Blog of the week: Montague Projects Blog

Linked from last weeks blog of the week, the Montague Projects Blog is another non comics blog but fantastic non the less. This blog offers a fantastic array of vintage book design including some great books linking insects and architecture, and some great psychology, philosophy, and science books.

Click on the picture below.

Book cover of the week

I came across this little beauty in Oxfam although it has been on my Amazon wishlist for quite some time. Penguin always being at the forefront of good design decided to recruit a host of fantastic comic book artists to design the covers for their deluxe classics range. So we get Charles Burn's cover for Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, Chris Ware tackling Candide, Tony Millionaire taking on his big white whale etc. And then there's this.

Anders Nilsen is an alternative comic artist known for a lot of abstract work, including book lenght abstract monologues, and experiments in shapes, such as The End, Dogs and water, and Monologues of the coming plague.

His cover for Hans Christian Anderson's Fairy Tales is so textured, so economic and elegant with its use of line and shading, that I decided to scan in the details of the back page and the book ends just to give you an idea of how perfect the whole package is.

Find of the week: Teddy Kristiansen

The graphic novel that brought this artist to my attention is a self-indulgent affair written by Steven T Seagle that focuses on his existential crisis with being asked to write a Superman comic and his families struggle with Huntington's Disease. Despite the families struggle with Huntington's Disease the semi-autobiographical main character of Vertigo comics 'It's a bird' isn't a likable person instead he is self centered, ungrateful, moody, and irrational. His whole issues with the implausibility of the Superman myth and his propensity to over intellectualize it tends to grind on me a bit. Accusing Superman of being a fascist who gets what he wants through force is hardly new and is a theme Alan Moore tends to to exploit heavily for his superhero rewrites. (However as this is Vertigo, a notably more alternative offshoot of DC Comics, there is a certain 'Vertigo style' present in the artwork, which I don't see as a bad thing.)

Danish artist Teddy Kristiansen was awarded an Eisner award for Best Comic Painter for his work on this book and its easy to see why. He uses a very subtle range of colours (turquoise, red, burnt umber, greens and browns) and he manages to paint in a style that evokes a use of oil pastels and charcoal in to the mix. He flips between simple yet abstract geometric shapes skewed through a childhood lense to the kind of pale distorted life drawing that would make Ashley Wood proud.

The majority of his work has been collaborative and other titles he has worked on include Sandman Midnight Theatre and House of Secrets, both of which exploit his darker more Gothic potential.

For another interesting re-imagining of the Superman myth see Mark Millar's Superman: Red Son which is a what if story that lands Superman's boyhood spacecraft not in the farmlands of Smallville but in Soviet Russia instead, where Superman becomes the upholder of the proletariat struggle amongst other things.



Visit Teddy's blog here.

(more pictures coming soon)

Review: Ouroboros-Ben Newman

When asked to talk about his breakthrough UK talent anthology Solipsistic Pop, Tom Humberstone fondly recalled people congratulating him on getting the smell right, something Humberstone had put great effort into. There may be some of you out there who think I'm a bit weird, but I love the smell of books, especially that new book smell, and the first thing I can say about Bristol illustrator Ben Newman's comic debut is that it satisfies my nostrils. Thankfully the books pleasure doesn't end there. Ourobouros is a 24 page silent slapstick comedy adventure printed in a bold three colour design that reminds me of Jazz album cover artist Jim Flora as well as The Powerpuff Girls. Less subtle than the silent work of Jason (and thankfully less pretentious) Ouroboros is a lovely little package that falls on the right side of kitsch with it's nod to 50's sci-fi and cartoons. Probably the least twee book in this mini comic series as well.

Ben Newman's site is here and Nobrow is here.

James Jarvis and Richard Kenworthy animation

OK so it may be a cunning advert for Nike which reminds me a bit too much of the awful moment in What Women Want where Mel Gibson pitches his female jogger advert and the music is a bit too indie, twee and uplifting (even if it is Caribou) but these animated James Jarvis drawings by Richard Kenworthy are great.

click here

Date for your diary: UK Web and Mini Comix Thing 27th of March (Saturday) 2010, London

A chance for you to explore the cream (or sour milk?) of the UK small press scene at this annual event. Held in the Great Hall of Queen Mary University, Mile End, London, it will be home to 82 exhibitors, various panel discussions, film screenings, and a reading and a drawing room. Open from 10am to 5pm. Click here to take a look at the list of exhibitors, and if you want to know how to get there, follow the instructions below.
Mile End station is not open for exit/entry until after 12.30pm on the 27 March due to planned works, full information can be found on the Transport for London website at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/livetravelnews/realtime/tube/station-closures.pdf

Stepney Green station, served by the District and the Hammersmith and City Lines, is open; upon leaving the station you would turn left and continue straight along Mile End Road until you reach the Clock Tower turning into the college at this point and the Great Hall will be on your left; it is approximately an 8 minute walk.

I will hopefully be attending and reviewing a pick of comics from the event, as well as the event itself.

Book cover of the week

The book which the Roman Polanski film was based on, this creepy Magritte style cover (you know the one with the man in the bowler hat and suit with an apple floating in front of his face) was done by the author himself Roland Topor. Topor was a French illustrator, writer, painter and filmmaker known for his surreal imagery who also made the brilliant animation Fantastic Planet alongside Rene Laloux.

This new edition of the book features a hefty introduction, some short stories and original artwork by Topor, and an essay on the Polanski film.