The five favourite books of talented funny-man, Mr Bingo

Date
24 June 2014

Can you believe Mr Bingo has never done a Bookshelf for us? We’ve been posting about his work, reading his vulgar Tweets and laughing at his books for years and never thought to ask him. Well, maybe we did ask him and he said no – that sounds more like it. In between Tweeting at Alexa Chung, writing alarmingly insulting hate mail and illustrating for big companies, Bingo is a seemingly avid collector of weird-as-shit books. Are titles such as Dancing with Cats and Self Defence for Women up your street? Then read on dear friend…

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Burton Silver & Heather Busch: Dancing with Cats

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Burton Silver & Heather Busch: Dancing with Cats

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Burton Silver & Heather Busch: Dancing with Cats

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Burton Silver & Heather Busch: Dancing with Cats

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Burton Silver & Heather Busch: Dancing with Cats

Burton Silver & Heather Busch: Dancing with Cats

This book is a “does what it says on the tin” kind of affair. It’s full of pictures of people, dancing with cats. The people are all different, it’s a mixture of male and female, adults and children, some in leotards, some in leather trousers with no top on, some look like failed Glastonbury performers, but the one thing that binds them all together is that they’re all clearly FUCKED IN THE HEAD. Burton Silver has also written a book called Why Cats Paint. I mean seriously? As I previously said, this is fucked in the head. These two New Zealand authors have clearly been born into money, got bored and invented stuff to try and add some interest to their purposeless lives.

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Jay Cover: High Spring

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Jay Cover: High Spring

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Jay Cover: High Spring

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Jay Cover: High Spring

Jay Cover: High Spring

I really, really like Jay Cover’s drawing and mark-making. My own artwork is (mainly) very considered, strict and regimented. For me this makes me feel safe. Jay’s is the opposite. It’s free, expressive and loose. I can’t really tell you why (because I’m not an art critic and I don’t really like talking about art) but my eyes get a lot of enjoyment from these drawings. I’d love to draw more like Jay’s work sometimes, but for now I think I’ll just look at his.

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Monty Python: The Brand New Monty Python Papperbock

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Monty Python: The Brand New Monty Python Papperbock

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Monty Python: The Brand New Monty Python Papperbock

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Monty Python: The Brand New Monty Python Papperbock

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Monty Python: The Brand New Monty Python Papperbock

Monty Python: The Brand New Monty Python Papperbock

I’m a huge fan of Monty Python and I’d definitely count them as one of my biggest influences. As well as being brilliantly funny they were extremely inventive and this book clearly shows this, with its ridiculous typographic layouts, purposefully unfinished pages and little books within the book itself. It even has fake fingerprints printed on the cover, just to confuse/piss off the shops who stocked it. The Pythons turned British comedy on it’s head in the early 70’s and this book is a nice printed record of what they were up to.

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Pat Butler: Self Defence for Women

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Pat Butler: Self Defence for Women

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Pat Butler: Self Defence for Women

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Pat Butler: Self Defence for Women

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Pat Butler: Self Defence for Women

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Pat Butler: Self Defence for Women

Pat Butler: Self Defence for Women

This 1982 book by Pat Butler is a “no nonsense” guide to beating the shit out of men. The defensive moves are usefully illustrated with a series of photos of an averagely attractive woman hurting a rapey man, who seems to be based on a drunk Australian gypsy. There are lots of useful tips in here from grabbing a man’s balls until he faints, to how you can really fuck someone up with an umbrella. If I could travel back in time to 1982 (I was three), I’d certainly be taking full advantage of the offer in the back of the book which stipulates that you can order a “video tape of certain basic defences in this book.”

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Heinrich Hausmann : Über Die Schrift

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Heinrich Hausmann : Über Die Schrift

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Heinrich Hausmann : Über Die Schrift

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Heinrich Hausmann : Über Die Schrift

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Heinrich Hausmann : Über Die Schrift

Heinrich Hausmann : Über Die Schrift

For someone who isn’t a graphic designer I’d consider myself quite a typophile. I have a pretty big collection of typography and lettering books so it was hard to pick one out above the others. I love Über Die Schrift because it shows the workings of how the fonts are designed, which to me is a lot more interesting than just neatly displayed alphabets. It’s not everyones bag, but to me the construction of letters is kind of sexy.

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About the Author

Liv Siddall

Liv joined It’s Nice That as an intern in 2011 and worked across online, print and events, and was latterly Features Editor before leaving in May 2015.

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