Picture books have always been related to a children's audience who had to see their favorite stories accompanied by colorful drawings. However, times change and the demand for illustrated books by the adult public has become a trend that great artists and publishers have already echoed. For sample, these following best picture books for adults that will make you dream between letters and drawings.
The Starry Night, by Jimmy Liao
I remember when this book came to my hands a couple of years ago. A story starring a girl forgotten by her parents who remembered "that summer of the loneliest and most beautiful starry nights" that she spent with a mysterious young man. And it is that despite his character, a priori childish, The starry Night es a story that seduces children and adults alike thanks to his childhood X-rays and illustrations of broken fish tanks, giant cats and dreamlike scenarios. After years working for different magazines as a cartoonist and a leukemia diagnosed in 1995, Taiwanese Jimmy Liao He decided to dedicate himself to an illustrated literature that will make those who forgot the magic of reality itself dream.
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Illustrated Edition), by Gabriel García Márquez
Published by Literature Random House taking advantage of the 50th anniversary of the publication of One Hundred Years of Solitude last year, the illustrated version of Gabo's magnum opus features illustrations by Chilean cartoonist Luisa Rivera and a typeface developed by the author's son, Gonzalo García Barcha. An edition that will strike a chord with all those who once also traveled to that town of Macondo lost among ghosts and banana growers where we witness the stories of the Buendía saga.
Seda (illustrated edition), by Alessandro Barrico and Rebecca Dautremer
In 1996, the Italian Alessandro Barrico published Seda, a love story disguised as a travel novel that spoke of the journey of a young French merchant named Hervé Joncour to a mysterious lake in Japan. One of the best-selling novels of the 90s it also deserved its own illustrated version, and the edition of Contempla, with works by the famous French artist Rebecca DautremerIt is a delight, so poetic and fascinating that it makes you want to drop everything and embark in search of those famous silkworms.
Would you like to read the illustrated version of Seda?
All my friends are dead, from Jory John and Avery Monsen
If you are a dinosaur, all your friends are dead. If you are a tree, all your friends will have turned into wooden tables. Throughout the 96 pages of All my friends are dead, its authors they navigate between terror and humor in an amazing way, inviting the reader to rethink existence through the history of clowns, zombies or cassette tapes. In Spain, the translated version was published by Norma Editorial and has a second part, All my friends are still dead.
Lovers, by Ana Juan
In 2010, Ana Juan began a story in Paris that adapted eleven poems of eight images each one in which different love stories were embodied: that of a man with a stripper, that of two women or that of an old woman who yearns for a youthful love. Stories that cover themes ranging from fidelity to nostalgia through different settings and characters with a tenderness that will reach the fiber of the reader. Both the texts and the evocative images belong to Juan, winner of the National Illustration Award in 2010.
Do not miss Lovers, by Ana Juan.
Emigrants, by Shaun Tan
Known as "the good cartoonist" in his native Perth, Shaun Tan is an illustrated artist who delves into political and social issues as a vehicle to bring his stories to life. The best example is the acclaimed Emigrants, a cartoon-style picture book that combines their own fantasy worlds with scenes of immigrants arriving in new settings. Drawings absent from texts that make universal the feeling of loneliness and fear that invades all those people who once arrived in a different country. A work in which the history of the images are mentally added by the reader himself, resulting in a fascinating narrative exercise.
The metamorphosis (illustrated edition), by Franz Kafka
Considered as one of the great books of the twentieth centuryThe metamorphosis tells of Gregorio Samsa, a cloth merchant who one fine day wakes up turned into an insect. A metaphor of a generation, one that searched and searched under the layers of life yearning to find something, the version illustrated by Antonio Santos Lloros arrives to add even more perspectives and dimensions to one of the most unusual stories of our time. Without a doubt, one of the most recommended illustrated books for adults, especially if you are an admirer of Kafka's work.
Dive intothe illustrated edition of The Metamorphosis?
The things of love, by Flavita Banana
Known after breaking into an Instagram social network in which it already accumulates more than 381.000 followers, Flavita Banana is an illustrator from Barcelona who has captured in her cartoons a perfect combination of humor and criticism. Feminist in nature, Banana's drawings delve into women's own perspective about themselves, their fears, stereotypes and relationships from an acid point of view, openly. Illustrator for media such as El País, the author collects in The things you want part of the comics that catapulted her to fame in recent years.
Bosco: The Strange Story of Hieronymus, the Hat, the Backpack and the Ball, by Thé Tjong-Khing
Of Chinese and Indonesian roots but residing in the Netherlands, illustrator Thé Tjong-Khing adapted the best of Bosco's work to introduce you to this story that will delight young and old. A story starring Hieronymus, a boy who one day goes out to play and ends up falling into a lake from a cliff, losing his hat, backpack and ball. A journey in which we witness the magical creatures that live under water and that come directly from the universe of one of the great painters of our history.
Swim through the worlds of Hieronymus Bosch: The Strange Story of Hieronymus.
What other best picture books for adults would you recommend?