Book Review: Kindling: 12 Removable Prints

Kindling is also the name of the exhibition James Jean held in 2009. This poster book contains a selection of those works. They are all personal, non-commissioned pieces.

The book itself is pretty big at about 20 inches diagonal. There are 12 high quality prints on white cardboard, each easily detachable. I guess this format is chosen so that people can frame them or just paste them on walls.

Speaking of framing artwork, I met a guy who had a home gallery of James Jean art. This was while we were sitting on the floor queuing for the James Jean panel at San Diego Comic Con 2009. Seeing the copy of Kindling in my hand, he asked which was my favourite piece, and proceeded to show me his gallery on his iPhone. Now that's what I call a James Jean collector!

My favourite piece is the one with the butterfly head doing makeup in from of the mirror. That's the kind of style I like about his art — mixing unworldly imagination with fine art. This is perhaps what makes his work so unique. He has won six Eisner Awards for the best cover artist from 2004 to 2009. That's every year consecutively. It's an amazing achievement considering how many great artists are out there.

This book is a worthy collection for any collector. My recommendation is to get it now before it goes out of print, like many of his older books.

You can find more of James Jean's work at www.jamesjean.com.

Kindling: 12 Removable Prints is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

Visit Amazon to check out more reviews.

If you buy from the links, I get a little commission that helps me get more books to feature.

Here are direct links to the book:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.co.jp | Amazon.cn