Modcult

Pavel Orinyansky’s illustrations for Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita.

I know way too many of these.

Ray Fenwick’s Illustrated Guide to a Life of Mystery.

Tiny Showcase Presents the first in a new series of mildly factual, mostly fictitious, educational posters.

One of Gustave Doré’s numerous illustrations for Rabelais’ Gargantua and His Son Pantagruel.

Thus, said Panurge; for when with pleasure I beheld this jolly fire, jesting with myself, and saying—Ha! poor flies, ha! poor mice, you will have a bad winter of it this year; the fire is in your reeks, it is in your bed-straw—out come more than six, yea, more than thirteen hundred and eleven dogs, great and small, altogether out of the town, flying away from the fire. At the first approach they ran all upon me, being carried on by the scent of my lecherous half-roasted flesh, and had even then devoured me in a trice, if my good angel had not well inspired me with the instruction of a remedy very sovereign against the toothache. And wherefore, said Pantagruel, wert thou afraid of the toothache or pain of the teeth? Wert thou not cured of thy rheums? By Palm Sunday, said Panurge, is there any greater pain of the teeth than when the dogs have you by the legs?

Various Scenes Involving Pudding by Tom Gauld.

This one is conspicuously missing.

Had to post Coralie Bickford-Smith’s eye-catching cover for the Penguin’s current “Boys Own Books” edition of G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday, featuring illustrations by Mick Brownfield. You can see more of Bickford-Smith’s covers for the Boys Own series at Penguin’s Flickr page.

Bickford-Smith is also responsible, along with partner/illustrator Mike Topping, for the new round of Sherlock Holmes covers Penguin, inspired by vintage movie posters. There’s a nice walkthrough of their collaborative process by Mike and Coralie accompanied by pictures of the covers over at Scamp.

As a side note, the recent Penguin Classics collections all look quite fantastic and it’s a struggle not to pick up these new editions whenever I am lingering in a bookstore.

The illustrations of Angelo di Marco.

Great shirt by Polish illustrator Jan Jallwejt for the WDID (Walt Disney is Dead) exhibit.