before the hotly anticipated release of Spawn and ending with his writing ventures decades later, the interviews offer compelling perspectives from the renowned creator. As the most vocal representative of Image Comics, McFarlane, alongside Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Erik Larsen, Jim Valentino, Marc Silvestri, and Whilce Portacio, was a veritable rock star. Eager fans swarmed into lengthy lines around comic book stores and conventions, waiting for their chance at a thirty-second autograph. The book offers a glimpse into the comic book world of the early 1990s, a world rampant with variant covers, impossibly exaggerated bodies, and wild speculation about what would be the next comic to explode in value. The volume also includes the momentous public debate between McFarlane and Peter David, former collaborator on The Incredible Hulk, moderated by the late George Pérez at a standing-room-only event at ComicsFest in 1993. While this world sounds almost inconceivable to the comic book fan of today, it was the milieu in which McFarlane rose to stardom and excelled like no other, leaving his mark on the medium forever.

Offers a groundbreaking and comprehensive exploration of the international and Hollywood movie poster as a dynamic artistic and cultural formation. Drawing inspiration from genres such as horror, science fiction, and noir, the essays in this collection provide insightful analyses of the movie poster as a vital component of the cinematic landscape. Contributions by Vlad Dima, Laura Hatry, Alicia Kozma, Lynette Kuliyeva, Madhuja Mukherjee, Frank Percaccio, Gary D. Rhodes, Courtney Ruffner Grieneisen, Marlisa Santos, Michael L. Shuman, and Robert Singer Movie posters, regardless of their country of origin, have become indelibly linked with the films they represent, often assuming a status as visual encapsulations of films within collective memory. Long after their initial role in promotion is complete, these posters endure as iconic images, etched into film history and cultural consciousness. One can hardly hear mention of Steven Spielberg’s landmark production Jaws, for example, without immediately picturing the evocative poster art of Roger Kastel. Film by Design: The Art of the Movie Poster is a groundbreaking and comprehensive exploration of the international and Hollywood movie poster as a dynamic artistic and cultural formation. Drawing inspiration from such prominent genres as horror, science fiction, and noir, the twelve essays in this collection provide insightful analyses of the movie poster as a vital component of the cinematic landscape from the silent era to the contemporary period. Crucially, this anthology rejects the notion of movie posters as mere historical artifacts or advertising tools and instead examines them as integral parts of a broader aesthetic framework interwoven into their respective film narratives. Each chapter, whether focusing on controversies, Cubism, or Cuba, is accessible to scholars, students, and fans alike. Through its intervention in film studies, Film b y Design reveals the movie poster to be an ever-evolving medium, firmly grounded in both theory and practice, while serving as an essential and enduring element within the realm of film art.

Looks at how the comic book industry developed from a white perspective and how minority characters were and are viewed through a stereotypical white gaze. The book explores how voices of colour have launched a shift, taking nonwhite characters who were originally viewed through a white lens and situating them outside the framework of whiteness. Shaolin Brew: Race, Comics, and the Evolution of the Superhero looks at how the comic book industry developed from a white perspective and how minority characters were and are viewed through a stereotypical white gaze. Further, the book explores how voices of color have launched a shift in the industry, taking nonwhite characters who were originally viewed through a white lens and situating them outside the framework of whiteness. The financial success of Blaxploitation and Kung Fu films in the early 1970s led to major comics publishers creating, for the first time, Black and Asian superhero characters who headlined their own comics. The introduction of Black and Asian main characters, who previously only served as guest stars or sidekicks, launched a new kind of engagement between comics companies and minority characters and readers. However, scripted as they were by white writers, these characters were mired in stereotypes. Author Troy D. Smith focuses on Asian, Black, and Latinx representation in the comic industry and how it has evolved over the years. Smith explores topics that include Orientalism, whitewashing, Black respectability politics, the model minority myth, and political controversies facing fandoms. In particular, Smith examines how fans take the superheroes they grew up with—such as Luke Cage, Black Lightning, and Shang Chi—and turn them into the characters they wished they had as children. Shaolin Brew delves into the efforts of fans of color who urged creators to make these characters more realistic. This refining process increased as more writers and artists of color broke into the industry, bringing their own perspectives to the characters. As many of these characters transitioned from page to screen, a new generation of writers, artists, and readers have cooperated to evolve one-dimensional stereotypes into multifaceted, dynamic heroes.

Though George Perez’s style is highly recognizable, his contributions to comic art and history have not been fully acknowledged. Patrick Hamilton addresses this neglect, by discussing Perez’s artistic style within the context of Bronze Age superhero art, and by analysing Perez’s work for its representations of race, disability, and gender. Born in the South Bronx to Puerto Rican parents, artist and writer George Pérez (1954–2022) cut his teeth in the 1970s as an artist at Marvel who worked on lesser titles like The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu and Creatures on the Loose, and then mainstays like Fantastic Four and The Avengers. In the 1980s, Pérez jumped ship to DC where he helped turn The New Teen Titans into a top-selling title and cocreated Crisis on Infinite Earths, which marked the publisher’s fiftieth anniversary and consolidated its sprawling universe. As writer and artist, Pérez relaunched DC’s Wonder Woman, a run that later inspired much of the 2017 film. Though Pérez’s style is highly recognizable, his contributions to comic art and history have not been fully acknowledged. In George Pérez, author Patrick L. Hamilton addresses this neglect, first, by discussing Pérez’s artistic style within the context of Bronze Age superhero art, and second, by analyzing Pérez’s work for its representations of race, disability, and gender. Though he struggled with deadlines and health issues in the 1990s, Pérez would reintroduce himself and his work to a new generation of comics fans with a return to Marvel’s The Avengers, as well as attempts at various creator-owned comics, the last of these being Sirens from Boom! Studios in 2014. Throughout his career, Pérez established a dynamic and minutely detailed style of comic art that was both unique and influential.