For 18 issues, Illustration Magazine has been featuring artists form the history of American illustration. Illustration is beautifully printed and full of great illustrations from the “Golden Age” through the late 20th Century.

In 2005 publisher and executive editor Daniel Zimmer launched a new title, Illustration’05, in a similar format, but devoted to contemporary illustration. Both magazines are superb and of interest to any one interested in American illustration.

The Illustration’05 title became Illustration’06 and Illustration’07, much to the confusion of readers and magazine dealers, and did not fare as well as it might have.

I’m happy to say that Zimmer has relaunched Illustraton’0whatever as Illo., starting the numbering over at issue#1, in the same beautiful format. That format is 80 pages, focusing on four in-depth articles about contemporary American illustrators, with page after glossy, high-resolution page of beautifully reproduced artwork.

The magazine is rounded out with a couple of shorter articles and reviews, features very few ads; and the ads themselves are for things like Last Gasp Publishing, Flesk Publications and shows at the Society of Illustrators, that are as much of interest to readers as the articles.

Though the web site currently says that Illo. #1 is still at the printer, it is actually out and I picked up my copy yesterday.

I’m fortunate to have an amazing independent book/comic store nearby in Delaware that makes a point of carrying magazines like Illustraton and Illo., but If you can’t convince a magazine dealer or bookstore near you to carry them (it’s worth a try), you can order them online directly from the publisher.

Illo. is published quarterly and a four issue subscription is $40 U.S.; individual issues are $10 (cover price), postpaid. In addition you can order back issues of Illustration ’05.

You can also order subscriptions and back issues of Illustration Magazine, which, like Illo., is published quarterly for $10 an issue.

The newly published issue #1 of Illo. features Mitch O’Connell, Mark Schultz, Nathan Jurevicius, Brian Taylor and an interview with Nancy Stahl. You can see thumbnail previews of the entire issue here. (The article on Mark Schultz is in the form of an extensive interview conducted by John Fleskes of Flesk Publications, which I profiled as one of the first posts on lines and colors.)

Issue 18 of Illustration features Allen Anderson, The Cooper Studio (part 2), Alberto Vargas, Jack Potter and others. Thumbnail previews here.

(Image above left, Illustration Magazine: top left, second row and third row, Illo.: top right, fourth row, bottom row.)

Stéphane Halleux creates sculptures of characters and objects that have a feeling of Tim Burton meets Rube Goldberg by way of 1930’s animated cartoons.

His tiny-wheeled cars, junk-dealer robots, Charles Adamsish characters, mechanized chairs and enigmatic “engines” are wonderful visual fun. Their textured and weathered surfaces, strange shapes, and arrangements of odd parts are imaginative and entertaining.

Halleux’s objects are appealing in a way that makes you want to pick them up, or at least be able to view them from a wide variety of angles. Though he often provides images from more than one angle, it’s unfortunate that Quicktime VR isn’t as easy as standard digital photography, it would be great to be able to rotate these images.

Halleux’s web site is apparently new, as the biography section is still “coming soon”, and some other sections are also incomplete. Though there is a section of preliminary design sketches (“croquis”) for some of his pieces, there is no information on his creations in terms of materials, technique, intention or size. Hopefully, that will be added in the near future. In the mean time, we’ll have to settle for looking through his galleries of wonderfully eccentric objects.