Comments on: Incredibly detailed and illustrated books wanted.

Question: Incredibly detailed and illustrated books wanted.

Xere — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 19:31:15 -0800

I've recently become a fan of fiction books with immersing, at times overly detailed but precise illustrations, fold-outs, maps, ads, newspaper clippings. And they're part of the storyline, not just an oh-by-the-way illustration of something that's already fully explained in the text. The only ones I've come across so far are Eric Chase Anderson's Chuck Dugan is AWOL, Joshua Mowll's Operation Red Jericho and its sequel (these are literally overflowing with fantastic foldouts), and maybe even Hans Jurgen Press's Black Hand Gang books. Although Chuck Dugan is AWOL and the Black Hand Gang books don't have foldouts and maps, they nonetheless have illustrations just stuffed full of detail, and on nearly every page too! Surely there are plenty of others in the same line? Help, summer is here and I must read/see/devour them all.

Please excuse my overly breathy tone. I really love these books.

No, not comics or manga - that's different.

By: ssg

ssg — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 19:56:12 -0800

You might be interested in the books of Nick Bantock.

By: bassjump

bassjump — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:09:23 -0800

Seconding Nick Bantock.

By: DarlingBri

DarlingBri — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 21:04:00 -0800

3rding Nick Bantock; Griffin and Sabine is fairly extraordinary.

My memory is going but there was the very popular book in the 80s with the clues in the illustrations and the prize that turned up buried in the church garden in the UK. There was also an AMAZING series of I think three books where everything could be pulled out: newspaper clippings, letters, receipts and all manner of ephemera. At least one was a 40s mystery, and had a green cover. This would probably knock your proverbial socks off.

I really, really loved these books as a child but I was young when they were mine and the titles just escape me. I'm sure someone will be along shortly to fill in the blanks, or my brain will spike.

By: Razzle Bathbone

Razzle Bathbone — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:14:38 -0800

Barbara Hodgson's The Tattooed Map. I think some of her other books might also fit the bill.

By: Jahaza

Jahaza — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 23:35:38 -0800

"Time and Again" by Jack Finney perhaps (but not the sequel, it's horrible.)

By: Monochrome

Monochrome — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 06:25:11 -0800

You want books with "false documents" in them, don't you?

By: le morte de bea arthur

le morte de bea arthur — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 07:55:38 -0800

Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan comic book might fall vaguely into your category.

By: Xere

Xere — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:43:57 -0800

Thanks everyone.

DarlingBri, I think the clue book is Masquerade. I'd very much like to know what the three-book series is.

Any other suggestions from anyone else?

By: silverstatue

silverstatue — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:41:22 -0800

I'm coming a little late to this thread, but I love books like this too. You should check out Journal: The Short Life and Mysterious Death of Amy Zoe Mason by Joyce Atkinson and Kristine Atkinson. Such a cool random little book. The "hook" of the book is that the authors found this journal in the drawer of some dresser at an estate sale. The whole book is just the scrapbook journal of a woman who went missing. Really cool and creepy. because you can see how at first the journal is all neat and cheerful with recipes and photographs and drawings from her kids, and then as it goes on, you see stuff like prescriptions for anti-depression meds, sinister notes, etc.