-An innocent extra-credit assignment to watch a meteor shower turns dangerous when a student goes missing. Will everyone make it out alive?---

From the renowned comedian, creator, star and executive producer/multiple title-holder of Comedy Central's Important Things with Demetri Martin comes a bold, original, and rectangular kind of humor book. Demetri's first literary foray features longer-form essays and conceptual pieces (such as Protagonists' Hospital, a melodrama about the clinic doctors who treat only the flesh wounds and minor head scratches of Hollywood action heroes), as well as his trademark charts, doodles, drawings, one-liners, and lists (i.e., the world views of optimists, pessimists and contortionists), Martin's material is varied, but his unique voice and brilliant mind will keep readers in stitches from beginning to end.

Steve Martin has been an international star for over thirty years. Here, for the first time, he looks back to the beginning of his career and charmingly evokes the young man he once was. Born in Texas but raised in California, Steve was seduced early by the comedy shows that played on the radio when the family travelled back and forth to visit relatives. When Disneyland opened just a couple of miles away from home, an enchanted Steve was given his first chance to learn magic and entertain an audience. He describes how he noted the reaction to each joke in a ledger - 'big laugh' or 'quiet' - and assiduously studied the acts of colleagues, stealing jokes when needed. With superb detail, Steve recreates the world of small, dark clubs and the fear and exhilaration of standing in the spotlight. While a philosophy student at UCLA, he worked hard at local clubs honing his comedy and slowly attracting a following until he was picked up to write for TV. From here on, Steve Martin became an acclaimed comedian, packing out venues nationwide. One night, however, he noticed empty seats and realised he had 'reached the top of the rollercoaster'. BORN STANDING UP is a funny and riveting chronicle of how Steve Martin became the comedy genius we now know and is also a fascinating portrait of an era.

Martin Shingler presents the mother volume for Palgrave's Film Stars series in three easily-navigable chapters in which he provides a summative and instructive account of star studies for today's film student. Via a critical evaluation of the work of leading film scholars, he provides a convincing argument for howthis important area of film studies has evolved. Building on this, he offerssome new directions for star scholarship, and ends by offering the film student a useful set of themes and issues for his or her own investigation. 'Star Studies' is the perfect companion for the student who wishes to foster further research on stardom across a wide range of contexts, from national cinemas, to mainstream and marginal cinemas, to different historical periods and beyond.

Law & Order meets Men in Black in this graphic novel adaptation of an unproduced TV pilot script by the author of A Game of Thrones—a never-before-seen story brought to life for the first time! SECOND CITY. FIRST CONTACT. Ten years ago, representatives from an interstellar collective of 314 alien species landed on Earth, inviting us to become number 315. Now, after seemingly endless delays, the Starport in Chicago is operational, a destination for diplomats, merchants, and tourists alike. Inside, visitors are governed by intergalactic treaty. Outside, the streets belong to Chicago’s finest. Charlie Baker, newly promoted to the squad that oversees the Starport district, is eager to put to practical use his enthusiasm for all things extraterrestrial; he just never expected to arrive on his first day in the back of a police cruiser. Lieutenant Bobbi Kelleher is married to the job, which often puts her in conflict with Lyhanne Nhar-Lys, security champion of Starport and one of the galaxy’s fiercest warriors. Undercover with a gang of anti-alien extremists, Detective Aaron Stein has no problem mixing business with pleasure—until he stumbles upon evidence of a plot to assassinate a controversial trade envoy with a cache of stolen ray guns. Now the Chicago PD must stop these nutjobs before they piss off the entire universe. Based on a TV pilot script written by George R. R. Martin in 1994 and adapted and illustrated by Hugo Award–nominated artist Raya Golden, this bold and brilliant graphic novel adaptation at last brings Martin’s singular vision to rollicking life. With all the intrigue, ingenuity, and atmosphere that made A Game of Thrones a worldwide phenomenon, Starport launches a new chapter in the career of a sci-fi/fantasy superstar.