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City of Saints and Madmen

Jeff VanderMeer’s wonderful and award-winning fantasy tales of the sinister city of Ambergris are now back in print in the US from a major publisher. This is good to see, not only because the book is well worth your attention but also because I helped design the interior, providing title pages for the stories and designing and illustrating the whole of the ‘King Squid’ section. Fantasy is a meagre description for this book, it’s far more inventive and intelligent than the mass of works that labour under that description in the shops. Ditch your doorstop dragon sagas and give yourself a treat!

The Picture of Dorian Gray II

Oscar Wilde’s novel was filmed by Albert Lewin in 1945, a great adaptation with Hurd Hatfield playing Dorian, George Sanders as the aphoristic Lord Henry and Angela Lansbury as Sybil Vane. Lewin made a number of respectably arty films during the Forties and Fifties but Dorian Gray has always seemed the best to me, even if I am biased towards the story.

The film was shot in black and white but views of the painting were shown in colour. For the final view of Dorian’s decayed portrait he commissioned the hyper-real artist Ivan Albright (1897–1983) whose shockingly grotesque picture (below) provides a memorable climax to the film. That painting now resides in the Art Institute of Chicago.