"Puff, the Magic Dragon" is a song written by Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary from a poem by Leonard Lipton. It was made popular by Peter, Paul and Mary in a 1962 recording released in January 1963.
Sourcery is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the fifth book in his Discworld series, published in 1988.
Lee Shelton, popularly known as "Stagolee," "Stagger Lee," "Stack-O-Lee," and other variations, was an American criminal who became a figure of folklore after murdering Billy Lyons on December 25, 1895. The murder, reportedly motivated partially by the theft of Shelton's Stetson hat, made Shelton an icon of toughness and style in the minds of early folk and blues musicians, and inspired the popular folk song "Stagger Lee." The story endures in the many versions of the song that have circulated since the late 19th century.
Clayton Rawson was an American mystery writer, editor, and amateur magician. His four novels frequently invoke his great knowledge of stage magic and feature as their fictional detective The Great Merlini, a professional magician who runs a shop selling magic supplies. He also wrote four short stories in 1940 about a stage magician named Don Diavolo, who appears as a minor character in one of the novels featuring The Great Merlini. "Don Diavolo is a magician who perfects his tricks in a Greenwich Village basement where he is frequently visited by the harried Inspector Church of Homicide, either to arrest the Don for an impossible crime or to ask him to solve it."
A top hat is a tall, flat-crowned hat traditionally associated with formal wear in Western dress codes, meaning white tie, morning dress, or frock coat. Traditionally made of black silk or sometimes grey, the top hat emerged in Western fashion by the end of the 18th century. Although it declined by the time of the counterculture of the 1960s, it remains a formal fashion accessory. A collapsible variant of a top hat, developed in the 19th century, is known as an opera hat.
Mandrake the Magician is a syndicated newspaper comic strip, created by Lee Falk before he created The Phantom. Mandrake began publication on June 11, 1934. Phil Davis soon took over as the strip's illustrator, while Falk continued to script. The strip was distributed by King Features Syndicate.
Flat Stanley is an American children's book series written by author Jeff Brown. The idea for the book began as a bedtime story for Brown’s sons, which Brown turned into the first Flat Stanley book. The first book featured illustrations by Tomi Ungerer and was published in 1964. Brown did not continue the series until more than two decades later, when he published five more books: Stanley and the Magic Lamp, Stanley in Space, Stanley’s Christmas Adventure, Invisible Stanley, and Stanley, Flat Again!
Jean-Thomas "Tomi" Ungerer was a French artist and writer from Alsace. He published over 140 books ranging from children's books to adult works and from the fantastic to the autobiographical. He was known for sharp social satire and witty aphorisms. Ungerer is also famous as a cartoonist and designer of political posters and film posters.
Terry Ballantine Bisson was an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was best known for his short stories, including "Bears Discover Fire", which won the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award, and "They're Made Out of Meat".
The Magic Pudding: Being The Adventures of Bunyip Bluegum and his friends Bill Barnacle and Sam Sawnoff is a 1918 Australian children's book written and illustrated by Norman Lindsay. It is a comic fantasy, and a classic of Australian children's literature.
The Purple Smurfs is the first album of the original French-language Smurfs comic series created by Belgian artist Peyo. It was first published as an album in 1963, but the stories it contained had already been published in Spirou magazine. The main story Les Schtroumpfs noirs was first published in number 1107 as the first "mini-récit" in the magazine. This was a special supplemental page which readers would remove and fold up in order to create a small booklet. Mini-récits were not included when the issues of Spirou were collected in the quarterly hardcover volumes, so this story is absent from volume 72 of Spirou, though the page containing instructions for creating the booklet is there.
Hellboy is a 2004 American superhero film based on the Dark Horse Comics character of the same name, created by Mike Mignola. Produced by Lawrence Gordon and Lloyd Levin in association with Dark Horse Entertainment, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing, it is the first live-action film in the franchise. Directed and written by Guillermo del Toro, the film stars Ron Perlman in the title role, alongside Selma Blair, Jeffrey Tambor, Karel Roden, Rupert Evans, and John Hurt. The film draws inspiration from the debut comic Hellboy: Seed of Destruction. In the film, a charismatic demon-turned-investigator named "Hellboy" works with the secretive Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense to suppress paranormal threats, but a resurrected sorcerer seeks to make Hellboy fulfill his destiny by triggering the apocalypse.
Don Q, Son of Zorro is a 1925 American silent swashbuckler romance film and a sequel to the 1920 silent film The Mark of Zorro. It was loosely based upon the 1909 novel Don Q.'s Love Story, written by the mother-and-son duo Kate and Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard. The story was reworked in 1925 into a vehicle for the Johnston McCulley character Zorro. The film adaptation was made by screenwriters Jack Cunningham and Lotta Woods for United Artists studios. Douglas Fairbanks both produced the film and starred as its lead character. It was directed by Donald Crisp, who also played the villain Don Sebastian.
The Secrets of Droon is a fantasy book series by Tony Abbott aimed at elementary school-age children. The first book, The Hidden Stairs and the Magic Carpet, was published on June 1, 1999. On October 1, 2010, the final book of the series, The Final Quest, was released, concluding its eleven-year run. The series was named by the American Booksellers Association among the top ten books for Harry Potter fans.
Disney's Villains' Revenge is a video game developed and published by Disney Interactive for Microsoft Windows and Macintosh in 1999. The gameplay is an interactive "point-and-click" method in various forms, featuring the player helping Jiminy Cricket save the happy endings of several of the Disney's animated films from the vengeful, greedy Disney Villains.
John Mulholland was an American magician, author, publisher and intelligence agent.
William Rossa Cole was an American editor, anthologist, columnist, author, and writer of light verse. He produced around 75 books, most of them anthologies.
Children of Blood and Bone is a 2018 young adult fantasy novel by Nigerian-American novelist Tomi Adeyemi. The book, Adeyemi's debut novel and the first book in a planned trilogy, follows heroine Zélie Adebola as she attempts to restore magic to the kingdom of Orïsha, following the ruling class kosidáns' brutal suppression of the class of magic practitioners Zélie belongs to, the maji.
Claude Ponticelli, known as Claude Ponti, was born on November 22, 1948, in Lunéville. He is a children's author and illustrator. His books are known for lush visual design and illustrations, alongside imaginative and poetic stories, showcasing Claude Ponti's skills as an iconic and complete artist, with a unique and distinctive universe.
Satomi Ichikawa is a Japanese children's literature illustrator and author who has lived in Paris since 1971. She has illustrated more than seventy picture books in over a dozen languages, but is best known for creating the Nora series (1986–1994) and for illustrating the You Are My I Love You collection written by Maryann Cusimano Love.
