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The Second in Line
A new, redesigned edition. First printing. 144 colour pages, saddle stiched, open binding. The first edition of this book was published in 2013, in a different version, and is now completely sold out. It won the prestigious award as the most beautiful Swedish book of the year.
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 9, 2014
Another breathtaking reading experience, courtesy of Mattias Adolfsson, Sweden's answer to the fast drawing Sergio Aragonés.
This book was given, among other awards, that of best book design in Sweden last year, and I can only concur with that decision. Jens Andersson has done a great job, creating a beautiful box containing a book, a smaller pamphlet and a two sided, fold-out poster. It's like Christmas opening this little gem of book design.
The book contains Adolfsson's "sketches". I know these are drawn in his sketchbook, but they are so incredibly detailed and done with such high finish and sense of composition, that I find it hard to call them sketches. Here's everything from insanely detailed scenes with people, aliens, dinosaurs and strange animal creatures, to short picture book stories, such as "Your glory days are over mr Cthulhu", and "A day in the life of Mattias Adolfsson, man about town". The latter are fun, but it's the large drawings that has me totally absorbed. Compared to the first, landscape format collection of Adolfsson's drawings, The First In Line, this book was made in portrait format, which works much better, as the originals were drawn in that format as well.
The fold-out poster shows a cross section of a spaceship, as always with Adolfsson's art, it's incredibly detailed, with a lot happening at once. When you turn the poster around you see what at first glance appears to be the same drawing, but after closer inspection it turns out to be, of course, a whole new drawing, with slight alterations in everything. Fun to loose yourself in comparing differences.
The pièce de résistance, as far as I'm concerned though, is the little pamphlet which is called "My Crib", and contains spreads from Adolfsson's sketchbook, each depicting a room in his imaginary house. These are wondrously inventive, at the same time as you can detect an autobiographical basis to all the strangeness. My favourite is the "Pneumatic post room", where Adolfsson is working at a wall with hundreds of valves for sending pout post to different countries, while his wife (who's constantly drawn as some kind of anthropomorphic lioness), is sorting rolls into a the first om many large bookshelves, named "A-Ab". This had me lingering for a long time filling my mind with ideas. Great art!
I've already reviewed the next, overs-sized collection of Adolfsson's art, Larger than Line, so now I'm looking forward to see what he and book designer Jens Andersson thinks of next. I wouldn't mind an over-sized, though thick hardcover collection of the best from the sketchbooks. Why not in a mock moleskin design ...
This book was given, among other awards, that of best book design in Sweden last year, and I can only concur with that decision. Jens Andersson has done a great job, creating a beautiful box containing a book, a smaller pamphlet and a two sided, fold-out poster. It's like Christmas opening this little gem of book design.
The book contains Adolfsson's "sketches". I know these are drawn in his sketchbook, but they are so incredibly detailed and done with such high finish and sense of composition, that I find it hard to call them sketches. Here's everything from insanely detailed scenes with people, aliens, dinosaurs and strange animal creatures, to short picture book stories, such as "Your glory days are over mr Cthulhu", and "A day in the life of Mattias Adolfsson, man about town". The latter are fun, but it's the large drawings that has me totally absorbed. Compared to the first, landscape format collection of Adolfsson's drawings, The First In Line, this book was made in portrait format, which works much better, as the originals were drawn in that format as well.
The fold-out poster shows a cross section of a spaceship, as always with Adolfsson's art, it's incredibly detailed, with a lot happening at once. When you turn the poster around you see what at first glance appears to be the same drawing, but after closer inspection it turns out to be, of course, a whole new drawing, with slight alterations in everything. Fun to loose yourself in comparing differences.
The pièce de résistance, as far as I'm concerned though, is the little pamphlet which is called "My Crib", and contains spreads from Adolfsson's sketchbook, each depicting a room in his imaginary house. These are wondrously inventive, at the same time as you can detect an autobiographical basis to all the strangeness. My favourite is the "Pneumatic post room", where Adolfsson is working at a wall with hundreds of valves for sending pout post to different countries, while his wife (who's constantly drawn as some kind of anthropomorphic lioness), is sorting rolls into a the first om many large bookshelves, named "A-Ab". This had me lingering for a long time filling my mind with ideas. Great art!
I've already reviewed the next, overs-sized collection of Adolfsson's art, Larger than Line, so now I'm looking forward to see what he and book designer Jens Andersson thinks of next. I wouldn't mind an over-sized, though thick hardcover collection of the best from the sketchbooks. Why not in a mock moleskin design ...
January 4, 2015
This book is the second volume showcasing Adolfsson's talent. Beautiful!
October 22, 2014
Art book, which you'd either love or hate I expect. Adolfsson hand draws incredibly detailed and very surreal images, and this series is basically a reproduction of the pick of his working notebooks.
This won the "most beautiful book produced in Sweden" last year, and it is fantastically packaged, as facsimile moleskin, packaged in a hard cover folding box, and with a poster and a small book alongside.
I can't sensibly review art, but I adore this guy (this is the second of three books, I don't own the other two, but I'm keeping an eye out for when they're on sale - this is actually one of my youngest daughters self-purchases, so I know the other two will make great presents for her, and plus I'll get to pore over them.)
(More @Booklikes, incl some art samples)
This won the "most beautiful book produced in Sweden" last year, and it is fantastically packaged, as facsimile moleskin, packaged in a hard cover folding box, and with a poster and a small book alongside.
I can't sensibly review art, but I adore this guy (this is the second of three books, I don't own the other two, but I'm keeping an eye out for when they're on sale - this is actually one of my youngest daughters self-purchases, so I know the other two will make great presents for her, and plus I'll get to pore over them.)
(More @Booklikes, incl some art samples)
December 6, 2015
This is a collection of sketches and illustration from Mattias Adolfsson’s sketchbooks and it is wonderful. The illustrations are detailed and fantastical and witty. This book has a very scientific feel with lots of robots and machinery but also dinosaurs and fossils. It also contains a really entertaining series about Cathulu which I really enjoyed it. There is so much in each picture you can go back to reading it again and again and see new things. Any of this books would make great gifts for yourself or others.
December 24, 2014
Amazingly detailed surreal images from Adolfsson's notebooks. Nothing like it anywhere else.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews