Really loving the retro styling of these re-imagined classic comics from Steven Finch.



The CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Awards– the holy grails of UK children’s publishing – announced their winners last Thursday – with the Carnegie Medal going to Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book (illustrated in dual editions by Dave McKean and Chris Riddell.)

And the Kate Greenaway winner – chosen from the mammoth shortlist of:

• Leon and the Place Between – Grahame Baker-Smith
• Harry & Hopper –  Freya Blackwood
• The Great Paper Caper – Oliver Jeffers
• Millie’s Marvellous Hat – Satoshi Kitamura
• Crazy Hair – Dave McKean
• The Graveyard Book – Chris Riddell
• The Dunderheads – David Roberts
• There are cats in this book – Viviane Schwarz

went to Freya Blackwood’s for her illustration in Harry & Hopper!

The Guardian have a slideshow of Blackwood’s work from the book – including:

Comic Twart showcases the work of comic art pros who pick a regular character theme to pay tribute to in their group blog. (image:Francesco Francavilla)

We’ve asked members of the Illustrators Guild of Ireland (IGI) their impressions on the Football World Cup taking place in South Africa… These are some of their views on the matter.
(more…)

The South African illustration house Am I Collective were commissioned to create  murals for ESPN’s 2010 FIFA World Cup campaign under the direction of New York based ad agency Wieden+Kennedy. Taking inspiration from Ghanaian movie posters of the 80′s the artists set about creating a total of 32  murals  – one for each team taking part in the 2010 FIFA World Cup.  The murals have been appearing on print ads, billboards and bus shelters across several states in America.

(more…)

If you are a Chris Ware fan (and you should be), you will probably be excited to know that there is a new Japanese edition of Jimmy Corrigan hitting the shelves with some all new slipcase art. If you are not interested in owning a Japanese copy of Chris Ware’s masterpiece then you can get buy a poster (limited to 150 copies) of the new art here. You can buy the three volume boxset here, and get a better view of the poster here.

Recent renovations at London’s Notting Hill gate tube station have uncovered many illustrated mid century posters still in situ, including works by Daphne Padden. Check out the discoveries on flickr here.

Two IGI members had their work accepted in to this years 180th RHA Annual Exhibition, P. J. Lynch and Brian Gallagher.

P. J. Lynch
www.pjlynchgallery.com

Brian Gallagher
www.bdgart.com

Details on the RHA website-
http://www.royalhibernianacademy.ie/html/exhibitions/exhibit_annual.html

180th Annual Exhibition, Opening hours:
The RHA Gallery will revert to opening ALL Exhibition AREAS,
7 days a week, for the 180th Annual Exhibition, from 24 May – 30 July.
Monday & Tuesday 11 – 5pm
Wednesday – Saturday 11 – 7pm
Sunday 2 – 5pm

Summer Edition, the Artists’ Book, Comic and Zine Fair, is returning for 2010 on Saturday 24th July ! Once again, a unique mix of artists book practitioners, independent comic artists and zine-makers from all over Ireland and the UK will be coming to Filmbase, Temple Bar, in the heart of Dublin city to celebrate and showcase their work to the public. Entry is free to the public.

Exhibitor space at the event is open to anyone involved in creating and/or publishing artists books, comics or zines.  You can book table space at this years event here.

Robert Hughes has long been one of the only art critics I can stomach without throwing the magazine/book/TV out the window (apart from a brief flirtation with Clement Greenberg when I was in college, but I was young!). His landmark book “Shock of the New” is one of the best appraisals of modern art while his “Culture for Complaint” is essential reading if you want to understand the Red/Blue divide in US politics and how the 80′s art world became the battleground for the culture wars that still rage today. He has just completed a new documentary on the deconstruction and destruction of art in our commercially driven age. It’s scathing, it’s depressing, and it’s undeniably true. It’s the best two hours of television on the subject of art that I’ve ever seen. Here is the complete program in 12 parts.