November 22, 2024

Skylight Webzine

Online since 2000

Goodfellas. Slayer. Christmas Comics. Classic Rock. One Dude. Four Books. D.X. Ferris Has You Covered this Christmas Season!

Prolific author and aging metal dude D.X. Ferris released four books in 2018. It’s his biggest year since transitioning from entertainment writer to long-form journalist, teacher, motivational author, and comic-strip artist. Ferris is a Pittsburgh native relocated to nearby Akron, Ohio, which spawned Devo and a host of do-it-yourself heroes. He studied and interviewed creators for 20 years. Then he got in the game.
“On one hand, my work is all over the place,” says Ferris. “But they said that about Rick Rubin when he moved from the Beastie Boys to Slayer. Now he has worked with ten percent of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. A guy’s gotta have goals, you know? You can be a metalhead, a dad, and an organizational leader at the same time. Having responsibility doesn’t mean you have to be lame. In fact, the more pressure you’re under, the more you need metal.”
Read more below about the new book releases from D.X. Ferris, and get your copies at www.SlayerBooks.com and/or www.6623Press.com.
1. “Good Advice From Goodfellas: Positive Life Lessons From the Best Mob Movie.”
The beloved gangster film Goodfellas is the most quotable movie ever made. Over three decades, its status as a cultural touchstone has only grown. Ferris applies his lifetime or leadership and self-improvement experience to this unprecedented meditation on director Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece. In short, readable chapters, Ferris chronicles Goodfellas’ creation, documents its ongoing legacy, and finds over 130 teachable moments in the movie’s greatest quotes and most unforgettable scenes.
* 320 pages. 145 chapters. 3 images, art by Nicholas Higgins. 8.5×5.5″ paperback and Kindle eBook. 65 endnotes. Paperback includes index. From 6623 Press. ISBN-10: 099759795X. Self-help.
2. “Slayer 66 & 2/3: The Jeff & Dave Years, a Metal Biography… The Post-RepentlessRemastered Edition.”
Ferris’ first book about Slayer was part of Bloomsbury’s prestigious 33 & 1/3 series. This popular full biography of the band arrived in 2013, after founding guitarist Jeff Hanneman died and drum god David Lombardo split with Slayer for the third and final time. The iconic thrash metal group announced its retirement and final tour this year. This update has six new chapters, 24 new pages, and a new look. Michael Nirenberg of the Huffington Post wrote, “This book should sit on your shelf alongside Led Zeppelin tome Hammer of the Gods and [Mötley Crüe tell-all] The Dirt.”
* 345 pages. 66 chapters. 33 photos. 11 illustrations. 6×9″ paperback & multimedia Kindle eBook. 425 endnotes. Paperback includes index. From 6623 Press. ISBN 978-0-615-92030-6 (paperback). Music biography.
3. “Christmas Sevenfold: Suburban Metal Dad, Compendium Two.”
He was a metal dude. Now he’s a metal dad. The long-running comic strip Suburban Metal Dad chronicles the daily grind of an aging hesher with a family and a mortgage to pay. So he can’t punch people. Even though very much wants to. The second Metal Dad compilation collects seven years of Christmas and holiday strips. Ferris also added new art based on classic metal images, a forward, an FAQ, a Q&A, and an essay about why the kind of guy who wrote two Slayer books still geeks out like a kid when it’s Christmas. The comic recently hit no. 800. Decibel called the first Metal Dad book, “the brilliant, beautifully paleo, lives-up-to-its-epic-title first collection of Ferris’ Cosby-by-way-of-Integrity, sweet n’ acerbic dad comedy stick figure apocalypse…. DIY masterpieces.”
* 180 pages. 180 comic strips. 12 new illustrations. 1 foreword. 1 essay. 1 FAQ. 1 Q&A. 8.5×11″ black-and-white paperback and color Kindle eBook. From 6623 Press. ISBN-10: 0997597968 * Humor/Comic Strips.
4. “The Story of Donnie Iris and the Cruisers.”
Casual radio listeners only remember Donnie Iris and the Cruisers for their 1980 hit “Ah! Leah!”, but the Pittsburgh heroes had much bigger careers. Ferris collaborated with the band for this official book, which covers 50 years of ups, downs, improbable wins, heartbreaking defeats, and unwavering friendships. Features cameos by Trent Reznor, the James Gang, Irving Azoff, Bon Jovi, Santana, and Gamble & Huff. This is a very different kind of rock & roll story. The exhaustively researched history plays like the 4-hour Tom Petty documentary mixed with the rock & roll fable That Thing You Do!. Radio legend John Gorman (WMMS) called it, “One of the great rock biographies.”
* 466 pages. 75 chapters. 106 images. Foreword by WDVE/Steel City icon Jim Krenn. 8.5×11″ paperback. 308 endnotes. Index. From Primary Recordings. Rock biography. ISBN 978-0-692-99746-8.
Source:
www.6623Press.com