>I would have never found this book when searching for custom controls. Was this a misfire or does this book give good stuff for building custom controls?

This book concentrates on graphics and GDI+, which one needs when trying to create controls from scratch (say, for instance, to create controls for touchscreen applications, or even to create a "Ribbon bar" like the one in Office 2007 - in case you don't want to go with a third-party control).