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Dan Drakeford: new ‘Now In Lemon’ Illustrations

Owen — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 09:27:13 +0000

As well as contributing to the Now In Lemon ‘zine, Mr Drakeford has also updated the Now In Lemon site with a load of new work. I have posted a favourite of mine below but please take a look at the rest of his work – his ‘The Park‘ strip is definitely worth checking out.

Now in Lemon: lo-fi art & illustration

Owen — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 18:33:03 +0000

Now In Lemon is a 40 page black and white zine produced by Dan Drakeford and myself. I won’t try to describe it, you can see it all here.

Available for the majestic price of £3.00 plus postage at the Now in Lemon website.

Now in Lemon was printed by those nice people at Footprint Workers co-operative.

Winshluss: Pinocchio

Owen — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:12:19 +0000

Winshluss (Vincent Paronnaud) has taken the Pinocchio stories of Carlo Collodi and dragged it through the hundred or so years of popular culture that has passed since it was first written and given it a surreal dark twist. The results are quite an amazing comic book: Pinocchio by Winshluss (Amazon UK), an award winner, picking up book of the year at the French Angouleme festival.

Winshluss: Pinocchio

The book is published in French but mostly without text, the story told in descriptive panels in that classic Bandes Dessinées style intermixed with with full page and half page panels that also form part of the narrative. The only parts of the book with words are a few sections in black and white drawn in a loose sketchy style that nicely juxtaposes with the colour artwork that makes up the main body of the book. These black and white passages involve Jimmy the Cricket who has taken up home in Pinocchio’s head, and with my bad french I managed to just about understand what was going on, although you could easily understand the story with little or no french (like me).

The majority of the book is colour and wordless. Winshluss draws and paints in several mediums and there are several full page panels that I was amazed by. The coloring has that desaturated nostalgic feel that perfectly matches his drawing style.

Winshluss: Pinocchio

The lame fox and blind cat from the original Carlo Collodi Pinocchio adventures become a smack-head and blind beggar, Monstro the great whale becomes a polluted toxic mutant fish destroying a Titanic style liner complete with white bearded captain and string ensemble who not only carry on playing when the ship goes down, but as they are being dissolved by the acidic bile in the stomach of the toxic fish.

Winshluss also makes several nods to Disney; Snow White and the seven dwarfs make an appearance, the dwarfs are a gruesome set of perverts and their involvement in Geppetto’s comeuppance is particularly twisted. There is even a film noir element, a hard boiled cop with a head like an Easter island statue who tracks down Geppetto and the seven perverted dwarfs. The book is certainly dark, but full of humor.

Pinocchio himself is a mute robot-boy, created by Geppetto to be a war machine who he initially tries to sell to the military. Pinocchio goes wandering after short circuiting while Jimmy the Cricket enters his robot brain. Pinocchio tumbles through this story, staying resolutely mute while the tale unfolds around him.

Winshluss: Pinocchio

Vincent Paronnaud is also credited as co-writer and co-director with Marjane Satrapi on the film adaptation of her comic series Persépolis. What a talented chap.

You can see more artwork at a larger size here at http://www.bdgest.com.

Dan Drakeford: Writer, illustrator & cartoonist

Owen — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:41:14 +0000

Dan Drakeford is a talented chap. Writer, illustrator, cartoonist. His work is quite varied, but one set of cartoon strips really stands out for me. I love his Claude, the sad pigeon series. Over three panels Dan manages to make these strips melancholic, nostalgic and like the title, a little sad…

Be sure to check his flickr page to see more strips & illustration work (be sure to check out his strip Barry, the life and times of… )

Stanley Donwood: Brighton exhibition

Owen — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:14:30 +0000

Designer, Illustrator, printmaker, writer and all round visual artist Stanley Donwood, Probably best known for his work for Radiohead & Thom York, is exhibiting in Brighton at Ink_d from the 20th March to 10th April. His exhibition is titled Printed Papers.

The work Donwood produces is diverse, his process and approach I really admire – he is an accomplished printmaker, his woodcut work for Thom York’s solo album Eraser (see below) a great example of his expertise in printmaking. I also appreciate his use of type – the In Raindows and Hail to the Thief album artwork both utilise type to great effect.

Donwood has produced a exclusive print for the show; find out about this cynical marketing ploy and more about the exhibition here.

The Eraser Thom Yorke

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