Portraits of B

Short-cropped curly hair. Elongated, triangular face. Bushy brows. Eyeglasses. A cigarette. Near the lips. About to blow. Telltale signs that I'm looking for in a cartoon or caricature. It was hard to select one to use for an online reading group avatar. A lot of good drawings of B were uploaded in the web.


1. This illustration by Phillip Fivel Nessen for The Stranger is one of my favorites. Notice the fingers. And the background tells a story.

2. I love this illustration by Carlos Cardona. The exaggerated broad forehead, the background wash of colors, the prominent vein in the hand. Beautiful. The yellow eyes and the ashen skin color make him look like a zombie. This is in my top 3. In fact this is the avatar I've chosen, for now.
 

3. Noir look. It makes me smile. The nose, the smoke, the open fingers. It's from Marci, also in deviantart.

4. A photograph of a street art, posted in flickr (by gsz, via Global Graphica).

5. This is fun, too. The Chilean looks like a sulking teen. Art by Tomas Leal Elgueda.

6. This appeared in The New York Times review of 2666. Art by Christoph Niemann.

7. From The New Yorker review of The Savage Detectives. The ilustrado look. The novelist looks more like a doctor or a lawyer here. Art by Riccardo Vecchio.

8. Accompanying an essay translated from Entre paréntesis. Published in Molossus.

9. Two-face. I've written about it previously. Art by Renzo Podestá. The ciggie is placed like a thermometer.

10. "Malogrado esténcil de Roberto Bolaño." Photography taken in Barrio República, Santiago de Chile. Published by Gabriel Muelle / Mr. Fiasco.

11. From a review of 2666 in The Fanzine. Illustration by Danny Jock.

 

12-13. Two pencil sketches by Pablo Gallo.

14. From a review of Nazi Literature in the Americas in The New York Times. Art by Kim Demarco. 

15. From the blog a reader's words. The link to the source of image (Consejo Nacional de la Cultura y las Artes) was broken.

15. Hands down, my favorite of all. A disturbing cartoon published by Paula Cabeçadas in Suite de ideias.

16-17. More surrealist touches from Suite de ideias.

18. Posted in 3:AM Magazine.

19. Posted in THE FLUX I SHARE. Mixed media-like chaos.

I'm sure I left out some great drawings and illustrations. Send me the link through a comment here or email if you've spotted anything else. The images here are copyrighted by their respective illustrators, photographers, bloggers, or magazines, publications, and blogs that published them.

UPDATE (July 6): I found more portraits here.