Baron Prášil

Stills from Baron Prášil, aka The Fabulous Baron Munchausen, Karel Zeman's part animated, part live action film from 1961. It's one of five Jules Verne-inspired features Zeman made between 1955 and 1970. The largely handmade sets, partly based on the engravings of Gustave Doré, are wonderfully inventive and detailed, and Zeman's adaptation of the tale was a major influence on Terry Gilliam's 1988 version. This is the first of Zeman's films I've got round to watching, but there are lots of clips on YouTube including excerpts from Munchausen.

The Art and Craft of Montage

 Dan Fern

Andrzej Klimowski

Simon Larbalestier

Russell Mills (from More Dark Than Shark, Mills' collaboration with Brian Eno)

I stumbled across The Art And Craft of Montage by Simon Larbalestier in a secondhand book shop recently, and although I haven't got round to reading it yet I thought I'd share a few of the images that you'll be unlikely to see elsewhere. It was published in 1993, so the techniques discussed are non-digital, and many of the pieces have a kind of depth you can't easily achieve with Photoshop.

Larbalestier is a photographer best known for collaborating with Vaughan Oliver (as 23 Envelope or V23) on designs for the 4AD label for the likes of The Pixies and Red House Painters. And speaking of Oliver, Hard Format has numerous examples of of his music graphics, including this recent post. I've never been all that much of a 4AD fan so many of these are new to me.

All of which gives me an excuse to post the Quay Brothers' gorgeous poster for their short film Nocturna Artificialia, which was an early influence on Vaughan Oliver and can be found in Rick Poynor's book on him, Visceral Pleasures.

SMC poster image

Yesterday, instead of procrastinating or attempting to illustrate literary masterpieces, I spent the afternoon making an image for a gig poster for this lot (I wasn't familiar with them but they're currently being produced by a bandmate of mine).

Jiří Svoboda

Back to the Czech posters/book covers. I haven't managed to track down much of Jiří Svoboda's work, but from what I've seen his use of collage and texture is impressive, and I'd be intrigued to know how some of these were made. The examples at Terry Posters are all from the 1960s; I haven't found any later designs and I've no idea if he's still around, although there is a film director of the same name.