Fables #18 Poster FRAMED Cover (2003) James Jean

Description

You are purchasing the item pictured, framed. Priority mail, tracking and $50 insurance is included with purchase. Item will be bagged to protect from dust, packed in packing peanuts and boxed. Just open box and hang it on the wall…makes a perfect gift!

In the summer of 2001, James Jean dropped by the DC offices in New York to show off his portfolio. Art director Mark Chiarello was impressed with his work and recommended him to editor Shelly Bond, who was looking for a cover artist for Fables- a new Vertigo series about tradional fairy-tale characters living in exile in modern-day New York City, written by Bill Willingham. Jean would eventually collect six consecutive Eisner Awards as Best Cover Artist for his work on the series and other DC titles. His cover to Fables #18 mixes handmade and mechanical elements- graphite, watercolor, “digital paint,” and vector graphics- to evoke a Lilliputian realm of Smalltown and his newest resident, Thumbelina. “In a cover, I’m trying to convey aspects of the story while attempting to create an arresting image. To achieve these goals, I always like to read the script beforehand to gather clues and bits of inspiration for the illustration. The reader can then revist the cover and discover visual cues that I’ve embedded in the cover that were in the story…At that point in the series, I was given a lot of freedom to interpret the story as I saw fit. Immediately, I knew I had to highlight Thumbelina on the cover. I also wanted to create a diaphanous effect in the flower that contained her, the light showing off the silhouette of her body. I created elements that established a sense of scale while also alluding to ideas of courtship and romance, the ladybugs alighting on her hand, the dandelions spreading their seeds, the tiny soldier parting the pink blades of grass, and the frog with his lasivious tongue.”- James Jean. When Thumbelina comes to town, it’s every man for himself. A sweet and kind-hearted character, when she moved into the Farm in the 18th century into the small town of Lilliputian men. However, due to almost no women. She’d be the center of many fights. Fables is a comic book series created by writer Bill Willingham, published by DC Comics’s Vertigo imprint beginning in 2002. The series deals with various characters from fairy tales and folklore – referring to themselves as “Fables” – who have been forced out of their Homelands by “The Adversary” who has conquered the realm. The Fables have traveled to our world and formed a clandestine community in New York City known as Fabletown. Fables who are unable to blend in with human society (such as monsters and anthropomorphic animals) live at “the Farm” in upstate New York. James Jean is a Taiwanese American visual artist, known for both his commercial work and fine art gallery work. He is known in the American comics industry as a cover artist for various books published by DC Comics, as well as for his work for Prada, ESPN and Atlantic Records. His work, which has been collected in numerous volumes, has been compared by The New York Times to that of Maxfield Parrish. In 2001, Jean became a cover artist for DC Comics, garnering seven Eisner awards, three consecutive Harvey awards, two gold medals and a silver from the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles, and a gold medal from the Society of Illustrators of New York. He also worked in advertising, and has contributed to many national and international publications. His clients included Time Magazine, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Spin, ESPN, Atlantic Records, Target, Playboy, Knopf, Prada among others. He illustrated covers for the comic book series Fables and The Umbrella Academy, for which he has won six Eisner Awards for “Best Cover Artist”. In 2006 he won Best Artist from the World Fantasy Awards. In 2008, Jean retired from illustration and commercial projects in order to focus on painting. Dana Jennings of The New York Times says of Jean’s work: “And, as with his Fables work, the paintings and illustrations are often suffused with a dreamy romanticism and lyricism worthy of Maxfield Parrish, even as Mr. Jean subverts those and other isms.”