Fevolution: The Art Of Eric Feng
Fevolution: The Art Of Eric Feng, published by Last Gasp and distributed in the UK by Turnaround, is exactly what the title suggests, a collection of Eric Feng’s, AKA Feric’s, finest works. What it doesn’t tell us is just how amazing this book is in every way.
If you’ve not seen Feric’s captivating illustrations you’re in for a real treat. Feric takes us on a fantastic journey to another world with his semi-translucent characters. The weird thing is is that there are enough familiar shapes and textures that it’s kind of like an alternative to our own world rather than somewhere completely alien far away. This translucency gives us a wonderful view of Feric characters’ minimalistic insides…the dream-like anatomy of mechanical wonder. These cogs, pulleys and bones are never too busy to distract you though, in fact, when you actually look specifically at the insides there’s not really much there at all. It’s just a hint of the insides that suggests so much more. Very clever. The images are primarily drawn with black lines on white paper but the occasional splash of colour really adds a dynamic snap. Buddha also gets lots of attention as does movement. Many of the images include characters on and in strange alien vehicles…nothing stays still while you study these images, they are almost physically moving in front of your eyes.
Now, some people say that you should never judge a book by its cover. My advice is that you can safely judge this book by its cover and it needs discussing. The first clue to Fevolution’s class is that it’s bound in a opaque plastic folder. When you pull the paperback book from the case you’ll notice that the book is unusually bound by red string. Once you’ve done inspecting the cover you may, or may not, notice something strange about the pages. It took me a little while to work out why. I hate to spoil the discovery for you but I have to mention it…the pages are all doubled over so there are no hard edged pages as you flick through. The insides of these doubled over pages are used to tint some of the pages slightly and the Fevolution logo also shows through on many pages as well. There are also a few semi-translucent pages that show the separate layers of some of Feric’s characters. It’s a beautifully presented and illustrated piece of art in itself.
80 pages of wonderful, spatially presented, creations in a wonderfully created book. You can get a copy direct from Eric Feng, Last Gasp or from the normal places including Amazon UK and Amazon US.