We are all recoiling in "fear and awe" at the sight of the recent type II-P supernova recently discovered by Greg Bock.
So....
Here are some some useful resources about supernovae, mostly at a fairly high readership level (physics/mathematics is required at some level, or, at the minimum, the reader will need to have the ability to follow graphs & physical argument & technical material as well as having a good background in astronomy)
Here is a webpage by M.Montes, which details the various types of supernovae:
http://rsd-www.nrl.navy.mil/7212/montes/snetax.html
Attached below is a (moderately technical) year 2003 review of the light curves of supernovae. It is not particularly complete, so perhaps some of our "SN hunters" can come up with a better resource that characterizes the light curves of the various types of supernovae.
SNe__optical light curves of sne__0304112v1.pdf
A comprehensive discussion of type II-P supernovae and their light curves can be found in Kasen and Woosley (2009, Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 703, p.2205).
The pdf file of this paper can be obtained at:
http://www.ucolick.org/~woosley/ay220-11/papers/kasen09.pdf
This paper explains in detail how this type of supernova varies in luminosity and color, as it evolves. This paper is "a must have" for the hard-core supernova enthusiast! (Fair bit of maths in this paper, but the conclusions are easy enough to understand)
A recent comprehensive review chapter about the physics and evolution of Massive Stars and Supernovae is the preprint known as arxiv: 1008.2144
To find this paper, just go to
http://arxiv.org and put "1008.2144" into the search box at the top right of the webpage.
This paper is a good one for the "physics types" in our community. (While I do have a few university physics units under my belt, there are some sections of this paper that I do not understand)