ABSTRACT
Artists' books and picturebooks spring from different impulses and have very distinct genealogies, conceptual parameters, and audiences. The field of artists' books is as capacious as that of picturebooks, however, and conceptual work is one small section of a field that includes personal accounts, activist works, projects based on social issues, and works with emotional force and aesthetic range. Contemporary book artist Eric Drooker and graphic novelist Art Spiegelman cite Lynd Ward and Frans Masereel as inspirations for their own graphic novels. The basic acts of opening a book, turning a page, and reading across a sequence of spreads are already dynamic actions. Books are rarely static objects, but their dynamic potential expands when they make use of extra devices and techniques. In the artists' book world, books take almost any and every possible shape and use materials from found objects, bodily fluids, dirt, recycled materials, and every conceivable natural or cultural object.
