A historic generator of American counterculture, California has become the landing site for Asian vinyl toy culture as well. Beyond Ultraman examines the vinyl art toy landscape as seen through the work of seven California artists who reflect that movement, turning art into toys and vice versa. Through originality, wit, flippancy and brilliance, each artist represented here has elevated the vinyl art toy movement and captured the attention of two audiences: the mainstream art community and the toy community. This full-color illustrated catalog documents a first-of-its-kind exhibition presented jointly by the Pasadena Museum of California Art and the Los Angeles Toy, Doll and Amusements Museum. Specific works by Gary Baseman, Tim Biskup, David Gonzales, David Horvath, Sun-Min Kim, Brian McCarty and Mark Nagata are illustrated and described within both current and historical contexts. The vinyl art toy movement is fueled by a generation of enthusiastic young collectors for whom this book is essential.

Adapting the classic Ultraman series from the 1960s, experience this bold take on Earth’s iconic defender! Pursuing a fugitive space monster, a Being of Light enters Earth’s atmosphere. Accidentally colliding with a patrolling jet, piloted by Science Patrol Agent Shin Hayata, the Being merges with the pilot to save his life and vows to defend the Earth. Now whenever the planet is threatened by alien invaders, terrifying monsters or any threat beyond the capabilities of humanity, Shin Hayata transforms into the towering Ultraman to restore peace and save the day. Dive into the action-packed adventure as told by Hugo, Clarke and Scribe Award-winning author Pat Cadigan.

As advanced in-space propulsion moves from science fiction to reality, the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket, or VASIMR® engine, is a leading contender for making 'Mars in a month' a possibility. A paradigm shift in space transportation, this book is an in-depth and compelling story co-written by its inventor. It traces the riveting history of the development of the VASIMR® engine. This landmark technology is grounded in concepts of advanced plasma physics. It cross-pollinates ideas and disciplines to offer a new, practical, and sustainable solution for in-space transportation beyond low Earth orbit in the decades to come. Invented by the co-holder of the world’s spaceflight record, astronaut Franklin Chang Díaz, the VASIMR® engine is developed by Ad Astra Rocket Company in its Texas facilities with NASA as part of the NextSTEP VASIMR® partnership. With adequate funding, the first spaceflight of the VASIMR® engine is imminent. Plasma rockets feature exhaust velocities far above those achievable by conventional chemical rockets. The VASIMR® engine is the most advanced high-power plasma propulsion system operating in the world today and it may place long, fast interplanetary journeys withinour reach in the near future.

Specifically designed for use in a range of undergraduate and graduate courses, while reaching specialists and general readers, this second edition of Introducing Japanese Popular Culture is a comprehensive textbook offering an up-to-date overview of a wide variety of media forms. It uses particular case studies as a way into examining the broader themes in Japanese culture and provides a thorough analysis of the historical and contemporary trends that have shaped artistic production, as well as politics, society, and economics. As a result, more than being a time capsule of influential trends, this book teaches enduring lessons about how popular culture reflects the societies that produce and consume it. With contributions from an international team of scholars, representing a range of disciplines from history and anthropology to art history and media studies, the book covers: Characters Television Videogames Fan media and technology Music Popular cinema Anime Manga Spectacles and competitions Sites of popular culture Fashion Contemporary art. Written in an accessible style with ample description and analysis, this textbook is essential reading for students of Japanese culture and society, Asian media and popular culture, globalization, and Asian Studies in general. It is a go-to handbook for interested readers and a compendium for scholars.

Dolores Martinez heads an international team of scholars in this lively discussion of Japanese popular culture. The book's contributors include Japanese as well as British, Icelandic and North American writers, offering a diversity of views of what Japanese popular culture is, and how it is best approached and understood. They bring an anthropological perspective to a broad range of topics, including sumo, karaoke, manga, vampires, women's magazines, soccer and morning television. Through these topics - many of which have never previously been addressed by scholars - the contributors also explore several deeper themes: the construction of gender in Japan; the impact of globalisation and modern consumerism; and the rapidly shifting boundaries of Japanese culture and identity. This innovative study will appeal to those interested in Japanese culture, sociology and cultural anthropology.

On the surface, the relationship between comics and the ‘high’ arts once seemed simple; comic books and strips could be mined for inspiration, but were not themselves considered legitimate art objects. Though this traditional distinction has begun to erode, the worlds of comics and art continue to occupy vastly different social spaces. Comics Versus Art examines the relationship between comics and the most important institutions of the art world, including museums, auction houses, and the art press. Bart Beaty's analysis centres around two questions: why were comics excluded from the history of art for most of the twentieth century, and what does it mean that comics production is now more closely aligned with the art world? Approaching this relationship for the first time through the lens of the sociology of culture, Beaty advances a completely novel approach to the comics form.

Despite the recent growth in university courses on European Studies and Cultural Studies, and notwithstanding increasing public concern about questions of national identity within Europe, there is currently little material available which explores the diversity of European identities specifically within the context of European literary and filmic culture. In tackling ten novels, six plays, four films, three short stories, three books of travel writing and one diary, covering fifteen nationalities in all, the authors of this volume are seeking to fill this gap. The twelve essays contain detailed textual analysis embedded within a framework of cultural theory whose most celebrated reference points include Freud, Edward Said, Benedict Anderson and Homi Bhabha. This volume is aimed not only at specialists in identity studies and those concerned with the artistic landscape of a wider Europe - including Russia, the Balkans, Finland and Turkey. It will also interest those preoccupied with building an imaginative and imagined identity for Europe, an identity which might help to sustain it as a political entity and lend it greater popular legitimacy than it enjoys at present.