"The Dork Of Cork" By Chet Raymo, Cover Illustration By Richard Beards (published by Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd, London 1993)

 

The fantastic work of British illustrator Richard Beards( http://www.richardbeards.com/engine/foliosite.html ). I was very lucky to have seen some of Richard's work in the flesh - as well as meeting him a few times some twelve years ago - and it's way better than the printed material. His sense of design and colour is so elegant and sophisticated that it's as if it comes from another era - the thirties perhaps or the forties. It's certainly very rare to find such quality in contemporary illustration.

This book was made into a feature length film "Frankie Starlight" starring Matt Dillon and Anne Parillaud in 1995, two years after it's publication. Chet Raymo's biography here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chet_Raymo