Illo is a terrific, too-infrequently appearing magazine about contemporary illustration, published by Daniel Zimmer.

Zimmer also publishes Illustration magazine, which focuses on classic illustration. For some bockground on both magazines, see my post from 2007 on Illustration Magazine and Illo.

After an all-too-long hiatus, Illo is back with a second issue, even stronger than the first. This issue contains in-depth, lavishly illustrated (I love that term) articles on four terrific illustrators; three of whom I’ve featured previously on Lines and Colors: Michael Cho, James Gurney, Nancy Stahl and Zina Saunders.

It’s hard to convey how beautiful issues of Illo and Illustration are without seeing them; but I’ll point out again that, as nice as images like these can look on screen, computer monitors are low resolution compared to print, and print is where these illustrations look best.

It’s also hard to get across how wonderfully in-depth these articles are, and how astutely Zimmer provides a cross section and historical perspective of each artists work. It’s like having a mini-book on each of these four illustrators (for $15 U.S. – a steal).

There is a set of thumbnail images on the Illo site that gives you a small glance at all of the issue’s pages. There is also a nice video flip-through of the entire issue on James Gurney’s site (for which YouTube has unfortunately disabled the sound for some arcane reason known only to their coven of lawyers).

You may be able to find Illo at your local independent bookstore, many finer comics shops and some of the chain bookstores. You can also order it directly online from the publisher.

(Images above left, double page spreads, top to bottom: Michael Cho, James Gurney, Nancy Stahl, Zina Saunders