Books published by University Press of Mississippi

The early 1980s saw a revolution in mainstream comics as new methods of publishing and distribution broadened the possibilities. Among those artists utilizing these new methods, Chester Brown quickly developed a cult following. This volume collects interviews covering all facets of the cartoonist's long career and includes several pieces from now-defunct periodicals and fanzines.

The interviews in this book offer a range of insights into the theoretical, critical, and practical circumstances of Eric Rohmer's remarkably coherent body of films, but also allow Rohmer to act as his own critic, providing us with an array of readings concerning his interest in setting, season, colour, and narrative.

For a tour of noir cinema this handbook is the perfect companion and Barry Gifford is an ideal guide. His choice selection of films exposes the menacing, moody, and oftentimes violent underbelly of this dark movie genre that occupies a favourite niche in American popular culture.

Four-time winner at the Cannes Film Festival, Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan began his career while still at the University of Toronto. The interviewscollected here reveal Egoyan's unique themes, and his individual, independent approach to filmmaking. He discusses his development as a director, his interest in opera and museum installations, and the expectations he has for his audience.

One of Canada's premier cinematic exports, Guy Maddin (b. 1956) is an award-winning filmmaker with a rising reputation. Guy Maddin: Interviews collects pieces published between 1990 and 2009 and offers the reader a whirlwind tour of Maddin's offbeat career in his own words, as solicited by a range of journalists, scholars, and fellow filmmakers.

In 1971, the outlandish originator of gonzo journalism, Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005) commandeered the international literary limelight with his best-selling, comic masterpiece Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Conversations with Hunter S. Thompson is the first compilation of selected personal interviews that traces the trajectory of his prolific and much-publicized career.

Presents a series of personal accounts and interviews with some of the most interesting and important world music artists, revealing the unique essence of each as a person, musician, and force for global change.

Since 1968, Garry Trudeau (b. 1948) has brought his brand of political satire to bear on public figures, movie stars, heads of state, and even on himself. In Garry Trudeau: "Doonesbury" and the Aesthetics of Satire, Kerry D. Soper traces the contribution of this groundbreaking artist.

Presents a collection of conversations with world-class jazz musicians and classical composers, featuring luminaries Philip Glass, Charles Lloyd, Abdullah Ibrahim, Steve Reich, Eugene Friesen, and Sathima Bea Benjamin. These in-depth, candid interviews focus not only on the music but also on the artists.

Originally published in France, Jean-Paul Gabilliet's Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic Books documents the rise and development of the American comic book industry from the 1930s to the present. The book intertwines aesthetic issues and critical biographies with the concerns of production, distribution, and audience reception.

Joseph L Mankiewicz (1909-1993) was one of the great creative forces in Hollywood, from the end of the silent era through to the early years of the Hollywood renaissance of the early 1970s. This is a collection of interviews that explores Mankiewicz's films and his approach to writing and directing.

Joseph Brodsky is unquestionably the greatest poet to emerge from postwar Russia and one of the great minds of the last century. In these interviews from 1972 to 1995, he calibrates the process of his remarkable reinvention from a brilliant, brash, but provincial Leningrad poet to an international man of letters and an erudite Nobel Prize laureate.

Through triumph and tribulation alike, Robert Altman has never lost the experimental spirit that brought him into feature filmmaking after twenty years of refining his talent on industrial movies and TV episodes. The interviews in this book probe the many corners of Altman's work.

A director, producer, and writer, George Lucas is the power behind "The Force". This first book of Lucas's interviews affords fans and students of film and science fiction a rare opportunity. Editor Sally Kline collects conversations from the reticent director spanning Lucas's entire career.

Why do comics both amuse and arouse controversy? This book is an attempt at an answer in a sharp-eyed comic-book lover's probing look at this step-child genre. He finds comics both loved and hated, relished and sneered at.

A selection of interviews with William Styron published during the period 1951 to 1984, from the months just following publication of his first novel, to the period after publication of Sophie's Choice. Some twenty-five interviews are reprinted, including six that are translated from the French.

In September, 1956, Peyton Place by Grace Metalious burst onto the American scene as the most controversial novel of the century. Its publication was also an extraordinary story of personal triumph. In this book Emily Toth provides a complete and sympathetic portrait of Grace: the idealistic young scribbler, partier, reluctant wife and mother.

In this collection of interviews Jane Campion speaks about her films that have given women a revival as a strong screen presence. She tells of her early life and of her training as a filmmaker in the 1980s at the Australian School of Film and Television; and talks about those who have influenced her style and her experiences in making movies.

Alfred Hitchcock is still arguably the most instantly recognizable film director in name, appearance, vision, and voice. Among the hundreds of interviews he gave, those in this collection catch Hitchcock at key moments of transition in his long career.

Explores how shifts in time and storyline create narrative intrigue on television, and its increased use in twenty-first century programming. This title explains the frequency of time play in contemporary programming, and the implications of its sometimes disorienting presence.

Collects published conversations with filmmaker Mike Leigh. Not just a close-up encounter with Leigh, they also express both his unusual work style and the emotional and intellectual toughness that characterizes his distinct approach to filmmaking. As Leigh speaks in these interviews, he reveals what is unique in his work.

Mixing gothic horror, black comedy, and oddball whimsy, Tim Burton's movies veer from childlike enchantment to morbid melancholy, often with the same frame. In Tim Burton: Interviews, the director discusses how animation and art design affect his work, how old horror films have influenced his psyche, and how he's managed to make personal films within the Hollywood system.

Toni Morrison's novels have almost exclusively been examined as sagas illuminating history, race, culture, and gender politics. This gathering of eight essays by top scholars probes Morrison's novels and her growing body of nonfiction and critical work for the complex and potent aesthetic elements that have made her a major American novelist.