In the breathtaking realm where the celestial skies meet the earthly plains, two kingdoms stand as bastions of power and mystique: Xingli, the Kingdom of the Moon, and Noctara, the Kingdom of the Night. These lands, bathed in moonlight and shadow, are the heart of an epic tale of forbidden magic, dangerous secrets, and a love that defies all odds.The Eternal Beaco is a sweeping romantic fantasy that weaves the destinies of two young rulers, Jun, the enigmatic Prince of Noctara, and...

Stand out doing the work you love without burning out.Do you love your job but feel stressed to the max? Are you exhilarated by your achievements but lately have you been feeling like you cannot keep going at your current pace? Does some part of you know your relationship with work has to change? Then Dear Work is for you.Chief vitality officer of leadership research and coaching firm BrainAMPED, Sara Ross explains exactly how you can keep accelerating in your career and ach...

With disappearing music venues, and arts and culture communities at constant risk of displacement in our urban centers, the preservation of intangible cultural heritage is of growing concern to global cities.This book addresses the role and protection of intangible cultural heritage in the urban context. Using the methodology of Urban Legal Anthropology, the author provides an ethnographic account of the civic effort of Toronto to become a Music City from 2014-18 in the context of ...

Dogs have been part of motion pictures since the movies began. They have been featured onscreen in various capacities, from any number of “man’s best friends” (Rin Tin Tin, Asta, Toto, Lassie, Benji, Uggie, and many, many more) to the psychotic Cujo. The contributors to Cinematic Canines take a close look at Hollywood films and beyond in order to show that the popularity of dogs on the screen cannot be separated from their increasing presence in our lives over the past century.The ...

Don’t burn out—stand out.Do you find yourself striving for big goals but running on fumes? Are you ever stuck in the frustrating cycle of overworking and under-living? Do you love the work you do—or at least used to—but feel overwhelmed by it?When it comes to work and our relationship with it, something has to change. This doesn’t mean you need to bound out of bed every day in love with your work, nor do you need to settle for dragging yourself out of bed s...

From one of the most admired critics of our time, brilliant insights into the act of watching movies and an enlightening discussion about how to derive more from any film experience.Since first publishing his landmark Biographical Dictionary of Film in 1975 (recently released in its sixth edition), David Thomson has been one of our most provocative authorities on all things cinema. Now he offers his most inventive exploration of the medium yet: guiding us through each elem...

First pregnancy can be a fraught, uncomfortable experience for any woman, but for resolutely butch lesbian Teek Thomasson, it is exceptionally challenging.Teek identifies as a masculine woman in a world bent on associating pregnancy with a cult of uber-femininity. Teek wonders, Can butches even get pregnant?”Of course, as she and her pragmatic femme girlfriend Vee discover, they can. But what happens when they do? Written and illustrated by A.K. Summers, a...

A Comics Studies Reader 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 Töpffer, 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 o...

Film Noir explores the murky world of a genre responsible for many of film's most enduring images. Mark Bould discusses problems of definition and the often ambiguous nature of film noir and looks at modern films that could be called neo-noir. Iconic and enduring, film noir attracted great stars (Bogart, Bacall, Mitchum, Lancaster), many of the best directors of the era (Wilder, Lang, Preminger, Hawks, Siodmak, Welles) and this book is an indispensible guide to this popular genre....

The seventies were a decade of groundbreaking horror films: The Exorcist, Carrie, and Halloween were three. This detailed filmography covers these and 225 more. Section One provides an introduction and a brief history of the decade.Beginning with 1970 and proceeding chronologically by year of its release in the United States, Section Two offers an entry for each film. Each entry includes several categories of information: Critical Reception (sampling both '70s and...

Romantic Comedy offers an introduction to the analysis of a popular but overlooked film genre. The book provides an overview of Hollywood's romantic comedy conventions, examining iconography, narrative patterns, and ideology. Chapters discuss important subgroupings within the genre: screwball sex comedy and the radical romantic comedy of the 1970s. A final chapter traces the lasting influence of these earlier forms within current romantic comedies. Films include: Pillow Talk

To learn how to draw cartoons and comics effectively, you have to first understand the purpose behind them. Anyone can learn to draw cartoons and comics in a mechanical way, but to become successful, you have to get the meaning of what makes people want to read them, and continue to read them. Once that is understood, the drawing is much easier and will come across as being a reflection of purpose.Learning how to draw cartoons is mostly done by observation and practice. As we study...