Hammer of the Gods
The members of Led Zeppelin are major deities in the pantheon of rock gods. The first and heaviest of the heavy metal monsters, they violently shook the foundations of rock music and took no prisoners on the road. Their tours were legendary, their lives were exalted—and in an era well known for sex and drugs, the mighty Zeppelin set an unattainable standard of excess and mythos for any band that tried to follow them. They were power, they were fantasy, they were black magic. No band ever flew as high as Led Zeppelin or suffered so disastrous a fall. And only some of them lived to tell the tale.
Hammer of the Gods is the New York Times bestselling epic saga of the hard reign of Page, Plant, Jones, and Bonham—a spellbinding, electrifying, no-holds-barred classic of rock ‘n’ roll history that has now been updated to include the continuing adventures of the band.
Coraline
Coraline lives with her preoccupied parents in part of a huge old house–a house so huge that other people live in it, too… round, old former actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible and their aging Highland terriers (”We trod the boards, luvvy”) and the mustachioed old man under the roof (”‘The reason you cannot see the mouse circus,’ said the man upstairs, ‘is that the mice are not yet ready and rehearsed.’”) Coraline contents herself for weeks with exploring the vast garden and grounds. But with a little rain she becomes bored–so bored that she begins to count everything blue (153), the windows (21), and the doors (14). And it is the 14th door that–sometimes blocked with a wall of bricks–opens up for Coraline into an entirely alternate universe. Now, if you’re thinking fondly of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, you’re on the wrong track. Neil Gaiman’s Coraline is far darker, far stranger, playing on our deepest fears. And, like Roald Dahl’s work, it is delicious.
What’s on the other side of the door? A distorted-mirror world, containing presumably everything Coraline has ever dreamed of… people who pronounce her name correctly (not “Caroline”), delicious meals (not like her father’s overblown “recipes”), an unusually pink and green bedroom (not like her dull one), and plenty of horrible (very un-boring) marvels, like a man made out of live rats. The creepiest part, however, is her mirrored parents, her “other mother” and her “other father”–people who look just like her own parents, but with big, shiny, black button eyes, paper-white skin… and a keen desire to keep her on their side of the door. To make creepy creepier, Coraline has been illustrated masterfully in scritchy, terrifying ink drawings by British mixed-media artist and Sandman cover illustrator Dave McKean. This delightful, funny, haunting, scary as heck, fairy-tale novel is about as fine as they come. Highly recommended.
Blood & Dishonour 666 Special Edition: The Dark, Bloody and Perversely Erotic World of the Satanic Sluts
This Special Edition includes the eye-opening bonus Satanic Sluts DVD, and a specially commissioned new wrap-around cover design. This version of the book is strictly limited to only 666 individually numbered copies worldwide! The Satanic Sluts are 666 of the world’s most attitudinal, creative and original women, who are linked by a shared interest in all things dark, sexual and Satanic, and by their membership of this exclusive group. Now, for the first time ever, a select number of this gorgeous, exclusive and elite legion are presented in all their glory - raw, uncut, uncensored, sometimes bloody, sometimes bound, but never bowed. Here, in a series of striking photographic portraits and personal statements, elite members of the Satanic Sluts display their sexual fantasies, Satanic lusts and twisted ideologies to the wider public for the first time. Blood & Dishonour presents a series of amazing images and gorgeous layouts that will grant the reader privileged witness to the perverse machinations of Satanic Sluts members like Dominick Destruction, Violet Eyes, Poisoned Venus, Assisted Suicide, Dischordia, Sadistik Virgin, Morrigan Hel, Gothness, Gashley Darcane and their sisters-in-arms, who have bared their all for the first time in this unique publication. Focusing on the creativity and individuality of the Satanic Sluts, Blood & Dishonour is a provocative and intimate portrait of these unique women, represented by images they themselves have chosen. Instead of dictating how these women should be photographed, or what they should and should not wear, the book reveals their real attitudes and personalities - including their own feelings on everything from music and fashion to abortion, war and politics. The result is a striking snapshot of the 21st Century alternative female - this is feminism’s ‘Year Zero’!
Watchmen
Has any comic been as acclaimed as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen? Possibly only Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, but Watchmen remains the critics’ favorite. Why? Because Moore is a better writer, and Watchmen a more complex and dark and literate creation than Miller’s fantastic, subversive take on the Batman myth. Moore, renowned for many other of the genre’s finest creations (Saga of the Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, and From Hell, with Eddie Campbell) first put out Watchmen in 12 issues for DC in 1986-87. It won a comic award at the time (the 1987 Jack Kirby Comics Industry Awards for Best Writer/Artist combination) and has continued to gather praise since.
The story concerns a group called the Crimebusters and a plot to kill and discredit them. Moore’s characterization is as sophisticated as any novel’s. Importantly the costumes do not get in the way of the storytelling; rather they allow Moore to investigate issues of power and control–indeed it was Watchmen, and to a lesser extent Dark Knight, that propelled the comic genre forward, making “adult” comics a reality. The artwork of Gibbons (best known for 2000AD’s Rogue Trooper and DC’s Green Lantern) is very fine too, echoing Moore’s paranoid mood perfectly throughout. Packed with symbolism, some of the overlying themes (arms control, nuclear threat, vigilantes) have dated but the intelligent social and political commentary, the structure of the story itself, its intertextuality (chapters appended with excerpts from other “works” and “studies” on Moore’s characters, or with excerpts from another comic book being read by a child within the story), the finepace of the writing and its humanity mean that Watchmen more than stands up–it keeps its crown as the best the genre has yet produced.
Art That Kills by George Petros
Art That Kills examines the point where art meets crime. The book documents a diabolical era, 1984-2001. It chronicles the evolution of a new aesthetic movement, a terrifying fringe of Underground Art where enlightenment and depravity combined. Murder, rape, torture, pedophilia, cannibalism, drugs, sedition, racism and blasphemy mixed with literature, history, politics, news, movies, TV, punk rock, philosophy and science. The book profiles a pantheon of dissidents and deviants, presents excerpts from their work, re-lives their crimes, and attempts to analyze an elusive era. The scene described herein is essentially the “second generation” of American Underground Art (the “first generation” ran from ‘66 through the 70s). All varieties of taboos and criminal advocacy found confluence, beyond “confrontation” or “shock.” Pure sadism drove it. Sexual psychosis flavored it. Frustration with politics, big business and mass entertainment fueled it.
True Norweigen Black Metal by Peter Beste
“When we’re on the road, all we watch is VBS, and our favorite series is Norwegian Black Metal.” (Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters) Documentary photographer Peter Beste has spent the last five years working in the milieu of the Norwegian black metal scene. This scene, with its notorious events of murder, church arson, and self-mythology, is absolutely sealed to outsiders. The international black metal fan base is one of the most devoted, fanatical, and proprietary in the world. Beste’s access and insight into this world is unprecedented and has yielded an amazing photographic journey, along with a very popular documentary series on VBS.tv, also available on YouTube. Beste, together with Johan Kugelberg, noted writer, editor, and collector of documentary photography, has brought the images into a hermeneutic narrative that makes for a compelling experience along the lines of Anders Petersen’s Café Lehmitz, Ed Van Der Elsken’s Love on the Left Bank, or William Klein’s Life Is Good and Good for You in New York.
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