The ]:-) Art of Jim Flora

Not quite hot on the heels of The Mischievous Art and The Curiously Sinister Art, Barbara and I are now compiling a third volume of Floriana. Tentatively titled The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora, the book will be published by Fantagraphics in July or August 2009. Designer Laura Lindgren will once again transform our loosely organized text and Flora’s genial monstrosities into a tight, 180-page coffeetable bouquet.

Over the next year, this blog will offer glimpses of the diabolically sweet. Expect a gaggle of Flora critters you haven’t seen. The book will feature uncirculated fine art paintings and prints spanning more than a half-century; 1940s Columbia Records ephemera and 1950s magazine illustrations; vintage pen and pencil sketches (top, early 1940s); and children’s book page drafts (below, Sherwood Walks Home, 1966). The cover has not yet been designed.

Barb and I rejected dozens of alternate titles before agreeing on TSDA. We ran it by the folks at Fantagraphics, who were largely supportive. One staff Floraphile, Jacob Covey, declined comment:

You don’t want my opinion. I’m the guy who named his book BEASTS! thinking it was simple and easy to remember—only to find that within the year, another guy had the same thought with his book of half-naked guys posing with their dogs.