STANLEY STORIES: The Tao of Yow: John Stanley's World: new book available on amazon.com

Saturday, November 21, 2015

The Tao of Yow: John Stanley's World: new book available on amazon.com

I am pleased to announce the publication of my new book on John Stanley.

The Tao of Yow includes revised versions of three of the acclaimed "John Stanley's World" essays from this blog, alongside four new pieces. All are profusely illustrated in full color with images from printed comics, production materials and rare promotional items that have sat, unseen, for over half a century.

This 154-page, 8 x 10" softcover, professionally bound and printed through the Createspace print-on-demand program, is designed as a companion to my three-volume bibliography of John Stanley's work in comics. Since those books are mostly data, they left little room for the type of material in The Tao of Yow. Given the impermanence of the Web, in which a long-established site or blog can vanish overnight, it seemed like a good idea to commit some of these pieces to the printed page.

Here is the book's table of contents:

The essay on p. 122 offers a first-time-ever full color version of a certain notorious "Little Lulu" story from 1950:

The Tao of Yow: John Stanley's World may be purchased on Amazon at this link. This will, I hope, be the first in a series of books that collect, expand and revise my work on this long-running blog.

3 comments:

Gabriel said...: 👌 👏🎊 🎉!!!; November 21, 2015 at 11:47 AM
Mark Mayerson said...: Are there plans to release a Kindle version?; November 22, 2015 at 3:57 PM
Frank M. Young said...: Mark, I'm working on an e-book version now... it requires some dinking around in the formatting, so more trial and error is called for.; November 23, 2015 at 7:07 AM

THE JOHN STANLEY COMICS BIBLIOGRAPHY SERIES

I have compiled a detailed, fully illustrated (in color) story-by-story career bibliography of the comic book and magazine cartoon work of John Stanley, in three decade-specific oversized paperback editions. They're available in book form at Amazon.com.

You can read more about the 1940s volume HERE.

Check out the 1950s edition (the longest of the three books) HERE.

The 1960s volume can be previewed HERE.

Covers of the three books are seen below--and that of THE TAO OF YOW, a lavishly illustrated book of essays on John Stanley's world and his work, including expanded versions of essays first seen on this blog. TAO OF YOW may be perused HERE.

A FERVENT PLEA TO FELLOW BLOGGERS

I would like to suggest that the following grammatical and punctuation errors be avoided by one and all;

1) misuse of the possessive apostrophe-s. It's means "it is," not "its." Appropriate use, e.g.: "It's hot outside today." Wrong usage: "I looked at it's cover."

I see this horrid mistake committed hundreds of times daily on the Internet and elsewhere. If a word ends in an s, chances are someone will ram that apostrophe in there. (e.g., "Today's Special's").

Please, please, PLEASE--unless you intend to convey that a person, place or thing is being discussed, in the present tense, or is in use as a contraction of two words (i.e., "it is, let us, what is"), DO NOT USE THE APOSTROPHE!

2) misuse of the apostrophe in dates. Again: unless it is intended to convey the location or possession of a certain quality, such as "1867's drinking water supplies" or "1978's energy crisis," DO NOT USE THE APOSTROPHE! The same applies to the use of decade-connoting dates. It is the 1950s, or the '50s--NOT the 1950's or the 50's!

3) the two most abused words in the English language are "amazing" and "hilarious." It pains me to see these words used thousands of times a day in print and in conversation.

If everything is amazing and/or hilarious, then NOTHING is amazing and/or hilarious.

There exists a wealth of synonyms--delightful words that convey these two properties. Please, please, please use them in the place of these two horribly over-worked adjectives.

Visit synonym.com for easy access to other words that will help you communicate better and smarter.

4) When in doubt, use Spell Check.

Computer users have a luxury--we can instantly determine if a word we've typed is properly spelled. Any computer's spell checking program will inevitably have bugs, but most of the time it's quite helpful.

There is no good reason (aside from un-caught typos) that Internet writing should have spelling errors. We no longer have to interrupt our work, walk over to the bookshelf, pull out the dictionary, find the word, and return to our task. Right-click on a highlighted word and you'll know if it's correct or not.

The speed of the Internet sometimes inspires sloppiness--in myself and in others. In our excitement to get our writing on-line, it's easy to forget that finely-tuned prose may require a little more time.

It is worth the effort--and it takes little effort anymore--to double-check spelling before you make a post live. I often go over old posts and correct typos or poor writing. I feel it makes a difference, and that it supports my worth as a scholar and critic.

If this plea can prevent the egregious misuse of proper English in the blogosphere, my life will not have been in vain.