In this review, we take a closer look at Robert Sabuda’s pop-up classic Beauty & the Beast: A Pop-Up Adaptation. The work of Paper Engineer Robert Sabuda needs no introduction to pop-up book collectors. Sabuda, who won the 1998 Meggendorfer Prize with his pop-up debut The Christmas Alphabet, also created the most beautiful fairytale pop-up books like Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, The Little Mermaid and one of our favorites, Beauty & the Beast.

Artwork

The artwork that contains black outlines and colorful cut-outs reminds us of stained glass, that fits the theme of this love story perfectly. Vivid watercolors decorate and brighten every scene. The decors are stunning and the colors of the beast work beautifully in combination with the strong black outlines. This Sabuda heavyweight champion is one of our favorites because of the complex engineering and also because of it’s beautiful and magical artwork.

Paper engineering

Beauty and the Beast is a big one! It counts five main spreads and lots of mini booklets. The first spread also contains a nice surprise. Three harmonica tunnel pop-ups with scene’s from inside the Beast’s castle. If you pay close attention to the details, you can see the tail of the beast moving from left to right through the house. It’s a brilliant way of telling a story in movement and animation. Most tunnel pop-ups are static and have scenes build up in layers so this is a real treat if you like these kind of details.

The second spread houses the head of the Beast. It’s very impressive to witness it opening up in real life! There’s a lot going on like the horns that fold out in a spectacular upward movement. Meanwhile, his eyelids open up wide and his mouth reveals his sharp teeth. All of this happens in a beautiful composition of fur and it all comes together as the Beast’s head. This is one of those pop-ups that make you wonder how it all fits into a spread when you close it.

All spreads are beautiful and interesting in a different way. In the garden scene, there are pilars that rotate and land into a perfect formation and the last spread looks like the decor of a theater. This pop-up book is really packed and together with all the mini booklets, that also contain wonderful pop-ups, it’s easy to say that this belongs on the shelve of every pop-up book collector. This book is literally a beauty and a beast!

Order at Amazon: Beauty & the Beast: A Pop-Up Adaptation

Author: Robert Sabuda
Published by Little Simon

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More pop-up books by Robert Sabuda

Zahhak: The Legend of the Serpent King, created by Iranian award-winning artist and filmmaker Hamid Rahmanian and Meggendorfer Prize-winning Paper Engineer Simon Arizpe, is an impressive pop-up book like you’ve never seen before. It retells the Persian tale of Prince Zahhak who was easily convinced by the devil (Angra Mainyu) to murder his father King Merdas and take over the throne. Zahhak, meaning ‘he who has 10000 horses’, would rule the kingdom with his army for a violent and bloodthirsty 1000 years.

The Emergence of Snakes

The evil spirit, disguised as a cook, fed Zahhak with blood and the flesh of animals and one day Ahriman merely asked to kiss Zahhak on his two shoulders, which he agreed. Then Ahriman touched Zahhak’s shoulders with his lips and vanished. At once, two black snakes grew out of Zahhak’s shoulders. They could not be removed, for as soon as one snake-head had been cut off another took its place.

Source: welcometoiran.com

Zahhak: The Legend of the Serpent King is Hamid Rahmanian’s illustrated adaptation and one of the many tellings from Hamid’s masterpiece Shahnameh: The Epic of the Persian Kings, a book that counts an impressive 592 illustrated pages of digitally composed artwork collages. Shahnameh, also known as “The Book of Kings”, is a 1000 years old epic poem written by Abolqasem Ferdowsi, one of Persia’s greatest poets. Shahnameh, part historical and part mythical, is the world’s longest epic poem written by a single poet. Hamid Rahmanian took the effort to create an illustrated version of Shahnameh, which took him 10.000 hours of research to collect over 8000 pieces from miniatures of Persian manuscripts and lithographs from different eras. He and his team digitally cut-out all the pieces to combine spectacular collages that are composed into impressive scenes that tell the stories of Shahnameh. Some of the collages contain artwork combined from 33 manuscripts and Hamid managed to preserve the authentic look and feel by carefully selecting art that suits the stories very well.

“For the first time ever, a tale from the Persian Book of Kings springs to life in this stunningly produced and ingeniously crafted pop-up book.”

One day, Hamid Rahmanian visited a conference about Shahnameh in Toronto. To his disappointment, it was long and mostly boring. So he got inspired to create his own telling, using the rich culture of Persian art. He wanted to create something interesting for a more broader and younger audience. Something that would connect with an audience that already loves stories like Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings. Hamid saw that potential in Shahnameh and started collecting over a hundred books with historical Persian artwork. Hamid decided to not create his own artwork and took the effort to assemble collages of cut-outs, only using original Persian school artwork from the books he gathered.

Artwork

The collages, that are digitally created by stacking cut-out elements as layers, formed a perfect base to create a pop-up book. By using pop-ups with multiple layers, the collages aren’t flat anymore and reveal what’s hidden behind the overlapping elements. This makes it even more interesting to see how the scenes are built and what elements are used to tell the story. It’s the perfect medium for this kind of artwork that has many secrets hidden behind each layer.

Paper Engineering

The paper engineering by Simon Arizpe is really impressive and full of surprises. It’s amazing to see how everything fits inside this packed book. Some of the giant pop-up scenes also reveal mini booklets with the most beautiful details. There’s also a lot of animation and rotation going on. One of our favorites is Feraydun on his horse in Zahhak’s dream. It stands up and rotates with a two-way mechanism that also points towards Zahhak who peeks back with an eye that opens right on time. The engineering of Zahhak is subtle and impressive. It respects the artwork and adds extra depth and animation to the endless layers and pieces.

