Somewhere between “art graffiti” and mindless tagging, there’s a certain class of graffiti that causes you to goggle, chuckle or ponder. It may be a piece of text with inscrutable meaning. An egregious misspelling. A clumsily worded threat or boast. A badly drawn cobra.

• Image courtesy Black Dog Publishing

Detroit artist Scott Hocking has an eye for such pieces of the urban landscape and has photographed them in his travels around town. Now, the photos are compiled for your amusement in Bad Graffiti (Black Dog Publishing).

• Image courtesy the artist

In the short introduction, Hocking writes of his fascination with such graffiti: “Deciding your tag name is going to be ‘Salad,’ and writing it in cursive is mystifyingly bad.”

• Image Courtesy the Artist

The book features more than 150 photos, with no commentary. Goggle, chuckle and ponder.

• Image Courtesy the Artist