LE: Invisible Cities

Dave McKean had a panel at San Diego Comic-Con this week where he talked about his current work (the man is prolific!) He showed some art for a forthcoming Folio Society edition of Calvino’s Invisible Cities. I’m pretty excited about this as I’d like a nice copy of this work and am not that fond of the Arion Press edition. I asked at his booth later and he did say it would be a limited edition.

Cool! Obviously FS took inspiration from my Apr 20, 2022 post on the "What are you Reading?" thread.

Interested to see how it turns out.

Great, another books I've long wanted a fine edition of, and featuring an artist I seem unable to escape in these cases. FS's Roadside Picnic, Conversation Tree's forthcoming William Hope Hodgson collection, and now this. With any luck it will be as undesirable to me as the Gormenghast LE, another book I otherwise wanted very much.

Normally I avoid full-on negative posts, but I'm really tired of getting excited to see these new titles pop up, and then see that once again he is the go-to illustrator. Why does FS tout its new illustrators campaign every year if they're going to keep falling back on the same tired choices?

>3 Shadekeep: Yeah, I like McKean but really - it's too much of the same thing.

Even the boutique blu ray company Deaf Crocodile recently had McKean do their kickstarter special edition slipcover for The Pied Piper. At a certain point a "special" release using McKean doesn't feel all that special anymore.

>1 vicwong: This is exciting! Thank you for sharing.

>4 LeBacon: Thank you, you get it. It's not against the man himself so much as the overexposure. There are so many worthy illustrators who could bring something new, and who could use the audience. When a recent book used the art of Omar Rayyan it impelled me to search out more of his work, and I discovered other books he worked on that I really liked. Every time they use a new artist, they open the world a little bit more.

>3 Shadekeep: >4 LeBacon: I loved McKean's art in Roadside Picnic (RP). I've seen his work online in I Am Legend, American Gods, and Gormenghast, but RP is the only one I own so thankfully the prospect of his art is still exciting to me as long as I'm into the specific illustrations when they're revealed.

>3 Shadekeep: Maybe they could get Quentin Blake instead.

>8 Chemren: They could use one of these, how about?

https://www.foliosociety.com/uk/blog/the-folio-book-illustration-award-2023-long...

By the way, is the general boredom surrounding McKean regarding 1) too many books illustrated by the same person, or 2) the fact that most of his artwork has shared a similar style across his FS works? Because personally I'm really interested by the sneak peeks we've seen of his work on Areté's Benjamin Button!

https://www.facebook.com/AreteEditions/posts/pfbid02KL2HbYLv7iZcqG4qCSMvtFsWPRuX...

I liked McKean's work for all his editions of FS so far and it sounds like he might be a good fit for this project. And I really prefer him a lot to the often rather uncreative illustrators they've been using recently. Pretty pictures with no depth / deeper meaning and no particular artistic value (to me, admittedly), is how I'd describe some of them.

That being said, if you don't like his particular style, I can understand that it would be frustrating that he's working for them regularly. So did other illustrators that I discovered through them, though: Puttappipat, Rayyan, and van Sandwyk come to mind.

I just finished reading Invisible Cities (I didn't think it would be my thing but I'm kind of obsessed with it) and I'm excited to see what McKean will bring to the work!

>11 SF-72: van Sandwyk's books are spectacular! And as long as we're appreciating illustrators: I've also really loved Sally Dunne's illustrations in Crooked House and Venetia — I hope FS works with her on more books.

If this is anything near the triumph that was Gormenghast (with apologies to those to whom it didn't tickle!) I'll be delighted. The first Folio rumour in a while that's gotten my hopes sky-high.

>10 BooksFriendsNotFood: For me it's both of these. It just feels like when Hollywood casts someone as the lead in a movie not because they are the best fit for it, but because they have marquee value. His style was a good fit for Roadside Picnic, disappointingly dissonant (to me) for Gormenghast, and likely to be way off for Invisible Cities. But if you're a fan then you'll like it regardless of how well it compliments the text.

As I told Conversation Tree when they announced him for the Hodgson book, it's not a choice I see working but I'm ready to be pleasantly surprised. After Gormenghast however I'm not optimistic.

I thought he was a fantastic fit for Gormenghast. He worked so well, that I would probably take a copy of Invisible Cities no matter the other details

>15 DMulvee:

Despite my misgivings about the open binding, viewing McKean's artwork persuaded me I must have the book and I now regard it among my best Folios.

I also thought McKean was a good fit for Roadside Picnic and I got the SE. I would have preferred the LE had it not included McKean's signature or the extra prints and had been priced closer to The Neverending Story SE which it resembled production-wise.

