book illustrations - some favorites

Both Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle had excellent illustrators for the original publication of their stories. The original illustrations are not in color, however.

E. H. Shepard and A.A. Milne any of the original Poohs.

Ralph Steadman and Hunter S Thompson in the Fear and Loathing series (especially Las Vegas).

Rap

Black and white is fine with me..

Those are neat.

Oh, and I meant woodcut seeming, or, seeming to be woodcuts prints.

I wonder if I still have Smoky the Cowhorse - I think I parted with it painfully when I moved from California. It was a broken mess from a used bookstore, but a treasure from my teen reading.



Here's an Amazon review -
An absolutely fabulous horse story, with stunning sketches!, November 17, 1999
By Margaret Fiore - See all my reviews
This review is from: Smoky the Cow Horse (Mass Market Paperback)
Will James obviously knows horses inside and out.
Inside of a horse: James manages to put the reader right into Smokey's head throughout his adventures. Smokey is a bright and beautiful wild "mustang", who is caught and barely half-broke by a cowboy to work range cattle. He and the cowboy, Clint, develop a special partnership, and Smokey becomes a minor legend among the local cowboys as the savviest cowhorse out there. Then fate takes a downturn when Smokey is stolen, and an outraged and heartsore Clint searches for his horse.

Outside of a horse: Will James drawings of Smokey are more alive than most living horses! They are loaded with action, personality, emotion, and the perfectly true portrayal of a horse in motion. As good as the book is - and it is wonderful - the sketches and paintings are perhaps even better!

This is a story of hard work and good fun, courage, trust, affection and loyalty. It's a great book for kids and adults alike.

Huh, I don't remember Steadman and Fear and Loathing, maybe I read some no illustration paperbacks.. or more likely, have faulty memory.

No Arthur Rackham yet?



(Fairly random choice, I actually like Tenniel's Alice illustrations better, but I like both the beauty and the grotesquerie in Rackham's illustrations and that one has both.)

I also love John Bauer:

Oooh, I haven't know about Bauer... wonderful, as are Rackham's.

This makes me wonder how Cyphercat is doing; she was good at illustrating, was in art school.

I don't know what I did with the Edge of the Storm book - I'm sure I didn't put it in the good will bag. Assuming I find it, I'll scan some of those woodcuts. They were strong contributors to the atmosphere of dread in the book.

Cyphercat's truly talented.

Bauer is well-known in Sweden but less so here. He illustrated a book called something like "Greatest Swedish Fairytales" that I had as a kid, and I'd spend nearly as much time on the illustrations as the stories.

He's wonderful with trolls.

I was looking at more John Bauer images and this one brought me up short:



I didn't have a conscious memory of it but I did an illustration with a very similar fruit border, must've had it somewhere in my brain (I do recognize the illustration as one from the "Great Swedish Fairy Tales" book).

lovely..

I've not found much more on Prieto's illustrations for the Yanez book except that a site calls them linocuts, and that makes sense.

I did etchings back in my art class days - those were generally fun and somewhat successful - and a few wood cuts, and those were generally awful. I'd use scrap wood, have some great idea like carving them up on my studio rooftop and then messing up, ruining the whole thing. Uurrrg. Small linos seem more doable, never tried that. I never got very far into the cutting and carving arts but I often like the images I see for their bold strength.

two of my childhood faves


the book even spawned a statue

i also quit liked this one

Those are very nice. Nice in the good sense of the word.

I was driving behind Diane one day when she stopped short in the road - quail crossing. Too cute. Everyone behind me stopped too.
Quail seem to gather on the other side of the duplex I live in (they call them townhouses, eh). Part of the joy of New Mexico. the birds. I love that I see both quail and roadrunners.

Doré:

Somehow my cousins knew Hollings, via my aunt Nan, I think. They gave me a Hollings book signed for a birthday, but I was bored by it. (Who's sorry now?)
Someone at Salvation Army knew better than I did, I hope.

What, no Maurice Sendak yet?

I've heard of Sendak but don't know him (bad, bad).

I really loved this cover (by Augusto Ramírez) as a teenager: