A stark, graphic commentary on contemporary life.
Works on paper from a celebrated graffiti artist.
British artist and political activist Banksy, famous for his street art, has been making, publishing, and selling screen prints for several decades. As artist Paul Coldwell notes in his introduction, these prints, widely circulated, extended the reach of Banksy’s political and social critiques to private, domestic surroundings. Art collector Campolucci-Bordi has gathered 174 of these striking images into a handsomely produced volume, organized chronologically by their release date, from 2002 to 2022. The author provides a description of each image, along with information about where and when it was released, how many were published, and how many were signed. Banksy repeated some motifs, such as yellow smiley faces, which appear in Flying Copper and Have a Nice Day as the faces of police officers and in Wrong War as the face of a solider. Rats recur, too, as symbols of rebellion and resistance. Most images were printed in black, white, and red, but Banksy often used colors ironically: A pink bow stands out on a military helicopter (Happy Choppers) and a pink background underscores the innocence of children in Jack and Jill/Police Kids. Banksy’s titles highlight his ridicule of capitalism and consumerism: Christ With Shopping Bags depicts the crucified Jesus holding bags of purchases in each hand; Sale Ends Today shows worshippers bowing before a store’s sign; and Very Little Helps shows children pledging allegiance to a Tesco bag hoisted on a flagpole. Similarly, the artist skewers British royalty, in Monkey Queen and Queen Vic, and alludes to the royal family’s treatment of Princess Diana in Di-Faced Tenners. His irreverence extends to Winston Churchill, depicted with a punk hairdo in Turf War. A glossary defines some artistic terms and projects.
A stark, graphic commentary on contemporary life.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780500028582
Page Count: 140
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
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