Words Without Pictures

Words Without Pictures was originally conceived of by curator Charlotte Cotton as a means of creating spaces for thoughtful and urgent discourse around current issues in photography. Every month for a year, beginning in November 2007, an artist, educator, critic, art historian, or curator was invited to contribute a short, un-illustrated, and opinionated essay about an aspect of photography that, in his or her view, was either emerging or in the process of being rephrased. Each piece was available on the Words Without Pictures website for one month and was accompanied by a discussion forum focused on its specific topic. Over the course of its month-long life, each essay received both invited and unsolicited responses from a wide range of interested partiesstudents, photographers active in the commercial sector, bloggers, critics, historians, artists of all kinds, educators, publishers, and photography enthusiasts alikeall coming together to consider the issues at hand. All of these essays, responses, and other provocations are gathered together in a volume designed by David Reinfurt of Dexter Sinister. Previously issued as a print-on-demand title, Aperture is pleased to present Words Without Pictures to the trade for this first time as part of the Aperture Ideas series.

You might think a book with no pictures seems boring and serious. Except . . . here's how books work. Everything written on the page has to be said by the person reading it aloud. Even if the words say . . . BLORK. Or BLUURF. And even if the words include things like BLAGGITY BLAGGITY and MY HEAD IS MADE OF BLUEBERRY PIZZA! That's the rule. That's the deal. Brilliantly irreverent and very, very silly, The Book With No Pictures will delight kids and have them begging for more. From award-winning US comic writer and actor, B.J. Novak.

Introduces basic vocabulary through pictures of items in such categories as household objects, foods, animals, vehicles, games, musical instruments, and circuses. On board pages.

A pioneering study of a unique narrative form, Words about Pictures examines the special qualities of picture books--books intended to educate or tell stories to young children. Drawing from a number of aesthetic and literary sources, Perry Nodelman explores the ways in which the interplay of the verbal and visual aspects of picture books conveys more narrative information and stimulation than either medium could achieve alone. Moving from "baby" books, alphabet books, and word books to such well-known children's picture books as Nancy Ekholm Burkert's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Gerald McDermott's Arrow to the Sun, Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, and Chris Van Allsburg's The Garden of Abdul Gasazi, Nodelman reveals how picture-book narrative is affected by the exclusively visual information of picture-book design and illustration as well as by the relationships between pictures and their complementary texts.

The older children get, the more words they know and can use—including hurtful words. This book teaches children that their words belong to them: They can think before they speak, then choose what to say and how to say it. It also explores positive ways to respond when others use unkind words and reinforces the importance of saying “I’m sorry.” Includes tips for parents and caregivers.

Photographer Moyra Davey takes quiet but ravishing photographs of typically overlooked and banal objects. Newspapers, dust, books, money, empty bottles, and the things on top of refrigerators all figure in series of pictures that bring viewers into a state of increased sensitivity to their everyday lives. Long Life Cool White features forty-five of the artist’s photographs from the past two decades. Davey’s relationship to such traditions as street and conceptual photography and French surrealism can be seen throughout these pages. Noted scholar Helen Molesworth examines the domestic content of Davey’s work as well as Davey’s burgeoning career as a writer. The book also includes Davey’s insightful essay “Notes on Photography and Accident,” in which she discusses the themes of chance, death, and the poetic that occur in the writings of three major theorists of photography: Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin, and Susan Sontag.

The series of sketches of "What the Moon Saw" arose from the experiences of Andersen, when as a youth he went to seek his fortune in Copenhagen. Uniquely, the story is split into 33 short parts, each describing unrelated scenes witnessed by the Moon as it travels around the world, looking down at its inhabitants over the course of some fifty or so nights. Fittingly for a tale told entirely after sunset, the tone is dark... Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was a Danish author, poet and artist. Celebrated for children’s literature, his most cherished fairy tales include "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Little Mermaid", "The Nightingale", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Little Match Girl". His books have been translated into every living language, and today there is no child or adult that has not met Andersen's whimsical characters. His fairy tales have been adapted to stage and screen countless times, most notably by Disney with the animated films "The Little Mermaid" in 1989 and "Frozen", which is loosely based on "The Snow Queen", in 2013. Thanks to Andersen's contribution to children's literature, his birth date, April 2, is celebrated as International Children's Book Day.

Best-selling Marvel Comics writer Brian Michael Bendis reveals the comic book writing secrets behind his work on The Avengers, Ultimate Spider-Man, All-New X-Men, and more. Arguably the most popular writer in modern comics, Brian Michael Bendis shares the tools and techniques he uses to create some of the most popular comic book and graphic novel stories of all time. Words for Pictures provides a fantastic opportunity for readers to learn from a creator at the very top of his field. Bendis's step-by-step lessons teach comics writing hopefuls everything they'll need to take their ideas from script to dynamic sequential art. The book's complete coverage exposes the most effective methods for crafting comic scripts, showcases insights from Bendis's fellow creators, reveals business secrets all would-be comics writers must know, and challenges readers with exercises to jumpstart their own graphic novel writing success.