Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora, The
by: Chusid, Irwin

Softcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics Books, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 180 pages. The Sweetly Diabolic Art features paintings, drawings, and sketches from the 1940s through the 1990s, most never previously published or exhibited, as well as more artifacts from Flora's 1940s tenure in the Columbia Records art department and rare newspaper and magazine illustrations spanning several decades. Sweetly Diabolic is also the first printing of an abandoned children's book concept, The X-Ray Eyes of Wallingford Hume. Equally fascinating are original, never-before-published roughs and rejected images from Flora's 1950s and '60s children's books and a gallery of pen and pencil sketches from the 1940s. Sweetly Diabolic also collects, for the first time rarely seen cartoon-science illustrations: the images are augmented by personal vignettes, mementos from the family archives, and a 1984 interview with award-winning graphic designer Robert M. Jones, who offers priceless insights.