Children’s Books Are a Source of Endless — and Relevant — Inspiration Kid-less designers: You are beating me hands-down on sleep, gym, social, reading and movie time. Your minds are likely wonderfully clear of logistical tangles like scrounging up non-terrible snacks from a 7-11 in a pinch, or wrangling your kid crosstown rapidly without a carseat handy. But you are missing out in a single, enormous way—and no, I don’t mean the joys of parenthood proper. (Parenthood should re

Artist Everett Raymond Kinstler passed away on May 26, 2019, at the age of 92. Known as Ray to his friends, he was one of the few of his generation whose work encompassed the pulps, comic books during the Golden Age, and portraiture, the later his mainstay for over 50 years, going on to paint the official portraits of eight U.S. presidents. I had the great opportunity to spend an afternoon with Ray in spring 2018, at his studio in the National Arts Club in Manhattan, in theor

We’re in the final stretch to HOW Design Live. Every moment brings us closer to Chicago, to gathering with friends, and to total immersion. Which means it’s time to get serious. There are two ways to approach any kind of professional event: Show up and see what happens, or create a strategic plan for what you want to accomplish during (and after) the event. For an event as comprehensive as HOW Design Live, with tons of programs and nearly 100 sessions, planning ahead is essen

The size and scope of this year’s HOW Design Live offers a lot of benefits: With an array of separate programs, each with a broad array of sessions and a lineup of expert speakers, you can design an agenda that’s perfectly suited to your needs and interests. Spread over four days, however, and with several thousand people attending, the event might seem overwhelming to some. Wondering how to get your head around it all? We’ve gathered tips from longtime HOW Design Live attend

In its nearly 30-year history, the HOW Design Live conference has seen a couple thousand speakers, countless “aha” moments, tens of thousands of attendees and an undisclosed number of free drink tickets. Among all the numbers associated with HOW Design Live, we might argue that the most important is 1. All it takes is one conversation, one connection, one memory, one moment to change your life, spark a shift, and inspire action. This year’s program for HOW Design Live in Chic

A living room decorated with beloved family antiques and modern pieces from Ikea. A brand-new pair of jeans and your favorite 20-year-old boots. Ever notice how the old and the new blend to create something altogether awesome? Our HOW Design Live colleagues had that “something old, something new” mantra in mind when they assembled the program for this year’s event. What’s new at HOW Design Live 2019? Plenty: A totally new schedule that aligns every session in every time slot

Humanoids, Publisher of Quality French Comics The French comics publishing house Humanoids is primarily known in America for its interplanetary science fiction action adventures, as its robotic name might suggest. But back in March, it announced a new imprint, “Life Drawn,” dealing with “personal stories and provocative, political narratives” on a… well, a human scale. True-life comic book chronicles tend to be drab affairs, visually. All too often, our eyes slosh through pag

A 2018 International Design Report From the earliest newspaper strips, comics have always been for kids everywhere. And they continue to delight youngsters all over the world. So here’s a global survey of three of the most visually outstanding graphic novels for kids published in the past year, from China, France, and Italy. • • • My Beijing. Four Stories of Everyday Wonder writer/artist: Nie Jun (Graphic Universe) In My Beijing: Four Stories of Everyday Wonder – original

A Designer’s List of Favorites If your strongest attraction to comics is for the most visually exceptional ones, then there’s a chance that you just might be me. And if you also find yourself reflecting on the most memorable and engaging graphic narratives you’ve encountered this year, then you – a.k.a. I – also might feel compelled to share your findings with printmag.com readers. So let’s get started then, with three outstanding biography comics. icon artist: Elsa Charretie

The Art Spiegelman Maus Instigator Among his numerous contributions to the comic book medium, Stan Lee played a part in the evolution of Art Spiegelman’s Maus. Yes, that’s Stan the Spider-Man, Iron Man, and X-Men man. Okay, so many of his self-styled claims to fame are hyperbolic at best and only credible to his delusional True Believers. But in 1974 Stan provided national mainstream exposure to the original three-page “Maus,” Art’s short, self-contained strip – which had fir

