Killian Eng’s Early Illustration Work Finally Reissued In ‘Object 5′ From Floating World

Followers of ComicsAlliance's Best Art Ever (This Week) feature are doubtlessly familiar with the work of Killian Eng, but for those who aren't, get ready to meet your new favorite artist. Based in Stockholm and also known as DW Design, Eng has cultivated a loyal audience of illustration and commercial art aficionados for his imaginative synthesis of science fiction, surrealism, film design, architecture, and a liberal dose of vintage prog-rock album art. His work stands out even among the mighty roster of outfits like Mondo, for whom Eng has created posters for films like Heavy Metal, The Matrix, Starship Troopers and Ghost in the Shell. But because of the exclusivity of those products, it's relatively difficult to take Eng home with you. Thankfully, Floating World has made it easier with a long awaited reissue of the out-of-print Object 5, collecting Eng's early work.

Originally published as a limited edition of 1,000 in 2012, Object 5 is back as a larger size hardcover with 16 additional pages, making for 80 of the prettiest pictures you can house on your bookshelf. Despite the lack of accompanying text or any other kind of narrative information, each of Eng's illustrations takes you to a world that feels fully conceptualized and real. Floating World describes the images as "flowing in a way that takes the reader on a journey through Kilian’s worlds." Sometimes that journey is palpably eerie, other times it's spiritually invigorating. Occasionally the viewer even gets a sense that I can only describe as hearing a song that you almost know by heart, like it's been in your head since you were a child, and yet you've never heard it before. I think it's because Eng is drawing from so many pop cultural influences with which have a more intimate relationship, but he's processing it so radically as to create something at once comfortingly familiar and startlingly new.

Once again limited to just 1,000 copies (with an extra 200 copies available with a signed and numbered bookplate), Object 5 is on sale now from Floating World.