Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Anthony Browne & Graeme Base

I was at the art gallery the other week with a couple of friends and I saw a piece that reminded me of picture books I used to read as a child. I just couldn't place the author's name though and my friends had no idea who I was talking about either.

However, when I was in a bookstore (oh, what a surprise), the other day with my flatmate looking at the children's books (he wants to be an illustrator/graphic novelist etc), the images in the books I had been thinking of came back again. My flatmate had a better idea of who and what I was talking about so when we got home we did some research. My flatmate found that the author he was thinking of was Graeme Base of Animalia fame, and the author and illustrator I was thinking of was Anthony Browne.

Unfortunately the following images really don't do his work justice. On the pages of a real book they are unbelievably lush and glossy. I always liked them because they were kind of dark, not just in the imagery but also in the narrative.

Most of these are from King Kong.







And my flatmate's favourite, Graeme Base:





Again, the internet really doesn't do these images justice. They're so detailed and wonderful; I highly recommend going to your local bookstore just to see them in person. You might look like a weirdo but I guess if you know a kid you can make their life a lot more awesome by getting them one of these books. They've got to be something special if my flatmate and I remember them so fondly 20 years after reading them as children. 

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