The idea is quite simple: send a sketchbook around the globe so that different (high profile) artists can make a sketch in it. You often see this at comic conventions as well where fans bring their sketch books and ask artists to put a sketch in it.
The name list is quite impressive with the likes of Glen Keane, Bill Plympton, Hayao Miyazaki and 67 more artists.
Amazon FR has a copy of the book listed. I hope it’ll also be available on other Amazon sites as well. Below is a short cartoon explaining the concept.
Moonbot Studios, lead by ex-Pixar animator William Joyce, has released an ebook app for the iPad which shows the potential of ebooks and could be a glimpse into the future of (e)books as we know it.
Almost ten years ago when I was attending university I wrote an article together with a friend about ebooks. Back then we already listed numerous benefits of ebooks, but the main drawback was the lack of an appropriate ereader.
With the iPad there seems to be an acceptable ereader. Though there still are some flaws in the iPad as a dedicated reader for ebooks, millions of people have already accepted it.
And with the hurdle of a suitable ereader out of the way publishers and writers have complete creative freedom to experiment with the format. Moonbot Studios has taken that opportunity by designing an interactive animated book. The trailer for their book The Fantastic Flying Books Of Mr. Morris Lessmore looks very compelling and will undoubtly capture children’s attention and hopefully bring them back to reading books.
With traditional books we’ve already had pop-up books and books with sound, but now the iPad enables companies to also create books that have motion and interaction. I’m actually surprised there are so few companies that have utilized these benefits of an ebook so far, especially the traditional publishers.
Have they learned nothing from the music industry?
Dark Inspiration:Grotesque Illustrations, Art & Design is a collection of art work under the theme of dark and grotesque.
The look and feel of the book is very well done and kept in style with its theme. Even though the collected art is themed as ‘dark’, the contents could’ve easily fit into other art collection books like Hi-Fructose, Spectrum or Juxtaposed.
Unlike mentioned other art collection books Dark Inspiration in terms of its size is quite small (8.7″ x 6.7″) which doesn’t do the various art pieces justice.
The art included is good, but would’ve looked even better on a bigger format.
The range of artists is quite divers and artwork ranging from paintings to digital, from photos to sculptures are included.
Similar to any collected book some art pieces may be more of your liking than others. But that’s also the beauty of it, you get exposed to art you otherwise wouldn’t have considered looking at.
There’s little to no text, not even descriptions or bio’s of the contributing artists which would’ve been a nice touch.
The book’s an art collection and definitely good as inspiration, though the small size is a bit of a let down.
The Looney Tunes Treasury: Includes Amazing Interactive Treasures from the Warner Bros. Vault! Is the full title at Amazon. In recent years a number of ‘Treasure’ titles have been released from the big animation studios.
Under the Treasures banner ‘The Hanna Barbera Treasury’ and ‘The Mickey Mouse Treasures’ for example have been released in the recent past. These ‘treasure’ books provide interactivity in the sense that it contains various removable keepsakes, like reprints of original letters or scripts, cards, cel repro’s etc. that can be pulled out from the book.
Looney Tunes Treasury also contains removable keepsakes similar to aforementioned other titles. And if that was all there is to it, these books would be pretty shallow. Fortunately there’s another reason why these books are called treasures, because quite some so-called ‘treasures’ have been dug up to include in the book, namely production sketches, background art, cel set ups and more.
Jim Lee is a legendary comic book artist and one of my artistic inspirations when I was in high school.
Icons: The DC Comics & Wildstorm Art of Jim Lee is an art book dedicated to Jim Lee’s run at DC and Wildstorm and (sadly) features none of his Marvel art.
Even though it’s a shame Jim Lee’s Marvel art isn’t included, the book’s still great because at Wildstorm as well as DC Jim Lee did what he does best, namely draw superheroes and heroines in an awesome way.
