August 30, 2009

Chekiang Fine Arts Institute Drawing Group, et al.:
TUNNEL WARFARE
Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1972.

Rendered glorious: In this ideological graphic novel, stoic Chinese peasants use Maoist guerrilla tactics to defeat their Japanese fascist oppressors.

<-- front cover


Asomugha, C.N.C.:
NIGERIAN SLANGS
Abic Publishers, Onitsha, Nigeria, 1981.

Champalm; magun; lookry; footreon; hole power; and hundreds of other "conventionally unacceptable words and phrases."

<-- front cover


Lassiter, Luther:
BILLIARDS FOR EVERYONE
Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1971.

Densely illustrated with time-stretching "continuous-sequence action photos" of ball trajectories -- like acid visuals in the rec room.

<-- front cover


[Greenfield, Jeff, et al.]:
JEFF GREENFIELD'S BOOK OF BOOKS
National Lampoon, New York, 1979.

Some would call it conceptual art: a digest of fake books, cruelly spoofing the covers and contents of 15 unfortunate genres.

<-- front cover

Wheeler, Russell C.:
AN ATLAS OF TOOTH FORM
4th Edition. W.B. Saunders Co., Philadelphia, 1969.

Perhaps one day denture carving will find acceptance in the pantheon of hobbies, alongside fly-tying and building model ships in bottles.

<-- pp. 106-107


Clark, Mary E., and Margery Closey Quigley:
ETIQUETTE EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
The Parents' Institute, Inc., New York, 1939.

Here's why: "The doors of good society gradually close and the dinner and dance invitations are not sent to persons who do third-rate things."

<-- front cover