Robert "Bob" Benton's Comic

Recently I acquired this unsigned comic page. It took me a little while to find out who drew it. It turned out it was a drawing of Robert "Bob" Benton. And it seems that it was drawn when he was an art director at Esquire Magazine in the mid-60s before he turned his attention to movies. 

 
Benton (1932) is an American screenwriter and film director. He wrote or co-wrote screenplays for Bonnie and Clyde, The Late Show, and Superman, amongst others. He also wrote and directed Places in the Heart and Kramer vs. Kramer, for which he received two Oscars.

 

Poster "Gog" by Ferdo Bis

I just acquired this very unusual movie poster from Croatian artist Ferdo Bis (1910-1980) for American science fiction movie Gog. It is an unusual design for a poster created in 1954.

The Design of Dissent Show at CHAVON The School of Design

The Design of Dissent show opened on November 14th 2022, at Altos de Chavon Cultura Center Foundation and CHAVON The School of Design in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic. The show will stay open until January 9th. 

The show was organized and made possible by Adolfo Lucero, Vice Chancellor and Elías Roedán, Academic Coordinator and Professor at CHAVON.

The concept of the show is based on the book The Design of Dissent, Expanded Edition: Greed, Nationalism, Alternative Facts, and the Resistance, co-authored by Milton Glaser and me, published in 2017.

 

My Interview for the Croatian Magazine Ekran

I am happy to share with you my interview for the Croatian lifestyle magazine Ekran.  

The interview is conducted by Toni Volarić. 

Cover photo by Primož Korošec.

Heads and Tails

The idea for Heads and Tails book is not only for the kids to learn how to spell the animals' names but also to learn them in six European languages. The market for this book for now is primarily Europe.

I wanted to create a book that's interesting and interactive. And I wanted to achieve that without special effects, die-cutting, foldouts, etc.
That way, the price of the book stays low. For interaction, I use the existing format of the book. Holding certain amount pages of the book in the middle, one can get different combinations of the images/animals on the left and right pages.

The book is published by Bodoni, an imprint of the Croatian publishing company Fraktura. More here.

Le due bandiere (The two flags) by Sergio Toppi

I am very happy that I managed to acquire this original comics page by Sergio Toppi from the comic Le due bandiere (The two flags), published in 1973 in Corriere dei Ragazzi.

Sergio is one of the Italian masters of comics and illistrations and one of the idols of my youth. I must still be youthful because I still like his work very much. His seemingly random pen strokes are just amazing. 

On the quite large page margin of this comic, in pencil, he wrote notes on how it was supposed to be coloured. 

 

"Antonio di Padova" comic by Dino Battaglia

My recent acquisition—a comic page from the comic Antonio di Padova from 1980. The comic was drawn by Dino Battaglia, an Italian master of comic art and one of my idols. 

When I was acquiring this comic, I didn't know I would get a secret bonus. Dino very often coloured his comics with watercolour on the back of his comics. Every page got photographed twice, front and back. Then the line shot of the drawing on the front will be combined with a black halftone of the back part. That way, the linework stays crisp and sharp, and the colours soft.

I scanned both sides of the page and combined with photoshop, just to see how it would have looked like. 

 

 

MoMA: "Never Alone-Video Games and Other Interactive Design"

I am very proud to share this news with you. This weekend I went to see "Never Alone-Video Games and Other Interactive Design", a new show at MoMA. I didn't go there only because I liked the shows at MoMA but also because, in this particular show, they displayed the Home Pong video game console that I donated to MoMA in 2015.

This is the second time MoMA has shown one of the many items that I have donated to them. In 2017, in the show "Thinking Machines: Art and Design in the Computer Age, 1959-1989", they displayed Paul Rand's IBM Supply Kit from 1979, which I also donated to them. 

I am so happy to see those items in both shows. It feels almost like I created them.

 

 

The exhibition in Koprivnica, Croatia

 "The exhibition MIRKO ILIC: FROM THE HISTORY OF HUMAN STUPIDITY – THE DESIGN HISTORY OF THE WORLD opens at AK GALLERY in Koprivnica on Friday, October 7th at 7 p.m.

The exhibition presents a panoramic view of Ilić's work ranging from posters, newspaper covers and illustrations to comics, from the mid-1970s to today, remixed as a narrative about the 20th and 21st centuries and one possible reading of the moment we live in and what has become of us that led to that moment. The exhibition in Koprivnica marks its tenth appearance after the premiere in Zagreb in September of last year. It will remain open until October 27th. The curator of the exhibition is Marko Golub."

 

My Interview in Harper's Bazaar, Serbian Edition

My interview in this month's Harper's Bazaar, Serbian edition.
If you can't read it because you don't speak the language, don't worry, you are not missing much. 

 

Daniel Cole's book "End Game"

I just got the first photographs of Daniel Cole's book "End Game", published by China South Booky Culture Media Co., LTD.

For some strange reason (but I am not complaining), the publisher decided to use part of my A.C. 2020 comics on the cover for the Chinese edition of this best seller.

You can see more of my A.C. 2020 comics here.

Designing for the Olympics

 

On July 8th 2022, the show Designing for the Olympics opened at Die Neue Sammlung - The Design Museum in Munich. The show will be on display through October 3rd, 2022.

In the show, among others, 3 posters from my collection are on display together. They are posters designed for the 1984 Sarajevo Olympic Winter Games by Andy Warhol, David Hockney and Milton Glaser. They are shown in the image below on the top part of the blue wall. Under the posters from my collection, the museum is displaying 8 amazing posters from Bosnian designer and artist Ismar Mujezinovic, who created this series of posters for the same Olympic Games in Sarajevo.

I also donated a few sets of Olympic Games post stamps to the museum and they are on display in the show as well.

 

My Work Featured in Graphis #373

I am pleased to announce the release of the online version of Graphis Journal #373. This issue of the journal dedicated 18 pages to my work and an interview with me. The printed version of it will soon be available. 

Graphis was founded in 1944 by Walter Herdeg and Dr. Walter Amstutz in Zurich, Switzerland. The magazine was started with the September/October 1944 issue. In 1986, Martin Pedersen purchased the company from Mr. Herdeg and later moved the headquarters to New York City.