The Book Room

"Out of picture" is a term used for anything that's cut from a movie. It is also the title of a lush, new book put together by the animators at Blue Sky Studios, the folks behind "Ice Age" and "Robots."

In Out of Picture, Volume 1: Art From the Outside Looking In (Villard, 160 pages, $19.95), the Blue Sky artistic team was let loose to put their individual stamps on their own graphic stories. The result is one of most interesting books I've ever laid eyes on. I highly recommend it to anyone, regardless of literary taste. I'm not a big graphic novel reader but I was mesmerized by this book.

Continue reading "Just plain fun to look at" »

Posted by Teresa Budasi at 06:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When I was in college, I lived in a house with four other women, all of whom smoked. I was the lone non-smoker — not that I was offended by it; I just found it unpalatable. They all had quit by the time we came back to school for spring semester and, one by one, they all started up again.

But none of them ever came close to another of our friends — let's call her Jane — whose habit was so ritualistic, so cool and so second-nature, it bordered on art form. Jane never entertained the thought of quitting. As if.

These Things Ain't Gonna Smoke Themselves (Bloomsbury, $12.95) by Emily Flake could have been subtitled...

Continue reading "Up in smoke" »

Posted by Teresa Budasi at 10:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)