magRush2013: Varoom! #20

Varoom! has been through various iterations over the years, and has been featured here before, but the newsprint tabloid is going from strength to strength and deserves more recognition. So here’s a quick look at issue 20.

Published by the UK’s illustration lobby group AOI, no other magazine concentrates so directly on illustration. What editor John O’Reilly does so well is combine an appreciation of the form with broader themes and concerns. If you’re a practising illustrator, or indeed a member of AOI, you’ll get plenty out of an issue. But there’s enough more general content for non-specialists to enjoy it too. This issue is all about the Muse, with name illustrators such as Aude van Ryn and Paul Davis featured alongside a general piece about the Muse by O’Reilly (above, illustrated by Amirali Ghasemi).

Various guests highlight uses of illustration, and here I’ve selected poetry and writing magazine Popshot (above).

The best thing though is seeing reproductions of work filling the tabloid pages– I really liked this piece by Polish artist Cyprian Koscielniak.