Lorenzo Mattotti

Every year, the International Comic Salon happens in Erlangen, the small town in Germany that I grew up in. And pretty much every year my good friend Ilse attends and sends me all sorts of things that she thought  I'd like. This year she told me that in case I hadn't seen the illustrations that Lorenzo Mattotti had made for Hansel and Gretel I had better do that asap because he had just been awarded the "Max und Moritz Lifetime achievement prize for his life's work and they would blow me away...  she was so right!

Mattotti is a genius when it comes to colour but these black and white illustrations for the age old story recorded by the brothers Grimm, really made me look, and look and then look some more. How fantastic are those brushstrokes? When you look at these images you are thrown right into the essence of the dark and scary tale and all of it's ghoulish landscape. Love these so much! Having said that, do check out Mattotti's other work as well. He such a talented, versatile and prolific artist.