EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 24 © 2018 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

94 l illustrators is also available in the USA from budplant.com The Art of Horror Movies An Illustrated History Edited by Stephen Jones Hardcover 256 pages Applause Books £27.50 Visceral: The Art of Jason Edmiston By Jason Edmiston Hardcover 288 pages Cernunnos £41.99 / $50.00 The Art of Haddon Sundblom By Daniel Zimmer Hardcover 224 pages The Illustrated Press £39.99 / $44.95 There has always been something magical about the posters created to promote screen horror. These slices of art — from early painted pieces to more contemporary photographic works — concocted by studio publicity teams and their artists, captured in single images the mystique of stars like Boris Karloff and Robert Englund, under titles which encapsulated the essence of the genre: if the names of such films as 1933’s Murders in the Zoo and 1995’s Castle Freak didn’t give the game away, their accompanying art work often left little to the imagination. In this luscious tome, published to accompany The Art of Horror: An Illustrated History , editor Stephen Jones gathers some of the most beautiful, bizarre and downright horrific posters and conceptual artwork, by such artists as Alvan Cordell and Guy Gérard Noël, are dissected into decades from the turn of the 20th century until the early 21st. The result is a treasure trove of pictorial frights, which not only make the films they advertised come to life on the page, but will have you racing to search them out on DVD so you can enjoy these cinematic gems all over again. By Cleaver Patterson Although the book’s been out for a while, featuring monsters, freaks and iconic sci-fi movie characters, it is a must for every horror geek inside us. Canadian artist Jason Edmiston is considered the greatest painter of Geek culture of our time. And indeed his talent shows in this self-produced book collecting his work. Pretty much like being caught in a time capsule of your youth when you lived through all the different trends in animated TV series, horror movies, superhero comic books, and even modern geek cinema (think of Tarantino). What is fascinating is that Edmiston can work on any media, be it oils, acrylics or even with a computer, and the artwork looks the same. The only way to tell the difference is to actually see the original painting. For lovers of the ‘Art of Mondo’ (reviewed here on issue 21), and monster, horror and superhero movies, you certainly can’t go wrong here. It’s slightly steep in its price, but it’s totally worth it. You get glimpses not only of gorgeous artwork printed on stocky paper, but an inside look into the artist’s working method. A must for lovers of illustration and monsters. The perfect gift for Christmas, as Sundblom created the definitive version of how we imagine Santa Claus, when he did those adverts for the famous American carbonic beverage, featuring the jolly and plump, white-bearded jovial old man dressed in red. Son of Scandinavian immigrants, Sundblom grew to be one of the most appreciated illustrators up to the mid 20th century. At a time when artists were asked to illustrate people (instead of using models and photographs) around every day products, be it food, kitchen utensils, cars or anything in between, Sundblom was one of the most in-demand illustrators. His uncanny way of capturing everyday people in the most common of situations, and at the same time celebrating the benefits of the product they were announcing, gave him an edge over other illustrators. Nonetheless it was his illustrations of Santa Claus that actually made him famous. However, Sundblom did more than adverts, also doing pin-ups, and editorial illustrations (all covered in this book). His last illustration was the December 1972 cover of Playboy , featuring a naked girl dressed as (obviously) Santa Claus. The Bookshelf: Horror Movies, Monsters and Santa Claus