Rolling Stone: The Illustrated Portraits
In its 30-year history, Rolling Stone (RS) magazine has never used stock illustrationsDgeneric, on-demand drawings that many newspapers and magazines use not only to cut costs but also to avoid offending readers. Art, as Rolling Stone Press Editor Holly George-Warren writes in the introduction, scares people, but luckily RS has an audience that expects a little hellfire. Thus Charles Burns's Tide-detergent box cameo of Little Richard, which humorously follows John Collier's painting of an aghast-looking Frank SinatraDit's as if the original bobby sox dream is anticipating the Beatles-led degeneration to come. In all, award-winning RS art director Woodward chose over 200 striking pieces from almost 100 artists, including Ralph Steadman, Robert Risko, and Al Hirschfeld as well as younger artists like Green & Read. Many of them contributed mini-autobiographies and anecdotes that make the art that much more fun to look at. For instance, here is Steadman on the genesis of his Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas illustrations: "The sequence of events that [led] to my doing the thing was like being sick.  I was throwing up, and the throw-up was in fact in the drawings." An excellent addition to popular illustration collections.DHeather McCormack, "Library Journal"Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.