I've sifted through recently arrived publications to pick out a handful of projects that each make smashing use of illustration. First up is illustrator Mark Long's Who Ate All The Pies? – a 28 page, A5 book which features a selection of football chants and illustrations...

Who Ate All The Pies? was printed in an edition of 1000. £3.50 from marklongillustration.co.uk

Belin-based artist Atak, has based his book, Ada (published in an edition of 3000 by Nobrow, £11) on Gertrude Stein's first "word portrait", written in 1908. Atak has hand written the story and illustrated it. Quite what the story is about is slightly baffling, though I did enjoy reading it. The book itself is really beatuiful and was produced in four colours using a method similar to chromolithography: each print layer is created by painting directly onto film. Here are some spreads and a shot of the unfolded 38 x 52cm poster that comes with each copy.

Illustrator Damien Weighill sent us a selection of illustrated greeting cards which he's just produced to sell via his online shop at libraryshop.bigcartel.com. I particularly like the Lion who wants to give a zebra a birthday present...

Bela Lugosi is a 16 page screenprinted book by illustrator Paul Paetzel of Biografiktion - a trio of talented illustrators from Berlin. The book is the first in a series of UK editions published by Nobrow of Biografiktion comics and zines, and it tells the life story of actor Bela Lugosi whose career spanned 40 years and 110 movies - in which he played dozens of characters including Dracula, Frankenstein and The Wolfman. Shown above is the cover and the folded screenprinted poster that came with our copy. Here are some spreads and the poster unfolded:

Also from Nobrow is this eye-busting A4, 18 page book by Jim Stoten, Inside The Purple Palm Tree (cover shown above). It's a psychedelic trip to a place where the music is jazzy and someone's definitely put something in your drink. The book has been produced in an edition of just 50 copies and each page was hand screenprinted...

Inside The Purple Palm Tree is £38 from Nobrow's HQ in London's Shoreditch. Full details at nobrow.net

And finally, Manzine issue 4 arrived this week (cover shown above). I haven't had a chance to peruse its content fully yet – BUT, I have noticed that there's a rather splendid DPS ad for Manchester clothing shop Oipolloi which features great illustrations of products available from the store by Ben Lamb.