Urgent 2nd Class: Creating Curious Collage, Dubious Documents, and Other Art from Ephemera

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If You Love Bantock...

Not really a "hot to" book, but fascinating nevertheless

Most reviewers already have it right....

Disappointing

Vintage Bantock but not a step-by-step book

Urgent 2nd Class: Creating Curious Collage, Dubious Documents, and Other Art from Ephemera
Nick Bantock
Manufacturer: Chronicle Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 081184305X

Book Description

His internationally best-selling Griffin & Sabine saga is treasured for its blend of lyrical storyline and compelling, imaginative art. Now Nick Bantock gives a short course in visual creativity in Urgent 2nd Class. A tour through the techniques and materials which constitute his signature style, Bantock shares with readers numerous ways ways of using old paper ephemera -- maps, letters, postcards, ledgers, scraps, photos, and many more items -- to create their own idiosyncratic art. Written for people of all artistic skill levels, the materials mentioned are all easily found and inexpensive, and the processes are simple enough to do at home (and with access to the most advanced machinery used in the book, a photocopier). An inspirational guide to the simple artistic techniques which can alchemically transform ephemera into remarkable works, Urgent 2nd Class is the handbook for a new generation of visual poets.

Customer Reviews:

If You Love Bantock..........2007-09-01

I'm a Nick Bantock fan, through and through, so I enjoy any book that gives me insight into his creativity. If you have any urge to make epistolary art, this book will inspire and delight you. Even if you don't want to make your own postcards, you will enjoy reading what makes him tick.

Another HIGHLY recommended Bantock book (even better than this one, in my opinion) is The Artful Dodger.

Not really a "hot to" book, but fascinating nevertheless.......2007-08-16

Bantock is probably best known for his "Griffin & Sabine" saga, consisting of slightly warped three-dimensional collections of fictional correspondence, and it's the sort of art he incorporated into those works that he discusses here. I'm a stamp collector myself with a special interest in heavily engraved 19th century stamps from countries and colonies most people have never heard often featuring obscure subjects. Likewise, as a professional archivist, I also have a fondness for old letters and their postmarked covers, old bureaucratic documents with seals, rubber stamps, and arcane endorsements, and antique maps of places that may no longer exist. All of this is grist to Bantock's mill and the imaginative ways in which he incorporates such elements (sometimes into collages, but not always) are perfectly fascinating. Since this isn't a manual on how to draw or paint with oils, the actual instructions are few; he simply shows you intriguing examples and says, in effect, "Here's one way you can do it." It's more a source for inspiration than a manual. But it's a neat book.

Most reviewers already have it right...........2007-05-28

I love Nick Bantock. In my eyes he can do no wrong. His art is simply brilliant but like others have mentioned, this is not a real "how to" book. It does give you some things to think about and there are ideas afoot but you won't come away lots of new and exciting skills. That's ok...if you are a NB fan. His creations are worth the price of admission.

Disappointing.......2007-01-21

This book wasn't what I was hoping for in that the ideas and examples are all too similar in final product. I believe that because I am not looking for altered books genre per se, this book is not for me. I would reallly like to sell it back, otherwise I am stuck with it.

Vintage Bantock but not a step-by-step book.......2007-01-20

I enjoyed Urgent 2nd Class because it was put together by Nick Bantock, who charmed me with the Sabine series and the Artful Dodger and others too numerous to mention. His images are multilayered and artful. He does talk about how some images were made (ephemera, Bantock-designed rubber stamps) but he does not show you step by step how to accomplish any particular image. And his ephemera may not be available to the average person. He does by from dealers in Vancouver BC, giving him an advantage over those in small towns.
This is not a shortcoming, however, if you have other books that show you the construction and layering of stuff. The beauty of Bantock lies in his imagination, his imagination. He does encourage the reader to use their own, and that's a gift.

Book Description

For more than thirty years, the bestselling Draw 50 series has shown children how to create everything from puppies to ships, horses to skyscrapers, and aliens to racing cars. In this new addition to the beloved series, Lee J. Ames shows you how to draw sixty of his popular sketches step-by-step. His clear instructions help budding artists learn the basic movements and procedures of drawing, allowing you to explore your interests in a fun, familiar, and easy-to-master way.

