So many graffiti coloring books, so little time to meet with Axe body spray's agency about their rad, new muralbombing campaign.
Kobie Solomon is the Detroit [Area] artist whose "My First" Graffiti Coloring Book is the latest entry in the increasingly crowded graffiti coloring book market. Solomon's style--or his Graffiti Coloring Book Collective's style, excuse me--is sort of a Corporate Baroque: each of the 26 different lesson/words is drowning in a sea of embellishment, while gangs of chatty Krylon cans spout off teaching tips, the graf equivalent of MS Word's Clippy The Menacing Paperclip.
And then there are poems, in case the GCB Collective's message isn't conveyed clearly enough with their art. And the whole thing is spiral bound, and $27, so maybe a valiant, lo-fi, low-volume indie effort that doesn't deserve being smacked down? Gotta stay positive, help a city down on its luck?
Whatever, Detroit has such a mad street art scene, there's a dedicated graffiti reporter, so I'm not too worried for them. The seemingly prequel-less Graffiti Coloring Book 2: Characters by Jacob Kimvall is set to drop in just a couple of days, and it promises a lot of figurative work by New York-based street artists.
But for my graf coloring book money, the Europeans are still doing it better. The photo-based VOPstars' Street Art Colouring Book put out by London's VOP crew is high-quality and teaches a richer-looking variety of styles. And I just spotted Uzi WUFC's Graffiti Coloring Book [above], which features the work of sixty Scandinavian artists, and was put together by a member of Stockholm-based Writers United [aka WUFC], one of the most insane train crews in Europe.
Bombs, Burns, and Coloring Books [metrotimes.com via c-monster?]
See sample pages from "My First" Graffiti Coloring Book, $26.95 [amazon]
Buy Uzi WUFC's Graffiti Coloring Book, just $9.95 [amazon]
Previously: the first two Graffiti Coloring Books
Did you even read " my first grafitti coloring book"? Or are you just ignorant? I've seen and read it and the peotry is well thought out and the images are all hand drawn, not clipart. Kobie, the author , is a true artist, not a poser like you. It's sad when the world doesn't appreciate the few real artists left in this city. Maybe you should do more than flip through these books before you review them for the sake of all the readers.
I read all the sample pages; is the poetry or the artwork on the other 19 somehow dramatically different?
As for the poseur thing, I'm not a street artist, just an observer, so your point is meaningless. It's not a matter of clipart or hating his corporate work or blindly loving Detroit or anything of the sort. I agree with Marc Schiller when he said--in my NY Times article on corporate-sponsored street art--that once something's out there, what matters is how good it is. I actually have the other books that I mentioned, and from what I've seen, I'm afraid Kobie's doesn't look as good.