We had the opportunity to ask Simon Arizpe some questions about Zahhak and his work as a Paper Engineer. Click here to read the interview!

Order at Amazon: Zahhak: The Legend Of The Serpent King

Concept, art & design by Hamid Rahmanian
Paper engineering by Simon Arizpe
Text by Ahmad Sadri & Melissa Hibbard
Published by Fantagraphics Books

Useful links and resources:

fictionvillestudio.com
simonarizpe.com
kingorama.com

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In this review, we take a closer look at the latest pop-up book created and written by Shawn Sheehy titled Beyond the Sixth Extinction. It’s a gigantic book with eight pop-up spreads and many pages that contain beautiful artwork created by Jordi Solano. This 3.2 pounds book is a real heavyweight champion! And not just literally speaking. The subject this book is about, looking beyond the next global mass extinction, isn’t a bedtime story for kids. Categorized as Science Fiction, Beyond the Sixth Extinction is a very interesting read that makes you wonder and fear whether this dark and morbid future could ever become a reality?

“Take a long step forward into the year 4847 with the help of stunning pop-ups portraying eight fantastical creatures.”

Beyond the what?

In case you didn’t know, the Earth has already witnessed five global mass extinctions. The best-known cause for one of these is the impact of an asteroid that killed all dinosaurs on earth during extinction number five. The most destructive one, extinction number three, is named “End Permian” and happened 251 million years ago. During that event, earth lost 96% of all its species because of a cataclysmic eruption near Siberia that blasted a deadly amount of CO2 into the atmosphere. The oldest surviving relative on Earth is “the living fossil” Nautilus that goes back almost all the way to the birth of complex life, 600 million years ago. It somehow survived all extinctions and now some people fear that for many reasons, humanity will end its existence. Even this persevering creature is in danger because of the sudden rise of humanity and its industry. And here comes the bad news, humanity will most certainly be the cause of the upcoming sixth extinction that is already happening right now…

The subject of this book, Beyond the Sixth Extinction, is all about which animals will survive this sixth extinction event and how they will evolve into a species that can live in this futuristic and toxic human environment. We travel to the year 4847 and will see a glimpse of what evolution will do to eight of these survivors.

Artwork

The artwork created by Jordi Solano is breathtaking. This book is packed with detailed illustrations that are realistic and also bit dark with a fantasy twist. It reminds us of those illustrations that you used to see on classic biology class posters. It’s a perfect style that fits this subject really well! The so-called Rotrap (merging of roach and trap) is one of our favorites. This creature, that looks like a mutated rat, lives on the walls and ceilings of nuclear reaction chambers. Rotrap looks like it’s straight from a horror movie and makes rats like we know them today, look like cute little animals. Below: a gallery with some artwork highlights of the creatures in this book.

Paper Engineering

The paper engineering in Beyond the Sixth Extinction is surprisingly solid. All eight pop-up spreads look mechanical and organic at the same time and fold in-and-out with ease. It’s a book full of complex and mostly a-symmetrical compositions that display the creatures as paper sculptures. Our first introduction of Shawn’s work as a Paper Engineer was his first trade pop-up book Welcome to the Neighborwood. The look-and-feel of this book is mostly the same and has that typical crafting style that gives you the impression that the pop-ups are made out of layers colored paper instead of printed paper.

All of my artists books are created in cut paper, and I brought that style over to the trade books. It’s one of the reasons (I am told) that Candlewick got interested in my work. – Shawn Sheehy

Storytelling

Shawn did all the writing and really got into detail. The story starts with an optimistic report by Biologist and Chief Scientist Willek Muriday who writes about the discovery of a number of new species found in the Southwest of Lake Mishkin. It immediately sets the tone of this post-apocalyptic world in the year 4847. The story continues explaining all six extinctions and on the next page, before you know it, you’re looking at a true size 30 cm long Rex Roach pop-up. The flap on the right page of the pop-up spread reveals specific information like the creatures diet, size, habitat, lifespan, bioremediation, interspecies relationships and more. The next page continues to tell more about the creature and its history. In the end, there’s a detailed and beautifully illustrated Ecosystem about the Cago district that connects all species and maps their ecological relationships. You can tell by the way how detailed this scenario is written, that Shawn went really deep into the subject and philosophy about how these creatures evolved into survivors of the “new World”.

Beyond The Sixth Extinction is a real luxury book and eyecatcher about a fascinating subject that combines biology and science fiction. One of the biggest and most heavy pop-up titles in our collection! It is already available for pre-order at Amazon and will be released on October 9th.

We also had the opportunity to interview Shawn and ask him about his work and what inspired him to create this pop-up book. Read the interview…

Order at Amazon: Beyond the Sixth Extinction: A Post-Apocalyptic Pop-Up

Author: Shawn Sheehy
Illustrated by Jordi Solano
Published by Candlewick Studio

We finally got our hands on the brand new Necronomicon Pop-Up Book, created by Skinner and Rosston Meyer. In this review we will take a closer look at this unique combination of H. P. Lovecraft’s stories and the Art of Skinner. The Necronomicon Pop-Up Book is the most recent artbook project published by Poposition Press and it comes in two editions: The Earth Dweller Edition and The Elder God Edition. The last one contains gold and silver highlights on the cover, a custom laser etched acrylic slipcase and a signed art print by Skinner himself. You’ll find links to both editions at the bottom of this page. For this video review, we’ve captured the Elder God edition. At the end of the video you’ll also get a glimpse of the goodies that are available like the glow in the dark pins and art prints signed by Skinner.