Customer Reviews:

Fantastic!.......2007-01-15

My son received this book for Christmas and LOVES it. It's a great book for anyone that loves to draw - it breaks everything down for you and has a step by step illustration for every picture in the book.

Draw 50 Cats: The Step-by-Step Way to Draw Domsetic Breeds, Wild Cats, Cuddly Kittens, and Famous Felines

Average customer rating:

step by step nonverbal instruction
Great Drawing Book
Artists who love cats will love this book.
Great drawing book
From a cat-lover

Draw 50 Cats: The Step-by-Step Way to Draw Domsetic Breeds, Wild Cats, Cuddly Kittens, and Famous Felines
Lee J. Ames
Manufacturer: Broadway
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0385246404
Release Date: 1989-04-01

Book Description

This book brings to life Siamese, Persians, lions, tigers, panthers and such celebrity felines as Felix, Top Cat and Snaggle Puss.

Customer Reviews:

step by step nonverbal instruction.......2005-01-06

I wanted to draw more realistic cats
and this book showed me that I needed to start with the head shape
and not the ears. There was not a lot of writing, just good step-by-step instruction. From my first drawing with this book, my drawings have improved. I highly reccomend this book!

Great Drawing Book.......2004-12-21

This is the best drawing book I have gotten to date. It gives detailed instruction. Almost immediatley I was able to draw realistic looking cats. Using the techniques in the book I was able to expand and draw other animals as well.

Artists who love cats will love this book........2003-10-20

I am teaching my students to draw cats using this book. I like the step-by-step drawings and the different position and types of cats.
We have gone one step further in class by making our own stationery and cards using our finished drawings. We add a complimentary quote to our drawing from the book 516 Sensational Cat Quotes, Proverbs, Quips and Jokes for Scrapbooking, Crafting and Fun ISBN 0966640578
Teachers, have your student make a copy of the original so that they can make numerous copies. Save the originals.
Great drawing book. I highly recommend it.
We are having fun in class.

Great drawing book.......2000-12-27

My daughter borrowed some of these books from the school library & loved them so much i bought some for her. It goes step by step with you,giving examples,to show you how to make wonderful drawings.Great book for anyone who likes to draw.

From a cat-lover.......2000-06-20

This book is just what I needed! It has fairly simple stepswhich create great results in only a few minutes. I borrowed thisbook from a friend and I was drawing grrreat tigers before I had to give it back. Now all I have to do is buy it! :)

Draw 50 Animal 'Toons: The Step-by-Step Way to Draw Dogs, Cats, Birds, Fish, and Many, Many More

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Draw 50 Animal 'Toons: The Step-by-Step Way to Draw Dogs, Cats, Birds, Fish, and Many, Many More
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Manufacturer: Broadway
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Release Date: 2000-07-18

Creative Ways With Drawing Dogs and Cats.

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Creative Ways With Drawing Dogs and Cats.
Walter, Brooks
Manufacturer: Golden books
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ASIN: 0307400530

Ways of Drawing Cats: A Guide to Expanding Your Visual Awareness (Ways of Drawing)

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Ways of Drawing Cats: A Guide to Expanding Your Visual Awareness (Ways of Drawing)

Manufacturer: Running Pr
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Binding: Hardcover

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8 How to Draw Books: Drawing for Pleasure, How to Draw Horses ~ Cats ~ Dogs, Easy Way to Draw, You Can Draw Comic Characters ~ Comic Strips~ Funny Animals

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8 How to Draw Books: Drawing for Pleasure, How to Draw Horses ~ Cats ~ Dogs, Easy Way to Draw, You Can Draw Comic Characters ~ Comic Strips~ Funny Animals
Fiona Brown, Janet Rancan, Carrie A. Snyder, Don Robison, Walter Lantz, Carrie Anna Snyder Norman Battershill
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Average customer rating:

Ways of Drawing Cats (Ways of Drawing)
Richard Bell
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0289801613

Book Description

What is a Parisian café? A Renoir painting, a passage from Hemingway, a photograph by Brassao. All help to define the romantic but elusive idea that is the Parisian cafe in the minds of people the world over. The art and literature presented in this charming volume add up to a seductive presentation of the cafe experience, capturing the ideal of grace and sophisticated leisure that is the Parisian cafe. The wide range of writing from renowned authors such as Marguerite Duras, Albert Camus, M. Somerset Maugham, and Ernest Hemingway together create a vivid impression of this icon of Western, indeed, world culture. Art in a variety of media, from painting and photography to drawings, etchings, and posters from an array of artists including Brassao, Man Ray, Kertesz, Monet, Renoir, Seurat, and van Gogh complements the writings to bring the reader a complete portrait of one of the most charming aspects of the city of light.

