James Lyons

Yannis Tzioumakis

This edited collection is the first book to offer a wide-ranging examination of the interface between American independent film and a converged television landscape that consists of terrestrial broadcasters, cable networks and streaming providers, in which independent film and television intersect in complex, multifaceted and creative ways. The book covers the long history of continuities and connections between the two sectors, as seen in the activities of PBS, HBO or Sundance. It considers the movement of filmmakers between indie film and TV such as Steven Soderbergh, Rian Johnson, the Duplass brothers, Joe Swanberg, Lynn Shelton and Gregg Araki; details the confluence of aesthetic and thematic elements seen in shows such as Girls, Breaking Bad, Master of None, or Glow; points to a shared interest in regional sensibilities evident in shows like One Mississippi or Fargo; and makes the case for documentaries and web series as significant entities in this domain. Collectively, the book builds a compelling picture of indie TV as a significant feature of US screen entertainment in the 21st Century. This interdisciplinary landmark volume will be a go-to reference for students and scholars of Television Studies, Film Studies and Media Studies.

Industry, Aesthetics and Medium Specificity

Indie TV

John Tasker Howard

Contents--What is Modern Music--and Why have People Never Liked It, at First?; Music has Always Told How People Think and Act; Dissonance--the Salt and Pepper of Music; Acoustics and the Development of Harmony; Impressionism--Debussy and His Followers; Schoenberg and Atonality; Music Written in Two or More Keys at Once--Polytonality; Back to Bach--Neoclassicism; Music for Everday use--Gebrauchsmusik; From Plain Song to Jazz--A Story of Rhythms; Tone Clusters, Quarter Tones, Percussive and Electronic Music; The Composer and the Public; Selected Reading List; Selected Recordings; Index.

A Popular Guide to Greater Musical Enjoyment

Modern Music

John Plunkett

This work explores the vital connections between today's digital culture and an absorbing history of screen entertainments and technologies. It moves from the magic lantern and early film to the DVD and the Internet.

From the Magic Lantern to the Internet

Multimedia Histories

Mark Jancovich

Why are some contemporary television shows so compelling? The Sopranos, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Friends and ER are examples among many of a new era of the 'must-see' programme. These shows and others like The X-Files and Ally McBeal, have a compulsiveness, a depth of characterisation and 'back-story' that puts most of cinema to shame. Quality Popular Television looks at this new category of 'cult' television (mostly US-produced) and the reasons for its emergence. Looking at shows as diverse as Ally McBeal, Martial Law, Buffy, Lois and Clark, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Ellen the book examines the particular qualities necessary for success and how they relate to issues such as the economics of network scheduling, the growth of the internet and contemporary debates about television audiences. This important new book provides an invaluable window on transformations in contemporary television culture.

Cult TV, the Industry and Fans

Quality Popular Television

Jim Johnson and the Shrinkonaut

Paul Williams

Contributions by David M. Ball, Ian Gordon, Andrew Loman, Andrea A. Lunsford, James Lyons, Ana Merino, Graham J. Murphy, Chris Murray, Adam Rosenblatt, Julia Round, Joe Sutliff Sanders, Stephen Weiner, and Paul Williams Starting in the mid-1980s, a talented set of comics artists changed the American comic book industry forever by introducing adult sensibilities and aesthetic considerations into popular genres such as superhero comics and the newspaper strip. Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986) and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's Watchmen (1987) revolutionized the former genre in particular. During this same period, underground and alternative genres began to garner critical acclaim and media attention beyond comics-specific outlets, as best represented by Art Spiegelman's Maus. Publishers began to collect, bind, and market comics as “graphic novels,” and these appeared in mainstream bookstores and in magazine reviews. The Rise of the American Comics Artist: Creators and Contexts brings together new scholarship surveying the production, distribution, and reception of American comics from this pivotal decade to the present. The collection specifically explores the figure of the comics creator—either as writer, as artist, or as writer and artist—in contemporary US comics, using creators as focal points to evaluate changes to the industry, its aesthetics, and its critical reception. The book also includes essays on landmark creators such as Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman, and Chris Ware, as well as insightful interviews with Jeff Smith (Bone), Jim Woodring (Frank) and Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics). As comics have reached new audiences, through different material and electronic forms, the public's broad perception of what comics are has changed. The Rise of the American Comics Artist surveys the ways in which the figure of the creator has been at the heart of these evolutions.

Creators and Contexts

The Rise of the American Comics Artist

Starbucks, Microsoft, Amazon.com, World Trade Organisation, grunge music - all concepts that have now become synonymous with Seattle. Selling Seattle: Representing Contemporary Urban America is the first book to examine the impact of Seattle on contemporary culture and to account for the city's rapid rise to fame and influence since the early 1990s. Interdisciplinary in approach - broaching current debates from urban geography and interrogations of economic and cultural globalisation to cinema and media studies - this volume looks closely at the city's representation on film and television as well as in journalism and literature, and also considers the ways in which famous Seattle brands such as Microsoft, Starbucks and grunge worked to establish the city as a symbol of urban desire and fantasy in recent years. Selling Seattle is required reading for anyone who seeks to understand the contemporary American city, and the powerful trends that shape the urban landscape and its place in the popular imagination.

Representing Contemporary Urban America

Selling Seattle

Fat is Not the Enemy! In today's youth-obsessed culture, mixed messages about diet, exercise, and skincare are everywhere. But one thing is clear: fat is always the enemy. Right? Wrong, says James R. Lyons, M.D. In LOSE THE FAT, LOSE THE YEARS, Dr. Lyons explains that, contrary to popular belief, fat is the key to a youthful looking face and body. But it has to be the right kind of fat. With his nearly 30 years of clinical experience, Dr. Lyons had noticed the presence of different types of fat in the body, one that makes us look old, and one that gives our bodies a youthful appearance. LOSE THE FAT, LOSE THE YEARS reveals, for the first time, how retaining "good" fat while losing "bad" fat is the key to a healthier, leaner body and more youthful glow. Change your body with a unique and sensible eating and exercise program that includes: *A four-week eating plan that alternates carbohydrates and proteins, keeping blood sugar at an even keel to avoid fat production. *A monthly exercise routine centered on weights and bungee cords--not cardio--keeping metabolism up continuously (not temporarily, as cardio does) to burn more fat Revolutionary in concept, LOSE THE WEIGHT, LOSE THE YEARS will change the way you think about fat – and the results will last for the rest of your life!

A 30-Day Plan That Will Transform the Way You Look and Feel

Lose the Fat, Lose the Years

Miami Vice captures the glitter and glamour embodied by Crockett and Tubbs and offers students an anatomy of a ground-breaking work in the police procedural genre. Explores Miami Vice’s combination of disparate influences (MTV, film noir, soap opera, ‘high concept’ action films) as well as the social, cultural and industrial moments when it burst onto the network Introduces readers to major components of televisual analysis--style, storytelling, the television show as commodity and ideological critique-- that illustrate the show’s unique features Provides a model for students’ own assessment of other shows, and confirms precisely how--and on what terms--Miami Vice redefined the police drama and an era

James Lyons

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