Look! Listen! Vibrate! SMILE! is a book-length monument to the great lost Beach Boys opus Smile assembled by a brilliant pop archaeologist. Encounter the moment when Brian Wilson was walking the razor’s edge between psychedelicized madness and pop perfection through an obsessive free-associative scrapbook of fan-magazine interviews, photos, record company promo materials and other Beach Boyana surrounding the recording of the ill-fated masterpiece. SS

Publisher: Last Gasp
Paperback: 298 pages
Illustrated

A pioneer of autobiographical comics, Crumb has chronicled, some say complacently, his sex life and sex fantasies in many publications throughout his career. This book collects the choice of his “stories about relationships,” starting from his early sensual awakenings to the most recent marital developments. PH

Publisher: Last Gasp
Paperback: 68 pages
Illustrated

From the right-on ‘60s and ‘70s to the bitterness and disillusionment of the ‘80s and ending with the futility of fighting the all-powerful system, Crumb covers a variety of political attitudes while retaining his original anti-Establishment opinions. PH

Publisher: Last Gasp
Paperback: 80 pages
Illustrated

Check out the hyperdelic life and times of Von Dutch, Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, Robert Williams and other Kustom Kar Kommandos in this thoroughly researched and lavishly illustrated exhibition catalog. Read superb essays explaining how the cultural ephemera of Southern California’s hotrodders, beachcombers, surfbums, beatniks, bikerboys, cholos and glue-sniffing suburban hobbyists coalesced into the Kustom aesthetic. Gape at page after page of amazing scratch-and-sniff icons such as Ed Roth’s Rat Fink, a puke-green, humunculoid rodent speed-demon. Ponder over intriguing bits of trivia (did you know that Robert Williams was raised by a lesbian couple?). And ignore the occasional pathetic or inappropriate artworks by latecomers to the genre (Judy Chicago?). The editors are also to be commended for refusing to wallow in pointless “high” versus “low” culture arguments. All in all a pretty great thing, but where is Erich Von Zipper? MG

Publisher: Last Gasp
Paperback: 95 pages
Illustrated

The early and formative years of the L.A. painter. From Ed “Big Daddy” Roth to Zap Comix to the death of the underground. PH

Publisher: Last Gasp
Paperback: 96 pages
Illustrated

A collection of 60 of Williams’ paintings. Hot rods, monsters, girls in bikinis and taco stands are but a few of the distinctive elements of a Williams painting. Introduction by Timothy Leary. PH

Publisher: Last Gasp
Paperback: 92 pages
Illustrated

Hot-Rod Acid Test paintings that move in on museum turf. Two sample three-part titles: “THE DAY THE BIG KAHUNA STOLE SURF CITY. Museum Catalog Title: The Surf Tiki’s Overture to the Abduction of the Golden State Geo-Madonna. Colloquial Title: Thoroughly Stoked On Pacific Fruitcake. PATRICK HAS A GLUE DREAM. Museum Catalog Title: With the Drone of Messerschmitts in his Ears the Young Boy Traveled Through His Glue Induced Third Eye, the Sweet Smell of Model Airplane Cement and Stale Urine Fills the P-38 Cockpit While the Radio Repeats ‘Bail Out Squadron Leader!’ Colloquial Title: The Li’l Ace With Peach Fuzz Testes.”

Publisher: Last Gasp
Paperback: 95 pages
Illustrated

“A sampling from Szukalski’s 39-volume work on Zermatism, his self-discovered science in which he explains our common global anthropological ties. Szukalski has collected and meticulously redrawn almost 50,000 anthropological illustrations attesting to his thesis of one prototypical civilization and one language we all once shared, which he named Protong. From serpents to mermaids, from the Abominable Snowman to Charles Manson, all features of our common unconscious are explained within the greater plan of Zermatism.”

Publisher: Last Gasp
Paperback: 96 pages
Illustrated