Customer Reviews:

Transport yourself to the Parisian Cafe.......2005-04-04

This is an artistic and literary presentation of the Parisian café. The beautiful photographs and matching quotes are an inspiration to the reader who readily senses the author's knowledge of the subject and her devotion to those cafes that were the haven for great painters, photographers, and writers. As one traverses the pages of this elegant, petite volume, one becomes, in one's imagination, a frequenter of those cafes, enjoying their seductive ambiance, while sipping coffee, chatting with artists and friends, admiring the decor without and within, and hoping to find, in this world, a café that can bestow upon him such joy and offer him a home away from home.

Everyone has two countries - his own and Paris.......2003-05-15

Wow! I found this little gem at the bookstore at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. The cover attracted me because it looked like a scene I had seen many times when I lived and wrote in Paris. Any writer who has spent time in Cafe le Dome or Le Select will get multiple nostalgia attacks looking over the pictures and reading the quotes from Shaw, Papa Hemingway, Camus and the other greats. The review title above about everyone having two countries comes from Thomas Jefferson who loved Paris. Too bad he is dead, for he too would have also loved Val Clark's wonderful little book.

Celebrating the fullness of being.......2003-02-15

A Literary Companion, indeed! As a writer, lover of Paris and cafes--I found this book delightful, and the perfect companion for a cold winter day. For like the cafe it celebrates, it has the ability to lift my spirits the moment I "enter" its sumptuous pages. Val Clark has done a masterful job in matching up the evocative photographs of Doisneau and Brassai, the art of Van Gogh, Manet, Bemelmans and much more--with the words of writers and artists that endure because they resonate with that fullness of being that the cafe nurtures. This little book pays loving homage to that sensibility. Thank you Val Clark!

The Parisian Cafe: A Literary Companion.......2003-01-04

Val Clark's selection of images and quotations evoking the literary life of Paris cafes is like sitting down to a cafe creme at Les Deux Magots with your favorite writers. Clark has scoured literary sources both familiar and overlooked to compile an ecclectic assemblage of testimonies on the allure of Paris cafes. She pairs these testimonies with images (photographs, oils, watercolors) so naturally that it seems the writers and artists had collaborated: Langston Hughes and Vincent Van Gogh, Irwin Shaw and Andre Kertesz, Henry Miller and LeRoy Neiman, and many, many more. The Introduction gives an insightful and appreciative overview of the essential role of cafes in Paris literary and artistic life. Like a good cafe, this charming books offers a respite from our hectic work-a-day lives. A delight!

A beautiful book.......2003-01-03

This is a great book! Val Clark has assembled a wonderful collection of photos and quotes that transport the reader to the Paris café scene of Hemingway, Anais Nin and Albert Camus. Flipping through the pages of this beautifully laid out book will send any reader into another world entirely. I would say that it is an ideal coffee table book, except that two friends have already asked to borrow it from my coffee table!

Amazon.com

(For mature audiences.) Hideo Yamamoto's Voyeur, part of Viz Communications' gritty Pulp Graphic Novel series, enters the world of voyeurism at several levels. On the surface, this adult manga is a tale of simple perversion, about a man who dons night goggles to peer into the intimate moments of other peoples' lives. But as the book unfolds, Yamamoto exposes the depth of his suggestive title. The protagonist, Ko Higaonna, despises the young peeping Tom who keeps showing up in his life. But as Ko becomes concerned that his girlfriend, Satomi Shiraishi, is deceiving him about where she has been spending her evenings (she insists that she is studying for her TOEFL exam), he begins to indulge in a bit of voyeurism of his own. Like the hero of Hitchcock's Rear Window, Ko can't help but look into Satomi's life. The mystery behind her supposed virginal innocence beckons him to gaze into her windows and follow her through the streets. As his career as a spy unfolds, Ko is drawn to the voyeur who he at first rejected. The voyeur has refined observation to an art, and to Ko he reveals tiny clues--such as bruises on Satomi that suggest an amorous encounter--that slowly erode Ko's trust in his lover. When Ko abruptly learns the truth of Satomi's secret life, he must confront the charade of his own life--his politeness and servility in the face of hypocrisy. Together with his newfound conspirator, he leaves the path of material success and polite society to begin a career as a professional voyeur--a detective of sorts--who works to protect the unsuspecting from the voyeuristic predators he now sees everywhere. Despite this somewhat formula-driven ending (which is clearly a setup for a series about Ko's detective career), Yamamoto has crafted a superior manga that braves the waters of sexual deviance only to interrogate the reality of urban life beneath the surfaces that so tantalizes the stereotypical voyeur. --Patrick O'Kelley

