The Art of Harvey Kurtzman.
The MAD Genius of Comics.

Harvey Kurtzman was the creator of "MAD Magazine" and "Playboy"'s 'Little Annie Fanny', and is considered one of the leading artists in American satirical and adult comics. This book includes pencil sketches, layouts, inked drawings, colour compositions, correspondence and more than hundred photos and art from the Kurtzman archives. (source: Telegraph bookshop)

Underground Classics.
The Transformation of Comics into Comix.

While the works of Robert Crumb and Art Spiegelman are well-known via "The New Yorker", "Maus", and retrospective collections, the art of contemporaries such as Gilbert Shelton, Tina Robbins, Justin Green, Kim Dietch, S. Clay Wilson, and many other important cartoonists who came of age in the 1960s, is considerably less known. "Underground Classics" provides the first serious survey of underground comix as art, turning the spotlight on these highly influential and largely underappreciated artists.This volume accompanies a major exhibition debuting at the Chazen Museum of Art on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, which will then travel to additional national and international venues. Four essays, from curators Denis Kitchen and James P. Danky, Paul Buhle, Patrick Rosenkranz and Trina Robbins, offer a thorough reflection and appraisal of the underground movement.
(source: Buchwelt)

Official Overstreet Comic book Price Guide 2009

This price guide  includes more than 2,000 black-and-white illustrations throughout the text, a gallery of hundreds of color images of some of the most popular collectible comic books, and informative essays written by top experts on comic book topics. (source: Alibris)

2009 Comic Book Checlist & Price Guide

Comprehensive listings for more than 125,000 comic books, along with photographs of more than two thousand key issues of interest, are included in a guide that provides comic book collectors with most up-to-date information on values and collecting guidelines.

2009 Comics Values Annual

This Comic Book Catalogue is organized alphabetically by major publishers, beginning with DC and Marvel, then on to miscellaneous Golden Age, black and white, and color titles from scale publishers, you can quickly locate and assess comics from among the 95,000 featured.
(source: Booktopia)

Alan Moore.
Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel.

In "Alan Moore: Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel," Annalisa Di Liddo argues that Moore employs the comics form to dissect the literary canon, the tradition of comics, contemporary society, and our understanding of history. The book considers Moore's narrative strategies and pinpoints the main thematic threads in his works: the subversion of genre and pulp fiction, the interrogation of superhero tropes, the manipulation of space and time, the uses of magic and mythology, the instability of gender and ethnic identity, and the accumulation of imagery to create satire that comments on politics and art history.
Examining Moore's use of comics to scrutinize contemporary culture, Di Liddo analyzes his best-known works--"Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, Watchmen, From Hell, Promethea," and "Lost Girls." The study also highlights Mooreas lesser-known output. Fiction as Scalpel" reveals Moore to be one of the most significant and distinctly postmodern comics creators of the last quarter-century.

A Comics Studies Reader

This book offers the best of the new comics scholarship in nearly thirty essays on a wide variety of such comics forms as gag cartoons, editorial cartoons, comic strips, comic books, manga, and graphic novels. The anthology covers the pioneering work of Rodolphe Topffer, the Disney comics of Carl Barks, and the graphic novels of Art Spiegelman and Chris Ware, as well as "Peanuts," romance comics, and superheroes. It explores the stylistic achievements of manga, the international anti-comics campaign, and power and class in Mexican comic books and English illustrated stories.
A survey of the best scholars writing on the form, craft, history, and significance of the comics.

The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion

Fantagraphics presents an expanded version of this hard-to-find and out of print collector’s item. Compiled by award-winning Foster biographer Brian M. Kane, The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion beautifully and definitively showcases the careers of artists Hal Foster, John Cullen Murphy, and Gary Gianni.
In addition to updating the original version’s story synopsis section with over thirty years of material, The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion also contains rare and new articles. Included in this volume is a never before reprinted newspaper feature from 1949, Foster’s final interview conducted by Arn Saba, an extensive interview with John Cullen Murphy, and a new interview with the current Prince Valiant creative team of Gary Gianni and Mark Schultz. A special feature of The Companion is a sixteen-page color section of carefully selected strips from the entire run of the comic. Collectors will be able to see Prince Valiant as Foster intended it to be seen, with all of his fine inked line work intact. (source: Bookrenter)

Al Williamson's Flash Gordon,
A Lifelong Vision of the Heroic.

Flash Gordon, introduced as a Sunday newspaper comic strip by King Features Syndicate in 1934, remains after more than 70 years, one of the best-known and most beloved epics of heroic fantasy produced in America. Initially envisioned and drawn by the brilliant Alex Raymond, the strips mlange of alien wonders, beautiful damsels, interplanetary evil and peerless derring-do remains potent today, as witness its many adaptations in print, motion pictures and television. It has even been cited by George Lucas as a primary influence on his Star Wars series. Al Williamson is arguably the foremost of Raymonds acolytes, the artist who best exemplifies the original spirit of Raymonds creation collects all the major works of the artist featuring the character Williamsons Flash drawings done for commercial illustration and prints a selection of unpublished images introduction by Sergio Aragones

The Film Companion Watchmen

It is the most eagerly awaited comics-to-film adaptation of them all. The graphic novel that changed an industry is now a film, directed by Zack Snyder (300), and "Watchmen: The Official Film Companion" is the essential guide to this cinematic event. A complex, multi-layered mystery adventure.
Watchmen is set in an alternate 1985 in which costumed super heroes are part of the fabric of everyday American society. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present super heroes. Their mission is to watch over humanity? but who is watching the Watchmen?

The Art of the Film Watchmen

From the New York City of an alternate 1985 to the surface of Mars, the film adaptation of Watchmen is a triumph of design, filled with unique characters and layer upon layer of arresting detail. Discover how director Zack Snyder (300) and his crew faithfully recreated the intricately detailed world and characters of the legendary graphic novel in the eagerly awaited film. Featuring scores of production designs, set photos, costume sketches, storyboards and other pieces of conceptual art, Watchmen: The Art of the Film is a lavish celebration of a comic book made real. (source: Bookfinder)

Disney's Neglected Prince.
The Art of Disney's Knights in Shining Armor (and loincloths)

From the Prince who is Charming, to the Prince who began as a "diamond in the rough," to the Lord of the Jungle, and to the many princes whose kiss led to a happily ever after, the Disney princes are often neglected in favor of their female counterparts.
"Disney's Neglected Prince" is a hard cover, museum-quality "Art of" book that focuses on the men, whether they rule from a castle, a forest, or a mountaintop, or just marry well. The roster includes royal favorites such as Princes Phillip, Eric, and the Beast; royalty from other realms including Hercules, John Smith and Li Shang; and the latest to ascend to the throne-Prince Edward from the upcoming Disney feature "Enchanted" and the Prince from "The Princess and the Frog," Rare and rarely seen visual development art from The Walt Disney Feature Animation Studio will give Disney fans an opportunity to enjoy these hand-drawn hunks in a whole new way.