Illustrators # 29 (magazine review)

 

 

This issue of ‘Illustrators’ should raise your dampened souls with a healthy dose of humour from cartoonists. Mind you, the first is Charles Addams (1912-1988) and a heavy dose of the macabre. Famed for ‘The Addams Family’ which evolved into the famous TV series and films, Addams’ gags are just effective as visual humour with the gag line as icing on the cake. If you’ve never seen this source material before then you’re in for a treat as Diego Cordoba goes over Addams’ life which is nearly as weird as his folks.

Then we move back to the UK, with a look at Lawson Wood’s comedy artwork, mostly with blonde chimps. Although David Ashford points out how Wood (1878-1957) learnt from drawing the real thing, I did have to raise my eyebrows at the hair colour chosen. Interestingly, Wood also gained international appeal and even sold some as covers to an American audience. Mind you, I love his guinea pigs and pigs. Louis Wain is mentioned in the introduction and I do have to wonder when his work is going to be shown here, although a question asked said no plans yet.

Roy Wilson (1900-1965) drew black and white comedy inside comics and the colouring on covers was done by others. Wilson was very much a fill the space illustrator and I suspect how a major influence on those who came after him. Very stylised with a fluid inking style. If you want some really cheery work, then these are worth a look.

French artist J.J. Grandville (1803-1843) might well be the first artist to anthropomorphic animals based off his life-span. Looking at his work here, you see how he varied it from heads on human bodies to making the animals bipeds as if he was playing with interpretation. Certainly, he must have had an influence on later artists.

Finally, coming up to modern day, a look at Turkish cartoonist Ersin Karabulut who clearly has a sense of the macabre as well and an eye for detail. For those who are pondering on what style to adopt when drawing or painting or digitalising, his comment on doing them all and rotating them makes a lot of sense so you don’t get frozen in any one medium.

Oh, there’s also a gallery of Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), a political cartoonist from the Georgian era.

As always, ‘Illustrators’ has lots of surprises and no doubt some artists that you’ve never come across before from over the centuries. With this issue, it also gives an opportunity to show how far back humour was driven in illustration.

GF Willmetts

April 2020

(pub: The Book Palace, 2020. 98 page illustrated squarebound magazine. Price: £18.00 (UK), $21.99 (US) via Bud Plant. ISBN: 978-1-907081-87-3. ISSN: 2052-6520)

check out website: www.bookpalace.com and www.illustratorsquarterly.com