Book Description

Ko Higaonna is a happy college student, a trusting young man with an alluring girlfriend, Satomi. But her busy schedule leaves little time for their relationship, and thus few opportunities for Ko to explore his sensual desires. When Ko discovers that a voyeur is spying on them, he embarks on a quest to uncover what exactly Satomi is doing in her spare time - and finds that he must also confront his own repressed longings.

Customer Reviews:

This Is Not Your Father's Comic Book, Or Is It?.......1999-11-05

I haven't even finished this book and I've given it five stars. How can I explain that a book that looks like a comic, suggests porngraphic thoughts and still keeps your interested in...yes!...there is a story behind all this.

But what most amazed me was the drawings and how I felt after just a few dozen pages that I wasn't even really reading. It was like I was in the story. Every page had it's share of 'wordless graphical' thoughts.

I don't think I'll ever experience a read again quite like my first manga!

Slick, Dramatic.......1999-09-26

I bought this on a lark when I saw the Amazon had it in their recommended slot. Yamamotos' slick artwork and great characterization drew me in. The stories are paced well and it was a pleasant read. Voyeur is culled from "adult" manga in Japan, so there's just the right amount of sleaze mixed in with the action. It's not gratuitous nudity and sexual content like the XXX comics that we have here. A refreshing change from the usual stuff that we see in manga. A plausible fun read with sympathetic, realistic characters. Now, where did I put my night vision goggles? followed by a sequel in Japan. "Voyuers Inc." is about two different characters and is by a different artist.

Average customer rating:

Unfortunately, not even close to a prequel
A different manga...

Voyeurs Inc, Volume 1 (Voyeurs Inc)

Manufacturer: VIZ Media LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1569315094

Customer Reviews:

Unfortunately, not even close to a prequel.......2007-09-23

While Voyeur , a book with green cover was stand alone fun-filled weird comedy, Voyeurs INC part one , two and three explore pathological personalities and are much more shocking and bizarre . For some it is advantage, for me disadvantage . There is no humor like in the first book that started it all (green cover , Hideo Yamamoto's VoyeUR without s at the end.)

NOT FOR KIDS!!!

A different manga..........2000-06-29

Join Ken, Smile, Cho and their dog Husky. Catch the "Voyeurs Inc." van for a ride into the wild world of voyeurism (= spying on other peoples' lives, particularly their sexual behavior). Having access to state-of-the-art surveillance gadgets, being a Peeping Tom in the over-crowded Japan is nothing more than a hobby for our team who eventually decide to do it professionally, for business and above all pleasure. However, would you ever expect that such situations as prostitution practiced by "innocent" schoolgirls, actually exist? A story of twists and turns unfolds before your eyes, making you anxious to keep reading and reading until the end, just to find more surprises...

A lot of funny moments are present as well as some "private" ones. ;) Hideo Yamamoto has certainly done an excellent job, being responsible for the story AND the artwork... Although the content of this book is supposed to be for mature readers, I would recommend it not only to readers above 18 but also to those above 16 because it is not THAT disturbing. Some of the "bad" words and even a few of the amazingly detailed pictures are censored, but not TOO censored.

The text of this graphic novel, is one of the best I've seen in a translated manga. There are absolutely no typing errors. Good job, U.S. publishers!

The "Vol.1" printed on the cover of the book, indicates that future sequels are planned; so this is a good chance to start building your own special collection of bizarre comics, a.k.a. MANGA! :)

(Note: This graphic novel is supposed to be the sequel to Hideo Yamamoto's "Voyeur". However, the story of "Voyeurs, Inc." has NOTHING to do with "Voyeur" except for the fact that both books' main theme is about voyeurism.)

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