Book Junkie #002: "Post-It Monsters" by John Kenn Mortensen

Title: Post-It Monsters
Author / Artist: John Kenn Mortensen
Publisher: Aben Maler (Denmark)
Hardcover: approximately 80 pages
Language: largely wordless, but some English
ISBN: 9788792246509
Dimensions: 7 inches by 6.75 inches
Year of Publication: 2011
Price: about $30 (based on currency conversion, including international shipping)
Status: recently withdrawn from print due to the rights being purchased by Square Peg, a larger British publisher, so a new edition is imminent

Danish artist, writer and children's television director John Kenn Mortensen runs a brilliant little blog titled Don Kenn Gallery. The blog is filled with post after post after post of delightfully nightmarish yet delicately detailed drawings of all sorts of monstrosities, ghosts, ghouls and other creatures. All of which have been drawn with a fine ink pen on post-it notes. Yes. Post-it notes. Apparently, when Mortensen has a free moment, he uses that to create "a little window into a different world, made on office supplies." The results are amazing.

Danish publisher Aben Maler put together a wonderful little collection of about 80 of Mortensen's drawings in a small slender art book titled, appropriately enough, Post-It Monsters. The size of the book actually works in its favor because the drawings are all reproduced at exactly the same size they were created, which makes Mortensen's illustrations even more incredible. Aben Maler has withdrawn their edition from publication, so the book is currently unavailable, but that should be temporary. In a note on his blog, Mortensen explains that the rights to the book have been picked up by Square Peg, a British publisher and a subsidiary of Random House. A second edition should be available soon, and hopefully an American edition will follow. In the meantime though, hopefully I can share some photos of my own copy to fill the gap.

The front cover is nicely and simply designed, and gives a nice taste of the kind of amusingly macabre nature of many of Mortensen's drawings.

Again, it is a slender volume, but to me, that seems to heighten the impact of the almost inhumanly precise little drawings, or "windows."

I believe this is the only text in the book, other than the indicia. A nice, "handwritten" note from Mortensen introducing himself and the work. On a post-it note, of course.

A few of my favorite pieces, although it was incredibly difficult to narrow this down.

The printing in this book is excellent. The yellow is very pale and beautiful and true to the soft canary tones of a pad of post-it notes and the fine linework of Mortensen's drawings is almost perfectly reproduced as can be seen in the detail.

A few more favorites and one more detail.

The end of the book brings a fantastic little surprise. There, on the final page, carefully pasted in, is an honest-to-goodness blank post-it note. Exactly the kind that Mortensen creates these little windows into another world with. It's a subtle, simple thing but a wonderful touch.

Here, for a bit of scale, is a photo of the book on one of my bookshelves with a bottle of Dr. Ph. Martin's concentrated water color, a bullet casing, and an instant photo of my lovely wife for reference.

I will be sure and post something on this blog as soon as another edition of this little gem becomes available. In the meantime, you can visit Mortensen's blog where he posts new drawings regularly right here and if you are so inclined you can also "like" him on Facebook here and get his new drawings updated that way.