For more than two decades, Ray Troll has been luring, hooking, and landing fans around the world with his zany, irreverent, and often surreal art. Featured in museums, galleries, and books, as well as on immensely popular T-shirts, his work―part natural history adventure and part underground comic―depicts beautiful and accurately drawn fish of all kinds, Northwest Coast totems, Freud and Darwin, fossils, resurrections of extinct animals, and much more. Rapture of the Deep collects some of Troll's best-known art along with many images never before published. The book makes powerful connections between biological diversity, the evolution of life on earth, and the careless habits of people. Rapture of the Deep celebrates Troll's vision with legendary works including "Spawn Till You Die," "Life's a Fish and Then You Fry," and "Bassackwards," in which fish use money, liquor, and literature as bait to lure humans. Troll's running commentary reveals the thought and inspiration behind his art. Writer Brad Matsen, Troll's longtime coconspirator, adds a lively introduction to the art and life of his "sole" brother.

Rapture of the Deep: The Art of Ray Troll

Arts & Photography

Troll, Ray

Individual Artists

University of California Press

Sharkabet (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition)

Children's Books

Animals

Turtleback Books

First published in 1991 by Alaska Northwest, this book introduced a new audience to the often edgy, always observant and colorful fish art made semi-famous by the T-shirts and cards hauled out of the Northwest by fans of this Ketchikan artist. The mysteries of the deep, the strange, the hideous and the wonderful all appear on the canvas and in the words of this highly original, wacky work. Full-color throughout.

Ray Troll's Shocking Fish Tales: Fish, Romance, and Death in Pictures

Matsen, Brad

Graphic Design

Alaska Northwest Books

Matsen, Bradford

Ten Speed Press+

This is the paperback edition of the great pop-paleontology book with the fabulous art that inspired a show that toured the nation's natural history museums. In its own way it has inspired many people to take a new look at the fossil record and imagine creatures and things as they might have been—a blend of word and image unlike any other. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Planet Ocean: A Story of Life, the Sea, and Dancing to the Fossil Record

Science & Math

Biological Sciences

In this long-awaited sequel Kirk Johnson and Ray Troll are back on a road trip—driving, flying, and boating their way from Baja, California to northern Alaska in search of the fossil secrets of North America’s Pacific coast. They hunt for fossils, visit museums, meet scientists and paleonerds, and sleuth out untold stories of extinct worlds. As one of the oldest coasts on earth, the west coast is a rich ground for fossil discovery. Its wonders include extinct marine mammals, pygmy mammoths, oyster bears, immense ammonites, shark-bitten camels, polar dinosaurs, Alaskan palms, California walruses, and a lava-baked rhinoceros. Join in for a fossil journey through deep time and discover how the west coast became the place it is today.

Cruisin' the Fossil Coastline: The Travels of an Artist and a Scientist along the Shores of the Prehistoric Pacific

Johnson, Kirk R.

Chicago Review Press - Fulcrum

It's Jaws all over again in this thrilling, chilling alphabet book for kids. Sharks, both living and extinct, lurk throughout its pages so kids can learn amazing facts about these dangerous and bizarre animals from the deep.
Featuring Ray Troll's spectacular fishy art, Sharkabet takes you through the ABCs of different shark varieties. The colorful, eye-popping images are accompanied by the catchy factoids, making this book a swimmingly good read.

Sharkabet

WestWinds Press

Artist Ray Troll has developed a huge cult following for his humorous and scientifically accurate paintings of fish and fossils. He has successfully carved out his own category of artwork using colorful pen and ink to create drawings about fish, fish worship, evolution, and dinosaurs, all humorously captioned and technically accurate. Over a three-decade career, he has exhibited in all major scientific museums in America and managed to sell over 2 million t-shirts along the way. This collection of the artist's most popular t-shirt art features captions such as "Spawn Till You Die," "Cowasockeye," "The Baitful Dead," "Fish Worship: Is It Wrong," and "Tortured Sole," Ray Troll's appeal is both funky and funny.

Something Fishy This Way Comes: The Artwork of Ray Troll

Sasquatch Books

An illustrated companion map for Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway, which follows the zany travels of a paleontologist and an artist as they drive across the American West in search of fossils.

Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway Map: The Ultimate Prehistoric Road Map to the Best of the American West

Reference

Johnson, Kirk

Atlases & Maps

Raptors, Fossils, Fins and Fangs: A Prehistoric Creature Feature

Trilobites, fish with legs, weird prehistoric sharks, and fearsome dinosaurs coexist peaceably in the coolest paleontology book to come along this millennium. Long ago, a fish made its way out of the ocean and onto dry land. It was one small step for a fish, but one giant leap for fishkind—and it led to all sorts of interesting creatures like, well, people. Yes, RAPTORS, FOSSILS, FINS &amp; FANGS dares to say the "e" word to children: that's evolution. That's life. After all, it's the lucky fish who gets the cheeseburger. From the Trade Paperback edition.

TRICYCLE PRESS +^

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Books by Troll, Ray