The number of books that cover tattoos and body art is now rather immense. Low-cost, full-color publishing has brought skin art out of the biker mags and onto the coffee table. The book club offers recommendations and reviews for your own tattoo library.

Having long been a respected figure in independent films, Johnny Depp has now gained mainstream A-list status as an actor. The tattoo collection that he began in his youth has continued, as eclectic as everything else in his life.

One of the best ways to tell something has moved from fringe culture to the mainstream is to look at advertising. Once the sign of the sailor or biker, tattoos and piercings now signal hip trendiness, and are being used to get the attention of consumers everywhere.

Here is a series of tattoo flash books from artist J.D. Crowe. These are books of tattoo designs that you can use or adapt for your own skin art.

Suffering from the inability to make any new memories, Leonard Shelby has evolved a system of notes to help him track his wife’s killer. He has tattooed clues all over his body, pieces of a puzzle he is trying to solve.

A fusion of body piercing and spiritual practice, suspension, ball dances and flesh hook pulls are slowly making a space for themselves in alternative communities.

In the second BLADE movie, viewers get to go deeper into the vampire culture, places both they and Blade have not seen before. In addition to conventional tattooing, the vampire safe houses include some unique expressions of vampire body art.

Now best-known for her infamous Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction,” Janet Jackson has been collecting tattoos and body piercings for many years. Take a closer look at the body art collection of Ms. Jackson.

You don’t get to see it until the last five minutes of the whole movie, but that hasn’t stopped George Clooney’s tribal tattoo in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN from being one of the most often searched for movie tattoos.

The vampires in the BLADE movies divide themselves into those born as vampires, and those turned after being bitten by another vampire. The family clans wear tattoos and the humans attached to them also are tattooed as a sign of ownership or favor. Here is a brief guide to those markings.