EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 15 © 2016 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

6 He attended Berkshire College of Art and Design from 1982 to 1986, and it was there that his artistic taste exploded in all directions. “I watched a film a night from a great video library near the school, [where I] found, amongst many others, Ingmar Bergman, Terry Gilliam, Jean Cocteau, Fritz Lang, F. W. Murnau, Georges Meliés, Carl Dreyer, Stanley Kubrick, Roman Polanski, Bob Fosse, Lars von Trier, Luc Besson, Peter Greenaway, Jan Svankmajer, and the Quay Brothers.” He also discovered the beauty and emotional power of abstract and expressionist art through the work of Jim Dine, Francis Bacon, Ralph Steadman, Edgar Degas, Egon Schiele, Picasso, Larry Poons, Russell Mills and Antoni Clavé. Comic books were still part of his “artistic” absorption, with the following artists being a significant inspiration: Bill Sienkiewicz, Winsor McCay (of Little Nemo fame, but also an animator himself), José Muñoz ( Alack Sinner ), Sergio Toppi, Raymond Briggs ( When the Wind Blows ) and Duane Michels (whose photo sequences McKean not only considers “comics”, but would play an important role in his own work as well). ABOVE LEFT: Cover for the paperback edition of Pictures That Tick ( 2009), a collection of experimental short comix. Acrylic, photography, digital. ABOVE RIGHT: The 20th anniversary edition cover for Mr. Punch (2015) by Neil Gaiman, using elements from the original cover and remixed in Photoshop . Clay and material puppet, collage, photography, digital. BELOW: Drawing from the Subterranean Press edition of Coraline (2007). Ink. FACING PAGE: Limited edition print called Luna, created for a large retrospective show in Belgium called Narcolepsy (2002). Ink, screen-printed.