It mostly seemed overpriced because of the addition of the signature - McKean is a big name and is willing to sign things but is anyone collecting copies of McKean's signature? If you have the LEs for Gormenghast or I Am Legend or one of the many other non-Folio books or prints he has signed do you need another example of the man's handwriting? I don't if it makes a generally well made item suddenly cost 5x as much as if it were a fine press book.

I'll take one last try at trying to explain my take here. I understand that my comments trigger defensiveness in people who feel I am attacking the artist rather than the end product, so let me give it context.

Are you familiar with the version of Alice in Wonderland illustrated by Salvador Dali? It's a fascinating book, but in no wise is the book Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. It's Salvador Dali's Alice in Wonderland, because his art is a stylistic riff on, rather than a dedicated portrayal of, the textual contents.

Imagine H.R. Giger illustrating Lady Chatterley's Lover, or Ralph Steadman doing Pride and Prejudice. They would no doubt be interesting images, and one could certainly like and enjoy the artwork, but at this point the book is about the artist, not the text. (Steadman's work on Fear and Loathing, or the idea of Giger doing Neuromancer, are examples of harmonious pairings.)

That's how I feel about Gormenghast and many of the other books Dave McKean works on. While his Francis Bacon pastiche style worked fine for Roadside Picnic (a case of FS picking the right artist for the job), it didn't work for me in Gormenghast. It was no longer Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, it was Dave McKean's Gormenghast. If that's what you want, fine, but my preference is for the art to compliment the text, not supplant it. (If the intent is to make the artist primary, as with Dali's Alice, then that's a different thing, but I don't believe it's FS's goal here.)

Hence my disappointment in this announcement, because I really want Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, and I'm not optimistic that's what we'll get. Perhaps they'll put out an SE of the book with different art however and we'll all come out winners.

>18 Shadekeep: I’ve managed to understand your feeling about this, it’s a pretty straightforward one of personal taste. Nothing wrong with that.

>14 Shadekeep: This is fair enough. There's no point spending large sums of money if his art no longer excites you. I will disagree though with the opinion that a fan will love the upcoming work regardless; for example, I generally enjoy McKean's art but I didn't get I Am Legend and American Gods specifically because some of the art pieces weren't working for me. And I'm sure many other people feel differently. To each their own.

>20 BooksFriendsNotFood: That's a good point, and I probably should have phrased it more along the lines of "if you're a fan then you probably won't care as much how it fits with the text", or something like that. Though better still to avoid generalising altogether.

>21 Shadekeep: I'm very much looking forward to hearing your thoughts after the LE is announced/released, especially since you mentioned you really like the title! I'm hoping that you're pleasantly surprised but I'm ready for a teardown as well. 😉

>22 BooksFriendsNotFood: Ha ha! In spite of all I've said, you should probably gird yourself for palpable indifference. I'm more worried that the signature or some other aspect of the LE will price it out of my range, making it all moot. And I am glad to see FS doing a high-end Calvino book all the same.

>23 Shadekeep: Oh gosh, you're right. I haven't even thought about the price yet but FS sure does like to make it hurt.

When it comes to illustrators with enough notoriety to be a known name the list is pretty short. McKean is on it thanks to a distinctive style and some major collaborations and that snowballs into more work. I personally like him, but it's also not a style that's a good fit for everything. I thought he was a great choice for Roadside Picnic, and I liked the less abstract look he did in Gormenghast even though I can see people saying it doesn't fit their image of it. I haven't read Invisible Cities so I can't guess if it'd make a good or bad fit.
>18 Shadekeep: In general I think this is fair, though the border on what's appropriate for a book is taste based and has some fuzzy edges. Most things don't give as clear cut dissonance as HR Giger and romance. I remember some disappointed words said over FS choosing Alan Lee for Lord of the Rings LE, someone who many consider the illustrator for those tales.

i'll no doubt be priced out of considering this edition so I'll have to enjoy the McKean illustrations from afar. I'm also hoping Omar Rayyan gets some more FS work, speaking of illustrators. Really lovely those Pratchett books and I loved my Suntup Animal Farm as well.

It's disappointing that they chose to go the LE route for this. I've been requesting Invisible Cities for years, hopefully they eventually follow up with a standard edition.

As for McKean, I was a comic book fan long before I was a fine book collector, so I've been enjoying his work since I was a kid, but he wouldn't be my pick for illustrating this particular novel. He does great looking buildings which could certainly work to the benefit of Invisible Cities, but I also find his palette too dark for the comparative lightness of Calvino's prose.

