CollyLogic: Wayne Rooney by Jon Burgerman

Wayne Rooney by Jon Burgerman

9th March 2006

From the incredible book Football Heroes from Jerzovskaja, which features over 700 individual player portraits drawn by 50 illustrators from 17 different countries.

Illustration copyright of Jon Burgerman. Go visit Football Heroes for a preview scan of your team.

Simon Collison published this on 09/03/06, at 7:39 PM

Comments

i’m korean and i find the south korean charicatures offensive.

09/03 at 20:24 from Tae

Tae: Why do you find them offensive? Note that I am not challenging you here, I am just curious. Whilst I do think some of the nationalities have been approached somewhat dangerously, I don’t see the South Korean images that way. In that case, the players are represented as cuddly toys and are “cute”, so there seems to be less attempt to mock facial features.

Interested to understand why you feel they’re offensive. Also wondering who else might be offended by the way their nation is portrayed. This hadn’t really occured to me earlier.

09/03 at 20:33 from Simon Collison

Publishing cartoons seems to be rather dangerous these days ...

09/03 at 21:02 from Estrup

i guess i find it weird that all the nationalities but the asian ones are human. some of the koreans are animals and the japanese look like robots to me. and i’m sure you didn’t mean anything by it, but i don’t necessarily see “cute” and “cuddly” as qualities that make it more acceptible. especially in the context of competitive sports, it can be interpretted as passive.

09/03 at 21:17 from Tae

Estrup: Ah, I see you are from Denmark. Fair point.

Tae: Maybe it comes down to who draws whom. Tado always draw cute animals, so they did the same for South Korea. You make a fair point about every other team being human, although to be honest, some teams are unrecognisable as any kind of species in the book.

Anyway, I’m offended too. Are all us Englishmen so ugly? All furrowed brows, bad haircuts and scowls. Oh, yes we are…

09/03 at 21:22 from Simon Collison

“Are all us Englishmen so ugly? All furrowed brows, bad haircuts and scowls. Oh, yes we are�”

Speak for yourself

Tado are known for their cute style illustrations and I wouldn’t have expected them to do it any differently.

Anyway this just reminded me I need to grab a copy.

09/03 at 23:31 from Michael G

[insert caustic biting remark about U.K. football here] in retaliation for CSS Mastery related remark disparaging American football. : )

Having played both forms of football I somewhat prefer real football but I think red cards should be much more freely given for players rolling around on the ground while doing a poor job of acting. (Such things tend to create a certain amount of disdain for “football” among the uninitiated over here.)

On a related topic—the book looks like fun.

10/03 at 00:25 from Steve

Steve: I belive I made my caustic remark in Blog Design Solutions, but it’s of no consequence really. Anyway, yes, the book looks great - but it’s bloody expensive.

10/03 at 00:29 from Simon Collison

“I belive I made my caustic remark in Blog Design Solutions”

Oh… I heard about it when I was looking for what people were saying about CSS Mastery. Just make that a “biting remark” then as my way of making amends.

By the way, I just got CSS Mastery and have started going through it. Its really great so far and its done in a way that I wish all such books were written and presented. Good job!

10/03 at 00:50 from Steve

I can understand the comment about the Korean images but, to be honest, most nations seem to get a similar treatment of p*sstaking images. Besides which, its the players they are actually “mocking”, not the countries.

Si: Are you aware of The Boy Fitz Hammond‘s work? I love his style too. His images seem to have a much more comical feel to them too.

10/03 at 09:56 from Simon Jobling

The South Korea set is my favourite. The determinedly non-realistic look is good in the context of the sticker book format where the likeness has traditionally been the most important aspect.

10/03 at 10:50 from mearso

Note that comments are disabled 30 days after articles are published, or sooner if spammers target a particular post. Sorry...