Collected for the First Time All 14 Beautifully Restored Stories in an oversized format Ray Willner was a casualty of the culture wars. With a comics career dating to 1939, Willner produced impressive work for publishers small and large throughout the 1940s. By 1949 he landed one of the only steady gigs in his career for an unusual publisher: The Brown Shoe Company. While working initially on their Buster Brown Comic Book a giveaway created to drum up business in stores selling Brown s footwear for kids Willner found a simpatico spirit in fellow artist Reed Crandall. Although their collaboration on the Brown Shoe Co. series The Adventures of Robin Hood lasted less than a year cancelled in the wake of the scaremongering backlash against comics in the 1950s the seven issues produced by Willner with Crandall represent a seldom seen high-water mark in comics art. They were the last comics Willner would ever draw. The Lost Art of Ray Willner collects all of those Robin Hood stories for the first time since their original publication in 1956 and includes an introductory essay on Willner s life and career."

This work dissects the origin and growth of superhero comic books, their major influences, and the creators behind them. It demonstrates how Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain America and many more stand as time capsules of their eras, rising and falling with societal changes, and reflecting an amalgam of influences. The book covers in detail the iconic superhero comic book creators and their unique contributions in their quest for realism, including Julius Schwartz and the science-fiction origins of superheroes; the collaborative design of the Marvel Universe by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Steve Ditko; Jim Starlin’s incorporation of the death of superheroes in comic books; John Byrne and the revitalization of superheroes in the modern age; and Alan Moore’s deconstruction of superheroes.

(PREMIUM EDITION) He worked under numerous names--Kremos, Niso, Nys O'Ramp--but he occupies a singular space as Italy's cartooning Casanova, and he finally gets his due in this new two-volume set from Lost Art Books. From the mid-1940s through the early 1960s, Niso Ramponi's work was everywhere, from collaborating with friend Federico Fellini in Italy's animation industry to drawing newspaper strips to creating movie posters for Walt Disney. Ramponi made his name, however, in Italy's weekly satire magazines, for which he drew some of the world's prettiest "good girl" gag cartoons and covers for over a decade. Volume 1 collects over 200 of Kremos' bodacious black & white cartoons and illustrations, while Volume 2 adds 250 of his curvaceous color comics and covers to the set. Combined, these volumes offer a comprehensive overview of the maverick artist when he was at the height of his powers.

Fueled by an itinerant childhood, Kreigh Collins (1908-74) had a wanderlust that led to a lifetime of adventures, whether it was leaving his humble midwestern roots to study the masters in the Louvre and hone his craft painting on the banks of the Seine or getting knifed in Morocco while on a painting trip by boat in North Africa. But equally strong was the draw of his adopted home in Michigan, which is where he launched and set his first syndicated newspaper strip, Mitzi McCoy, in 1948. It didn't take long, though, for wanderlust to strike again, rendering Mitzi as but a precursor to Collins' eventual 20-year run on the picaresque adventure comic, Kevin the Bold. Lost Art Books celebrates these beautiful beginnings with this complete collection of Collins' Mitzi McCoy.

Hold On World revisits Lennon and Ono's love affair and startling collaborations. John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band was arguably the most emotionally honest album ever made. It wasn't merely another record but more like a sonic exorcism, a spiritual, public bloodletting. Lennon's album drove a stake through the heart of the Beatles' myth while confronting everything else in John's life, from Dylan to God to his glorified status as a "Working Class Hero." Determined to rid himself of past traumas—abandonment by his father and the death of his mother, Julia—Lennon wrote the most powerful song cycle of his career, confronting fear, disappointment, and illusion, all the while espousing his love for Yoko Ono. Released simultaneously, Ono's album Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band is emotionally raw and challenging. It inspired bands like the B-52s and Yo La Tengo to employ pure sound, whether shrieking vocals or guitar feedback, to express their deepest feelings.

The national bestseller From the author of the bestselling More Beautiful Than Before comes an inspiring book about loss based on his most popular sermon. As the senior rabbi of one of the largest synagogues in the world, Steve Leder has learned over and over again the many ways death teaches us how to live and love more deeply by showing us not only what is gone but also the beauty of what remains. This inspiring and comforting book takes us on a journey through the experience of loss that is fundamental to everyone. Yet even after having sat beside thousands of deathbeds, Steve Leder the rabbi was not fully prepared for the loss of his own father. It was only then that Steve Leder the son truly learned how loss makes life beautiful by giving it meaning and touching us with love that we had not felt before. Enriched by Rabbi Leder's irreverence, vulnerability, and wicked sense of humor, this heartfelt narrative is filled with laughter and tears, the wisdom of millennia and modernity, and, most of all, an unfolding of the profound and simple truth that in loss we gain more than we ever imagined.