I've long hoped that a new illustrated edition of Invisible Cities would find a way to incorporate hand-drawn maps. On the surface it's about Marco Polo regaling Kublai Khan with stories of imagined and fantastic cities discovered during his travels; it would be a great opportunity to have a modern cartographer like Anton Thomas create maps of all these cities that incorporate elements from the text in their design, like Zirma with dirigibles flying in all directions at window level, or Anastasia 'a city with concentric canals watering it and kites flying over it.'

This is one of my all time favorite novels, so I'm excited to see what Folio does to make it special.

If they made this LE ten years ago under old management it would be an instant buy. With their current track record regarding both quality and pricing I won't hold my breath but hope I'm wrong and they do something special.

Just had an idea for this edition that clever, gimmicky, and infuriating all at once. Wrap the slipcase in a Magic Eye image of a city.

>27 Joshbooks1: indeed. I'm holding my breath hoping it's letterpress for a book this short.

>29 SDB2012: Hope you’re a freediver. ;)

>27 Joshbooks1: I for one am looking forward to your reaction. Heck, I’d pay an extra $100 just to ensure it’s your usual disdain, but I think it would be wasted.

>3 Shadekeep: I hope McKean does not become become the Thomas Kinkade of Folio Society.

My opinion is kind of in the middle regarding McKean doing the art for this. I generally don't mind his work and I really like it in some cases but it's starting to feel like the market is being over saturated with it. He seems to be doing work for everyone. I thought his work on Gormenghast was great but I feel indifferent to some of his other FS stuff. I'm not sure personally he would be right for Invisible Cities but I could be pleasantly surprised again like I was with Gormenghast. I would also prefer it as an SE (maybe it will be both).

>32 ultrarightist: The Painter of Dark™ 😆

Looking forward to seeing more of this one. Speaking for myself, I don't feel that McKean is overexposed as far as Folio titles are concerned: he has illustrated four titles in their catalogue, with one more to come*. That's pretty small compared to many other Folio artists.

* I'm counting books like Picnic where there were standard and LE versions as one title.

I think McKean is a great choice. His imagination runs rampant and I think he can do both light and dark. Neil Packer also would make a good choice if going with an FS regular.

Personally, I would like them to take the PKD short stories approach and have a slew of different illustrator/visions for each of the types of cities. One illustrator does all the Memory Cities, etc... So about 10 in all.

Also, if it was a pop-up book, that would be cool.

Here’s a couple of very rough images from the panel. I’m not sure the first image is from Invisible Cities (he did show a lot and I may have lost track), but it does seem apropos. He did show the cover which showed a profile, but I couldn’t pull my phone out fast enough.

>37 vicwong: Nice. I like those. I haven't read Invisible Cities, so I can't opine on whether they are appropriate to the text.

>37 vicwong: So glad you managed to snap these! They look pretty cool. I imagine that I would enjoy seeing these pieces alongside the text.

I too have become rather bored with this artwork. There are so many incredible artists that FS could reach out to. But they go through these phases sometimes and keep repeating the illustrators. But, at least it's not Jonathan Burton (ASOIAF, 1984 etc.), so i have some consolation.

Moreover, the pics look good, so i am sure people will be pleased with the book.

I will be passing on the book because i know Italian and it would make no sense to buy an english translation, especially since i already own it in the original version.

I wish there were an italian (and german) publisher like FS, so i could enjoy the original texts in beautiful editions.

>37 vicwong:

Very nice! And quite different from other books he's done for FS so far, too. I'm now really looking forward to it. Thank you for sharing these images.

>37 vicwong: Not terrible and not great, at least to me, so it wouldn't sway my decision to buy either way. It's not overwhelmed by the vernacular of his style for once, which is a positive, but also isn't as evocative as it could be. The pictures are a little too busy and superficially same-y in composition to really do justice to the unique cities. But that's just one person's opinion. It won't stop me from picking up the SE if they do one.

Fantastic!

Huge Calvino fan. I’ve read everything available by him in translation.

>43 jlallred2000: Might be a fun way to learn to read Italian by trying to read his work in his original language. I assume the author's Italian is grammatical...

This is probably the limited edition I'm most looking forward to, it's been one of my favorite books for a long time. Do we have any expectations on when this might be announced/come out?

I finally got around to reading this based on this thread.

I had read Alan Lightman's Einstein's Dreams years ago and it seems to have been closely patterned on Invisible Cities where a historical figure imagines fantastical variations on a theme, but in Einstein's Dreams it's a list of realities where the laws of time and physics behave differently instead of strange cities. So I guess if you like Invisible Cities, check out the Lightman book.

My copy of Invisible Cities has arrived and it's beautiful. It might not be an LE but it is a little gem :-)

>47 Cat_of_Ulthar:

I completely agree, it's really beautifully made.