Here’s a fun assembly of anything artsy – from opera to books, theater, TV, and city life.

This is what I put on the back side of a greeting card of mine that I have recently put up for sale on my web site – it’s a fun little story consisting largely of famous authors’ names (Michèle and Shelley, I was thinking of you while composing this). Are you making sense of all the names?

One JOYCE SOMERSET MOORE, a HAMSUN SCOTTish WHIT-MANN RIMBAUD LONGFELLOW from AUSTEN, TX, named JAMES-HUGO CONRAD-ELIOT CUMMINGS, for whom the BÖLL STOWEd, left HOMER in a RUSHDIE with his KLOPSTOCK and ZOLA;

and STERNEly UPDIKEd the GREENE GRASS to the SAND-STEINy, HAWTHORNEy GINSBERG MONTAIGNE with his BALZAC THOREAUldered;

while SINGERing a ROWLING NOVALIS VERNEacular CAROLL, despite the FRISCH TWAIN and FROSTy DEFOE STORM;

having a GOLDING SCHNITZLER-BACON HEGEL and CALVINO along the VOGELWEIDE ESCHENBACH;

and POEking a MARLOWE-MAUPASSANT which came in HANDKE HEMINGWAY;

SWIFTly PUSHKIN through the WILDE FORSTER BLOCH OVID to MANSFIELD, ISHERWOOD, FIELDING, and ATWOOD; HARDY PASSOSing the HUGHES GOETHE PLATH overLOCKEing the HOFMANNSTHAL, and the BARRIEd WOOLF SANDBURG by the CHESTERTON SOCRATES;

till after many DAHL MILNEs which he thought he KANT BLAKE with his GRIMM foot BLIXEN MARX, he SHAW the MELVILLE DONNEtown WODEHOUSE McCOURT (near SHAKESPEARE 39), where he POPPERed off his MAILER;

and AESOP he YEATS a DOSTOYEVSKY quarter POUNDer al DANTE with a RILKE salad LESSING and a PINTER of LAGERLÖF LEAR in a BYRON BECKETT for a BUCK.

This is the card BTW:

MOTIF: WORDSWORTH City

• Regular Coated A6 Postcard (2 Pages)
• Plain Fun Series:
  This one is for us book lovers – a huge metropolis skyline which consists entirely of books of all sizes. This is the city I want to live in! The back side features a fun little story in very light gray color which is easy to overwrite (click on image for more information).
• Card size is 105 x 148mm (4.1 x 5.8 in.)
• Heavy paper (280 g/m2)
• Front side is coated with a stylish matte varnish.
• Back side is uncoated and can be used for personal notes.

This is a whimscial artwork I created for The Writer magazine. It is on the topic of letting a book go once it turns out that it is not really taking you anywhere, and shows a puzzled-looking humanoid book scratching its head in disbelief at a road fork.

A few illustrations of mine have just gotten published in The Writer magazine on articles on literary fiction. One of them even made it on the cover.

The first image shows a little man balancing on a four-row stack of blocks with letters inside which say, LITERARY FICTION (see the spread below).

Image number two is of a little man looking up at a huge stack of books (this is the one that made it on the cover, in part).

And the last illustration (see below) shows a little figure writing on a sheet of paper with some thought balloons coming out of his head.

A bunch of postcards promoting selected illustrations of mine have just arrived from the printer’s. While the front side shows an illustration without type, the back side specifies in lively collage style where that artwork was published. The images displayed here show both views side by side.

Top: My illustration and jacket design for Richard David Precht’s Who am I – and if so, how many?, an introduction to philosophy which has been a major bestseller in Europe, with sales in Germany alone currently exceeding one million copies. The illustration shows a little boat crossing the ocean, and emitting steam in the shape of a questionmark. Currently being translated into English by the wonderful Shelley Frisch, the book will hit US and UK shelves next year.
Below: My cover art for a US banking magazine showing Tarzan in the jungle, lifting some weights. This one was on the topic of regulatory jungles.

Bottom: My cover design in bold colors for LatinFinance magazine on the financial crisis. It shows a couple of people using ropes in trying to keep a corporate building from tumbling down a cliff.

A mysterious door opening, only to reveal a magnificent tree blossoming with an abundance of books… Are books going to survive in the end? You bet!

This art was was created on last week’s book fair in Frankfurt. I really like the simplicity of this one.