I’ve worked with Peter O. Zierlein as an art director at PRINT and The Nation, where his quirky, conceptually based illustrations never failed to delight. His editorial art has also graced the pages of the NY Times, The Washington Post, Berliner Zeitung, The Boston Globe and myriad others. Over time Peter, who signs his work POZ, has moved onto the streets and into the third dimension, with street installations, many centered in his current state of Massachusetts. Most recent

Don’t have a cow, man, but Bongo, the Eisner Award-winning publisher of Simpsons comic books for nearly a quarter-century, died this month. Yes, the Matt Groening line – the one that once brought you Sergio Aragonés’s Funnies and a Zongo imprint that put out Gary Panter’s Jimbo and Mary Fleener’s Fleener – has ceased publication. And if you’re a designer whose first and foremost priority for comics is their visual appeal, you might give your shoulders a simple “whatever” shru

The Rich Creativity of Spanish Comic Book Art Masters Of Spanish Comic Book Art is a joyful celebration of Spain’s rich comics legacy. Featuring more than 80 artists and 500 images, it’s a fascinating survey of an extremely relevant but mostly overlooked facet of global graphic literature. It’s also an astute investigation of these creative talents with respect to their country’s culture. And taken as a whole, it’s an excellent means of moving forward with the spirit and mean

Way back in the 20th Century, back before one small, viral meme could have more impact and influence than tons of Times op-eds, newspapers still mattered. But it was also a time of severely limited access to communication outlets. As A.J. Liebling noted: “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” Yet, during the youth counterculture movement from a half-century ago, presses were a pivotal part of bestowing power to the people. And as a reminder of that by

By Michael Dooley Although Anthony Bourdain died before the release of Hungry Ghosts, he did review and approve the design of the last of his three graphic novels. That’s right: “graphic novels.” This acclaimed writer, chef, and TV host wasn’t only obsessed with cooking. Once an aspiring comics artist, Bourdain also had a passion for the medium in its myriad forms. He loved and collected adventure newspaper strips Milton Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates and Will Eisner’s The Sp

This summer Danish film director Nicolas Winding Refn, known for such films as “Bleeder,” “Valhalla Rising,” “Fear X,” and “The Neon Demon,” launched the site “byNWR,” which celebrates long forgotten exploitation films of the 1960s and 1970s. Restored films such as “The Nest of the Cuckoo Birds (1965)” and “Shanty Tramp (1967)” are not the only raison d’etre for the site, as they serve as a starting point for collaboration between myriad artists of all disciplines, both curre

When graphic designers hear the phrase “literary scholar,” they might just wince. After all, they tend to value (1), clear communication and (2), a just-so balance between the visual and the verbal. And even the thought of reading works by a literary scholar who specializes in the fun subject of comics can conjure up (1), yawningly dense, impenetrable academic jargon and (2), a focus on the, well, the literary aspects of graphic narrative to the diminishment, or more likely,

The New York Times got it wrong about the highly hyped Batman #50 with its description of the caped crusader’s nuptials to Catwoman. Hordes of fanboys went batshit crazy, seriously shocked and outraged that the surprise dénouement to a storyline that they’d been following for 49 issues was revealed three full days before the comic book’s official release. The writer, George Gene Gustines, later apologized, admitting that “We should have given more thought…” about whether to i

By: Michael Dooley Forget about who’ll walk away with Eisner Awards on Friday at San Diego’s Comic-Con. Sure, there’ll be worthy winners. In my feature on Emil Ferris’s My Favorite Thing is Monsters, which garnered multiple well-deserved nominations, I wrote that it would easily top any comics and design “best of” award. More on that notion momentarily. But honestly, the Eisners are much more a popularity contest among comics industry professionals than it is any real gauge o

Ad designers use specific techniques for persuasion and brand communication. Learn how you can use those techniques in your own designs. In the best creative collaborations, a powerful merger of minds and ideas, influences and inspirations takes place—just look to the industrial design of Charles and Ray Eames, or the graphic work of Alvin Lustig and Elaine Lustig Cohen, for proof. Suddenly one plus one equals three. This June, the North Carolina-based Dare County Arts Counci