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The final morning of spring break 2009 is here, and your head is spinning. Last night there were shots of Sailor Jerry’s with the bros in your hotel room before hitting the strip. Then there were dozens of body shots, done off the marvelous sun golden abs of Big Ten coeds. And later, a blurry trip to accompany the bros to the tattoo parlor, so that each of you could memorialize this righteous spring break vibe forever. In fact, there is now a bright new design curled around your shaved, itchy forearm. It looks something like Axl Rose being pulled underwater by Garfield the Cat. It is, in fact, Axl Rose being pulled underwater by Garfield the Cat. The next six decades of having to make explanations for this monstrosity are already running through your head, and it isn’t even 10 a.m. You have joined the ranks of the stewed, screwed and tattooed.

Archeology suggests that the body has been a canvas for tattoo art since at least 10,000 B.C. The phenomenon of worst-case scenario tattoo regret is just as old. From ink work based on the intricate designs of primitive societies around the world to tramp stamps of Disney characters, design fads come and go. But as Carol Clerk argues in her new book, Vintage Tattoos: The Book of Old-School Skin Art, don’t blame the tattoo artists for your bad decisions, because they are working from a proud tradition. Clerk, a British music journalist who has written books about Ozzy Osbourne, Madonna and Nirvana, spends most of Vintage Tattoos investigating the art form from the late 19th century to the 1950s, when it was largely the realm of soldiers and sailors, carnival sideshow performers and convicts who wanted a ship on their arm to remind them of a wished-for journey home, or a screaming skull to serve as a warning to other prisoners not to come too close.

Largely forgoing such obvious and popular masters of the form as Sailor Jerry Collins and Don Ed Bradley, Clerk focuses instead on a multitude of well-respected artisans like Bert Grimm, Lyle Tuttle, Jack Dracula, Milton Zeis and George Burchett, none of whom have their own celebrity-modeled clothing line or namesake bottle of rum. Despite a few confusing turns in her narrative, Clerk does an admirable job of bringing their stories, and those of many others, to life. If you want to know the inspiration behind the work on old-school revivalists like Amy Winehouse and reality shows like L.A. Ink, this book is a good a place to start.

History lessons aside, If Clerk’s book has appeal to body art enthusiasts and neophytes alike, it’s in the tattoo flash of the artists she profiles. (Flash is the term for prospective body art before it is applied to skin, drawn by a tattooist on paper or cardboard.) The lavishly displayed wealth of brightly colored old-school flash is the heart of Vintage Tattoos, and the main reason you’ll find yourself flipping through it again and again. Her ruminations on these designs and their cryptic meanings are enlightening. But more often than not, the myriad of inspired flash and flesh on display speaks for itself.