100 Books Like The Visual Story

I was privileged to see firsthand these two Disney Legends and their passions for the craft of storytelling through animation. I worked with Frank and Ollie as a young animation trainee. I learned the basics of animation by ‘in-betweening’ scenes primarily for Frank. In addition to ‘in-betweening’ for Frank, he would give me scenes to animate under his supervision. The principles and philosophy of the ‘Disney way’ are explained within the pages of this book and I was fortunate to have absorbed them firsthand.

Applying the principles of animation that Frank and Ollie presented has had a tremendous effect on all aspects of my art. My book, my personal award-winning illustrations, and a 38-year career with the Disney Studio bear witness of putting these principles into practice.

I bought this book when I first got into the field of data visualization. I wasn’t planning on learning how to create comics; I just wanted to see how someone from a different discipline—a comic artist—thought about position, color, meaning, and communicating a whole lot of things in a compact format.

I love this book because it is as easy on the eye as it is insightful, with beautiful illustrations that perfectly complement the written content. Light and shadow are tackled with a noir aesthetic that is unique and very compelling.

Aside from the incredible visuals, what this book imparts most of all is how to use light as a storytelling and compositional device. And it does it in such style that I enjoy coming back to it again and again.

This book is not so much educational as it is inspiring. Frazetta’s work has inspired me and my students for the last three decades. When I attended art school in New York, I discover that Frazetta had a gallery in East Stroudsberg, PA. I would travel there in the hopes of meeting him in person, an event that never occurred. I did have many discussions with his wife and I would spend hours in the gallery attempting to decipher how Frazetta created the dynamic, illustrious sci-fi and fantasy illustrations. Also, something that never occurred. This particular book presents Frazetta’s ink drawings, masterfully drafted and full story.

This book coined the maxim far and away the most quoted in Hollywood to this day: “Nobody knows anything.” I first read it the year before I broke in. My copy is heavily annotated with yellow highlighter and red pen; a black paperclip still marks the second of Goldman’s two capitalized maxims, “Screenplays are structure.” The value of this book to anyone wanting to understand – or survive in – Hollywood is that, ironically, Goldman, one of the most successful screenwriters and novelists in Hollywood history, knew almost everything, not only about screenwriting, but also the psychology, cautious care, and perilous feeding of actors, directors, executives, and the rest of the Hollywood zoo. It’s both a textbook and survival guide, illustrated with a veteran’s vivid stories about life behind the tinsel.

When I decided to study Taiwan cinema more systematically, I tried to read as much on the subject as possible. I enjoyed this book because it offered me a broad overview of many kinds of questions that can be asked about and through Taiwan cinema.

For example, I realized that it is possible to try and understand Taiwanese domestic & international politics, cross-strait relations, colonial history, and the impact of globalization in a more relatable manner by reading films and documentaries as texts. It is also possible to analyze different festivals, genres, filmmakers, and individual films from the perspectives of the film industry and film artistry.

I was totally energized by the enormous potential the subject of Taiwan cinema can offer because of this book.     

Whoa, this book is a fun, chaotic dip into burnout. I had to just let go when I was reading, let the words crash over me like a wave, and get bashed around by the crazy stream-of-consciousness. The narrator's memories, fantasies, thoughts, delusions, worries, and everything else are all mixed up with crazy secondary characters and set in a realistically gritty and raw New York City. As a former resident of NYC, who has heard horror stories from lifelong residents, I could hear the desperate truth in every line. The narrator wants to quit—quit the trauma, the stress eating away at his nerves, but he keeps drinking, shooting up, and speeding to the next overdose, shooting, and heart attack. The narrator’s struggle between giving up on everything and trying one more time to find redemption in a broken city full of violence, sickness, and death took me one step closer… show more.

Bordwell is an academic who is encyclopedic on Hollywood.

He has written several definitive works on Hollywood and despite their depth and learnedness, they are very readable and enjoyable to absorb. So when he turned his attention to ‘classical’ Hollywood story telling, I knew it would be a good one, and I was not disappointed. 

Most story theorists have an approach that they are arguing for. Bordwell is analysing from a pure perspective, without ‘skin in the game’, so the result is balanced, critical, and highly enlightening for the aspiring writer. 

This is a book that shares intimate glimpses into the lives of a handful of Native Americans living on an Indian Reservation in the late 20th century. The book is full of humor, irony, and wit and was later made into a popular film. There are moments that are amusing and funny, but loneliness and a sense of apathy make their way into the storyline as well, as Victor, the lead character, tries to navigate the unpredictable family life he finds himself in. As a small boy he witnesses the damaging effects of alcoholism and what it does to his father and other family members, much like Sherman Alexie did himself. Victor is deeply resentful of his father’s abandonment when he was a child, and resents his friend Thomas for admiring his father for things like eating 15 pieces of fry bread in one sitting.

Victor struggles to find his… show more.

I think the author is very clever by bringing in the trendy concept of soft power and thus opening a new window for our understanding of Taiwan cinema.

I found the book not the easiest to read if you are not particularly familiar with the language of cultural studies or with specific films and filmmakers in Taiwan. However, the author has presented a convincing and valuable argument by linking a cinematic output to the entire system, which enables the production, circulation, and distribution of this output.

In other words, Taiwan cinema is a result, but the system that enriches creativity is where Taiwan’s values and soft power lie.