Tag Archives: Illustration

A Year in Books/Days 199 and 200: MGM Posters/MGM When the Lion Roars

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DAY 199: MGM Posters The Golden Years

  • Title: MGM Posters The Golden Years
  • Text: Frank Miller
  • Year Published: 1994 (Turner Publishing, Inc.)
  • Year Purchased: 1990s
  • Source: I have no idea!
  • About: There’s nothing like an old movie poster. When art and commerce combine with history and nostalgia, the result is a visually stunning social commentary. In looking at the representative posters of five decades, changing attitudes and mores are as obvious as changing aesthetics. MGM was known for the luxuriousness of its productions, and the top talent of its employees. Although designed as throwaways, the posters that advertised its movies were no exception, and neither were their artists. My favourite era for this exciting medium is definitely the 1920s.The posters are stunning. At the risk of sounding like a crotchety hundred year old, it has been all downhill since then.
  • Motivation: Old movies are my friends. We’re tight. I’m pretty close with art, too. Continue reading →

A Year in Books/Day 129: Little Bear*

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  • Title: Little Bear
  • Author: Else Holmelund Minarik
  • Illustrations: Maurice Sendak
Little Bear front cover

Little Bear front cover

  • Year Published: 1957 (Harper & Row, Publishers)
  • Year Purchased: 1957, presumably (I think it was purchased for my mom)
  • Source: My sweet Momma
  • About: Little Bear-a collection of four stories revolving around the sweet title character-was one of the first books I read for myself. I was barely three years old, and entirely mesmerized by Sendak’s illustrations. I especially loved his hat in What Will Little Bear Wear? The writing by Minarik is, of course, simplistic to the extreme (exactly what you would expect from something with An I CAN READ Book tag) but that is beside the point: Sendak is the reason I loved Little Bear and his tame adventures (real and imagined) and childish dilemmas. He is the reason the stories are classics. From the moment I opened the book for the first time-before I could read-I was a Sendak fan, lifelong and passionate.
  • Motivation: I read everything I could get my thin, little hands on. This book, it seems, was always there.
  • Times Read: Dozens or hundreds, I have no idea.
  • Random Excerpt/Page 18:
    Little Bear wearing my favourite hat

    Little Bear wearing my favourite hat

    • Happiness Scale: 10++++, with a side of warm fuzzies.
    Little Bear and Mother Bear

    Little Bear and Mother Bear

    *This is dedicated to the memory and brilliant mind of Maurice Sendak, who died today (8 May 2012).