Friday, June 4, 2010

Glitter and ponies

I love buffalo wings, I adore beer and yes I think I am still the only girl invited and allowed at Monday’s Guys Night* back in my hometown, but sill I am a girl.

And because of it, sometimes I can’t help but be bias to female artists. I don’t mean to, it just happens in my natural clicking selection; maybe I am inclined to some aesthetics that appear mostly on female artist, or it might be that I do my search in places colonized by girls.

As we stand my blog has something like a 6 to 1 female to male ratio and that is unacceptable to me, a firm believer in equality and fair representation. So I decided to enlist the help of some friends, some manly friends. These guys are so manly and cool that they actually have a comic about themselves! (here).

So far I have interviewed only one of them (Roberto Gutierrez) about his taste in illustration (Full disclosure: I asked him specifically about comic related artist, because he is such a graphic novel fanatic). Of course he started to list all kinds of names and to quickly narrate their importance in comic book history; yeah, he is really good at chatting up the ladies.

Above all he named Dave McKean as his favorite, and now I will attempt to do a post about him. This of course is super nerve braking because I am attempting to do honor to someone else's love (and also because Mr. McKean's information is scatter across the web**). Plus this friend is rough, he will not cut me some slack; sure he does give me some brownie points if I ever ask a relevant or interesting question, but let’s just say that making me feel smart and appreciated is not his priority in life***.

So, nerve aside, here goes. Short and simple; to make no mistakes.

The post: I must admit that I am the worst for remembering names and facts, I guess this is one of the main reasons the Hello Little World blog was created, so I didn't eventually forget the thinks I like. I had actually forgotten that for a fact I liked the work of Dave McKean. Thanks to Robert I remembered two books (The Wolves in the Walls and The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish) that I wanted to get for my small children books collection. They both have crazy out of this world illustrations by Mr. McKean and the story comes from by Neil Gaiman.

So there you go! I do like boys that way! (sorry, men; accomplished male artists). I just keep forgetting!

I will not be a poser and sit here writing that I understand and I'm fond of all of Dave McKean's work, no, no, no, no, no; I actually find most of his mix media and illustrations to be really eerie and daunting (nothing I would like hanging on my wall before I go to bed), but sometimes his work is rather light and friendly, mostly when he is doing something commercial or intended for children, and that is the type of work I like from him.

Have at look at some of my favorite ones:

Cover For: The Wolves in the Walls

For The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass;
Illustration: Of the three of them, only Roland saw her

Cover For: The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish

Cover For: Varjak Paw cover

My adored 16 followers, I must admit to you that I don’t feel like I have enough of a vocabulary to describe his life and work (I never went to art school, remember!!!??).

In short, he’s business card can say: Dave McKean: Awarded illustrator, photographer, filmmaker, graphic designer, musician and comic book artist.

In long, this blog ain’t big enough, but the net sure is; you will find lots and lots of info and more illustrations on these pages:
- The Unofficial Dave McKean Web Page (Here)
- The official UK site for children's books with Neil Gaiman (Here)
- The official Dave McKean Web Page (Here); It is kind of a bust! It does nothing.
- And interview he did for Stripkap (Here)
- The Allen Spiegel Fine Arts Web Page (Here)

Oh, yeah, and he is English, but lives in America. The end.


* That features wrestling on TV and yummy guy food.
** The World Wide Web that is.
*** Right now getting his visa in time for Comic-Con is.

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