A strange journey, sure, but a worthy one.
A photographic journey into the making of a cult film.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show debuted in theaters 50 years ago, and it never really left—the movie still draws often-costumed fans to special showings where they dance, sing, and throw toast and toilet paper. (It’s complicated.) Rock had a front-row seat at the filming of the movie as its chief photographer, and in this book, he and co-author Mohr bring readers behind the scenes. They explore the origins of the film, which was based on a stage musical, via interviews—some conducted for the book, some from other publications—with its principals, including actors Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, and Barry Bostwick. (Among the anecdotes is one from actor Patricia Quinn, who reveals that Curry “hated” being made “gorgeous” by makeup artist Pierre La Roche.) Refreshingly, the book doesn’t neglect the crew of the film, including La Roche and costume director Sue Blane, who created the movie’s iconic looks. The film bombed on its release but found new life in midnight screenings among a subculture that included many in the LGBTQ+ community: “This type of safe space proved to be a key to both personal and artistic development and inspired and fostered generation after generation of performers and artists,” the authors write. The book is centered on Rock’s beautiful photographs from the shoot; they capture, as he writes in the foreword, “a time of colorful exploration in sex, music, fashion, and chemistry.” Rock died in 2021, and Mohr in 2025; this book is a fitting last testament to their remarkable careers. It’s a given that any reader who knows all the words to “Touch-a-Touch-a-Touch-a-Touch Me” will be delighted, but anyone with an interest in 1970s film will find something to love here.
A strange journey, sure, but a worthy one.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9780063385689
Page Count: 240
Publisher: HarperPop/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
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