Mundo Mendo, Book One

I first encountered Luis’s work on the cover of Craig Mod’s excellent Kissa by Kissa (currently on its 6th edition) without knowing they were good friends.

Luis, it turns out, has illustrated a few of Craig’s works, and Craig wrote the foreword for his first volume of illustrations. Inspired by Craig’s Special Projects membership program¹, Luis created Mondo Muendo and likewise crafted his own membership platform. I’ve been a Special Projects member for quite a while and am a frequent participant in The Good Place, Craig’s genuinely lovely members-only social platform, which happens to be where I first encountered Luis.

My copy of Mundo Mendo, Book One

Subscribers to Mundo Muendo receive a book by mail each year. When I signed up, a quirk in Luis’s homegrown platform resulted in me receiving codes for both Book One, published last year, and the forthcoming Book Two. We exchanged a few funny emails about the mistake, and I jumped at Luis’s offer to make up for it by ordering a print. Alex and I browsed his shop and finally decided on the delightful Pizza from his Naked Since 1969 series, which has just arrived and is awaiting a frame before it graces our living room wall.

Luis was born in Spain and now lives in Japan, alongside his wife Yuka and their daughter. The book, published in Japanese bunkobon size, covers the first year of posts written as part of the members program. Each post is accompanied by his wonderful illustrations (or, perhaps more accurately, his illustrations are accompanied by his text — he calls himself a “A Drawer Who Writes”). My copy is 890 of the 1000-copy first edition.

Luis’s style changes throughout the book, revealing the depth of his craft. He’s worked as an illustrator, editorial designer, and creative director for over thirty years, and those accumulated years come across in his work. I was reminded of the perhaps apocryphal story of Picasso sketching in a Paris café. He’s approached by an admirer, who asks if she can purchase the sketch. “Bien sure,” says Picasso, who quotes her a million Francs. Shocked, she objects that it only took him a few minutes. “No, my dear,” he replies, “it took my entire life.” His 5:30 AM Characters story is a great example of that ethos, which is introduced with:

I often wake up early, as you might know. It’s on those early hours that I just want to draw whatever comes out of my pencil. And it’s also then that I often do my best work: personal stuff with no clear goal.

These characters borrow their proportions (the head being roughly half the body, with the hips coming to 1/2 of the lower half of the body) from the Uncle Torys character created by Ryohei Yanagihara for Suntory whiskey in 1958.

Designers often become synonymous with their singular style, but Luis floats easily between a newspaper halftone comic style, watercolor and ink illustrations, and modern, clean, Bézier curves.

From Putting the Cart Before the Horse

From Making a Little Birdhouse in my Soul

From Three Random Humans

One of my favorite stories brings us right back to where we started — a lovely little tale of two “middle-aged Gaijin wearing caps and glasses, exploring every corner of random subjects.” Luis always draws himself as a bird-faced character (he’s eating a pizza in his birthday suit above), and this story features an appearance by a fox-like version of Craig Mod.

From A Man Who Walks and Writes

Very excited to receive my copy of Mundo Mendo, Book Two, which has started shipping to subscribers. Stay tuned for an update when I’ve had a chance to pour over it!

Footnotes

1. I’m pretty sure that page owes a hat tip to Luis for the great illustration of people walking. ↩