• "Robert Brownjohn: Sex and Typography" really unique book about a really unique and underappreciated designer. Essential.
  • "The Illusionless Man" I haven't read all of the stories in this book, but the ones I have read, I've read several times. This book is where I got "League of Death" from
  • Totally essential and pretty comprehensive history of underground and hippie comix.
  • "Burn Collector" THE personal zine of the 90s, all in one nice volume.
  • "Bradbury: An Illustrated Life" A survey of the art, illustration, posters, book covers, set designs, etc for the books, plays, movies etc of Ray Bradbury.
  • Fritz The Cat #1. An awesome old birthday gift from Sara.
  • Thinking With Type. Essential.
  • Posthumously overmarketed, but still amazing artist and designer.
  • "Invisible People" a collection of Will Eisner's brilliant, unparalleled work.
  • Reading Lester Bangs makes me hate everything that passes for music journalism these days. Brilliant and insightful articles on Black Sabbath and Bob Marley in this collection.
  • I can't write all that is important about this book in a little note. Clinton had several chances to kill Osama Bin Laden and every single time the Pentagon blocked him from doing it (while bombs or strike teams were only moments away) because they didn't like that the commander in chief was a Dem.
  • Treasure Island. The book that skyrocketed the second Wyeth to fame. Breathtaking illustrations.
  • A book of oversized eye-bending patterns to use. Nuff said.
  • Thanks to eBay I found this book roughly 10 years after falling in love with it at a library I was only at once.
  • Comix godhead Harvey Kurtzman's long out of print brief yet thorough and densely illustrated history of comics. I got this as overstock for like $5 and it goes for $80+ on eBay these days.
  • Catalog from Ed Ruscha's major retrospective a few years ago.
  • Original Punisher mini-series from the early 80s. The first comic book I ever read. It has the word Damn in it, which when you're in 2nd or 3rd grade is a big deal.
  • Don't let the GODAWFUL cover deter you. The insides are packed full of mind blowing Cuban posters from the 60s-80s
  • American Psycho. Seering critique of America in the 80s. I couldn't put this book down at times and at other times reflexively threw it down. I should read this again.
  • TIBOR, the Tibor Kalman book. He started COLORS magazine and was all around inspiring. Essential.
  • Stated without an iota of irony or cheese: Frank Frazetta is a god. No if's and's or but's.
  • The most important book on here? Maybe so.
  • Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. The first book I really loved. Read it in middle school and it blew my mind. I own several copies because the cover illustrations are almost all great.
  • Some People Can't Surf. Massimo Vignelli (who some people worship but I have yet to see why), while he was president of the AIGA said Art Chantry's hands should be surgically numbed. Dumbass. This book is essential.
  • The Second City. Inspiring in-depth history of what's probably the most important comedy group in America (hint: SNL was born from this group). Reading about improv techniques in this book had an surprising impact on the way I work.
  • Man-Thing. 70s Marvel Occult Horror comic character. Other than brute strength his only "super power" is EMPATHY. How awesome is that?! So awesome that the first thing I screenprinted in college was a Man-Thing shirt for myself. "Whatever knows fear BURNS at the Man-Thing's touch"
  • Fucked Up and Photocopied. Pretty awesome collection of 80s and 90s american punk flyers. Sadly, the designers of the book LEARNED NOTHING FROM THE CONTENT and each page background is a nightmareish mishmash of what NOT to do with photoshop. Filter hell behind xerox heaven.
  • Jenny Saville. The only contemporary painter who makes figure painting still seem like a vital and necessary artform. Being in a gallery surrounded by her paintings is what being in church is supposed to feel like. Elevated. Enlightened. That sort of makes this book like The Gospel of Jenny I guess
  • How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way. Stan Lee AND John Buscema? I learned as much about structure composition and layout from this book as I did in all my college courses. Essential.
  • Non #3. Most people hail Non #5 as the best issue of this anthology. But #3 was the first one I think that really showed what an excellent indie comic anthology should be. Jordan Crane knows whats up, so watch what he does.

september reading / ALL NOTES

My contribution to a poster calendar orchestrated by the exceedingly talented Jennifer Daniel. Each page of the calendar is an 18"x24" poster and features a different month by a talented crew Jenn hand picked. These are some of my favorite books, laid out like the month of September. I chose Joseph Campbell's 'The Power of Myth' for my birthday because it's probably the most important book to me on this page.

ORDER THE CALENDAR here

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