Illustrations: The Encyclopedia of Guilty Pleasures

Some time ago, I was approached by Quirk Publishing to draw illustrations for a book project: "The Encyclopedia of Guilty Pleasures". The proposal was for me to do 80 very small spot illustrations in the style of old encyclopedia art. It was a cool project, I thought, with imagery from the lighter side of Western Civilization. The image above is the cover of the  edition that was published in Great Britain. John Murray (Publishers) put out the U.K. version, for which I was happy to create additional images specific to British tastes. The original, American treatise's cover looks like this:

The artistic challenge with this assignment was to get the objects and likenesses across within a fairly restricted space. The essence of the "Spot Illustration". I've scanned a bunch of the original art boards to give an idea of the kinds of "treasures" contained within these tomes... enjoy the tour, and don't worry: It's Rated "G".Toni Basil ("Micky") and Mr. Rogers

Here is a spread from the book...

     Mr. Spock

     Michael Landon

     Benny Hill

     Barry Manilow

     Farrah Faucett

     Cap'n Crunch

     Jiffy-Pop

     The men's magazine

Barbara Streisand, Richard Simmons

     Madonna

     Colonel Klink

     Della Reese

     Chef Boyardee

     Abbott and Costello

Along with the illustrations, the wickedly funny writing made this book a quite enjoyable read. If you pick up a copy, you will not be disappointed.