ART & MANGA-RELATED BOOK PICKS

Dropped by the art bookstore 'PageOne' at Vivocity mall recently! I can spend the whole afternoon there just browsing the design and art section, ooh I just wish I had the money to purchase them! These books below are on my wanted list:

'Illustration File Analogue'. It is a directory of Japanese illustrations published yearly. Unfortunately I didn't find the current year's or last year's edition and they don't have new copies either; it's one of my ultimate fave art books and I've been eyeing it for years! The illustrations featured are beautiful and varied, mostly of magazines, book covers and adverts with contact details of the artists. It's in Japanese.

'Manga Masters of the Art' contains interviews of prolific mangakas; their working processes, materials and other interesting titbits. Insightful although not super detailed but still makes for an interesting read. I was curious on how they met weekly deadlines and which aspects of producing manga were left to assistants.

'One Thousand Years of Manga' traces the beginnings of manga; from ukiyo-e prints to popular manga. A large part of the book are ukiyo-e art features and alot of familiar (and my favourite) manga artists who impacted the scene through the decades. Really lovely book with lots of colour.

'The Garden of Eye Candy'. I think alot of people already know about this book. The edition I saw was a PageOne edition without a box and different grey cover (also cheaper). It contains many artists who work in the style of hmm... eye candy. Girls with distinctive features or a certain atmostphere (lolita, goth, cute, etc). Sigh.