PRINT Book Club Recap

I am pleased to share the recap of my PRINT Book Club podcast appearance with Debbie Millman and Steve Heller from last Friday, October 15th. We talked about my recently published book of visual essays, “Nightmares and Daydreams: A.C. 2020.”

Thank you, Debbie and Steve, for this conversation. 

 

Nightmares and Daydreams: A.C. 2020 Available For Pre-Order

I am pleased to let you know that, I’ve just received the first copies of my series of visual essays “A.C. 2020,” which has been collected and published for the first time for a worldwide audience as “Nightmares and Daydreams: A.C. 2020.”

Featuring a new foreword by Steven Heller and a new afterword by Dave McKean, the new English-language edition by U.K.-based publisher SelfMadeHero will be available exclusively in hardcover. The series was originally published in Croatian in 2025. 

You can pre-order the book on Amazon here, which will release on September 3rd in the U.K. and September 29th in North America. 

 

 

New York Times Book Review Covers

Recently, cleaning out my storage, I came across these copies of the New York Times Book Reviews from 1987 to 2004 with my cover illustrations on them.

On these covers, you can see two different technological advances.

First was the New York Times Book Review, which transitioned from crude black-and-white print to color print. I actually illustrated the last black-and-white cover, which was published May 30, 1993. The other technological advancement was my own transition from using black-and-white scratchboard, first to Photoshop, and then to 3D illustration programs.

Here, you can see my cover illustrations in chronological order — one or two are missing.

I am immensely grateful to Steven Heller, the Art Director of the New York Times Book Review, who art directed all of these issues. He was also the first person in the U.S. to give me an assignment. In 1986, I went straight from the “boat” to the offices of the New York Times, and I knocked on his door.  Actually, now that I think about it, at that time, his office didn’t have a door.

"Daily Heller" Rijeka

I am pleased to let you know that on October 2nd, Steven Heller, in his prestigious Print Magazine blog “Daily Heller” wrote about a show of my work in Rijeka, Croatia.

'The exhibition “represents a fresh reading of the oeuvre of the prominent artist,” say curators Marko Golub and Sabina Salaman in the show’s bilingual catalog, noting that it “connects in intriguing ways the works of graphic design, illustration and comics created between the late 1970s and the present day. … The thread running through the thematic units and numerous thematic chapters is aimed at the idea of time that is manifested in many of the artist’s work in a series of different forms, perspectives and possible interpretations.”’ – Steven Heller

Here you can read more about the show and download a complete bilingual PDF of the catalog.

 

JDP Posters in The Daily Heller

'Sometimes a poster beckons a viewer in mysterious ways. Mirko Ilic’s eight seasons designing posters for JDP-Yugoslav Drama Theater in Belgrade, Serbia, are very special because they enable the designer to interpret the material in any way that makes sense. Each season is rendered in a generally different but uniform manner. In this sense, it is the perfect job for a conceptual artist who likes to move to the beat of his own tin drum (which is one of the posters he’s done). For these posters, anything goes as long as they pique the theater-goer’s interest.' –Steven Heller (Daily Heller)

 
 

The "Milton Glaser: POP" show at the SVA

 

The Milton Glaser: POP show at the SVA Gramercy Gallery at 209 East 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010. 

The show is based on the Milton Glaser: POP book published by Monacelli Press and written by Steven Heller, Beth Kleber and I. 

 

 

The Book "Milton Glaser, POP"

After more than two years of researching, and collecting Milton's work, it is finally here. I got my hands on the first printed copy of the book Milton Glaser, POP, which I co-authored with Beth Kleber and Steven Heller. The book contains well over 1100 visuals, covering Milton's work from when he was a 12-year-old (1942) to 1975.

The book is published by The Monacelli Press. It is a hardcover book, 288 pages, 4.72 x 9.45 inches. It will be available on March 29th, 2023.

 

The Daily Heller: Clearing the COVID Cloud

In today's Daily Heller, Steven Heller is movingly describing his encounter with Covid infection.

"But the most incredible consequence of my particular variant (and I wonder if other sufferers have had the same experience) is that many of my daily disorders, including movement issues and insomnia, simply disappeared. It was as though my system is designed to handle only one major crisis at a time. The fog, while uncomfortable and unknowable, blocked out everything I did not want to deal with, either overtly or covertly. Of course, anyone who is even the slightest bit ill could not care less about fulfilling their daily routines and one-off responsibilities. When the one responsibility you have is fighting and beating the viral enemy and protecting (as best as possible) your family from catching it too, writing Daily Heller columns, meeting deadlines and editing other projects is not as compelling or important."

To illustrate his story, he used two comics from my A.C. 2020 series. "Thanks to Mirko Ilic for generously allowing me to use his AC (After COVID) 2020 comic strips. They are perfect representations of exactly how I was feeling."