Blab! #6

Welcome to the preeminent anthology of the graphic design and illustration arts.BLAB!'s list of contributors past and present reads like a Who's Who of the contemporary visual art world, and each volume is an eclectic mix of the world's most exciting artists from both the fine art world and commercial fields. Conceived, edited and designed by five-time New York Festival of Advertising award-winner Monte Beauchamp, BLAB! has grown from a digest-size b/w fanzine begun over 15 years ago to an annual coffee-table showcase that bridges the ever-narrowing divides between high and low art as well as abstract expressionism and representationalism. Simply put, BLAB! is an objet d'art that has become a standard-bearer in the world of the professional visual arts. Included in this volume: David Sandlin's "Slumburbia," a four-page color panorama depicting the temptations of the American family unit; Sue Coe's "WOMD" (weapons of mass destruction), which focuses on the weapons that affect the planet every day, from poverty and pollution to AIDS, globalization, factory farming, the criminal 'justice' system, and ignorance (featuring text by Judy Brody); Documentary filmmaker and award-winning children's book illustrator Laura Levine recounts the bizarre case of the Picolo Midgets, a vaudeville circus act that traveled throughout America during the early 1900s; Spain Rodriguez delivers an autobiographical view of the origins of Playboy and the sexual fervor it spawned during 1950s America; Editor Beauchamp contributes "Kilroy Was Here," a history of World War II's big-nosed, chrome-domed, graffiti cartoon icon crudely scrawled on surfaces everywhere by G.I.s who travelled throughout the world; Marc Rosenthal's "What's Dat?" is a surreal, philosophical and social critique centered around the travels of a small graphic shape as it moves around our world; Mark Landman returns with another adventure of "Fetal Elvis"; And much, much more, including BLAB! regulars Gary Baseman, The Clayton Brothers, Drew Friedman, Blanquet, and others, all wrapped under a gorgeous cover by BLAB! sophomore Camille Rose Garcia. About the Author:: Monte Beauchamp has also edited The Life & Times of R. Crumb: Comments from Contemporaries from St. Martin's Press. His work has appeared in Print, Communication Arts, American Illustration, and the New York Festival's Annual of Advertising. He lives in Chicago, IL.