Book Review: Pepita: Takehiko Inoue Meets Gaudi


I've had the Japanese edition of this book pepita 井上雄彦 meets ガウディ that was published in 2011. I like the book but could not understand what was written. It's great that Viz Media released this English edition. There's some difference between the two edition. The English edition left out the behind-the-scenes DVD and some calendar postcards.

Pepita is a sort of a travelogue sketchbook from Takehiko Inoue, the artist for the popular comic series Slam Dunk and Vagabond. Pepita is a very different piece of work from Inoue who is known for manga art.

In 2011, he traveled to Barcelona in Spain to look for inspiration and meaning in Spanish Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi's architecture. Collected within are the sketches, photographs and notes that he made on the trip. It's written very candidly and you can read about the thoughts he had when looking and drawing the different places.

He visited the mountains at Montserrat, places were Gaudi lived, and the many sites where the famous buildings are, such as Sagrada Familia, Casa MIla, Park Guell and many more. If you've never seen these places before, you might be filled with a sense of wonder after looking at the designs. The buildings are very organic and is very much influenced by nature. You can't even describe them as European looking because they are something else.

Inspired by the mosaic tiles that Gaudi used occasionally, Takehiko Inoue uses that as a design element for his art in the book. He also has sketches drawn over photographs and portrait sketches of how Gaudi and his family and friends would look like.

There's also plenty of interesting information about Gaudi in the book. The name of the book is actually the name of the woman Gaudi loved. Gaudi scholars were interviewed and provided many insights to the life and career of Gaudi. A list of Gaudi's structures is included.

Recommended to fans of Inoue and those who like travel sketchbooks.

Pepita: Takehiko Inoue Meets Gaudi is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

Pepita: Takehiko Inoue Meets Gaudi
English edition left out the DVD.

Pepita: Takehiko Inoue Meets Gaudi

Pepita: Takehiko Inoue Meets Gaudi

Pepita: Takehiko Inoue Meets Gaudi

Pepita: Takehiko Inoue Meets Gaudi

Pepita: Takehiko Inoue Meets Gaudi

Pepita: Takehiko Inoue Meets Gaudi

Pepita: Takehiko Inoue Meets Gaudi

Pepita: Takehiko Inoue Meets Gaudi

Pepita: Takehiko Inoue Meets Gaudi

Pepita: Takehiko Inoue Meets Gaudi

Pepita: Takehiko Inoue Meets Gaudi

Visit Amazon to check out more reviews.

The links below are affiliate links, which means I earn some commission from each purchase, but at no extra cost to you.

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

Comments

Inoue sensi can see things many artist are not able to, I admire him so much, not just for his art which is remarkably good, but also for the stories and messages he send behind them.

Thanks for the review, great book as always!

Add new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Filtered HTML

  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a href hreflang> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul type> <ol start type> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For Comment Notification, please choose "All comments". "Replies to my comment" does not work.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------