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Jean Jullien's New Book Unpacks Our Weird Relationships with Technology (and Each Other)

Jean Jullien's new book, 'Modern Life,' is packed full of wisdom, big questions, and sunburned butts.
Images courtesy the artist

Warning: This article contains cartoon nudity.

It's easy to identify parts of yourself in Modern Life, a new book of illustrations chronicling French artist Jean Jullien's observations about sunburns, smartphone ettiquette, sexual septuagenarians, and Tinder. His fifth book is full of giddyness and grumpiness, celebrating the moments technology brings people together and questioning the barriers it places between them.

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Jullien has a knack for expressing the thoughts that are already inside your head. An image of the Statue of Liberty gazing into a Facebook k-hole taps into fears of losing freedom to social media, while a man diving out of his clothes and into a beer epitomizes the Friday escape from the office. Actor Jesse Eisenberg, who was tapped to write the introduction to Modern Life, explains that Jullien's illustrations are "difficult to describe because he is funnier without words than most are with. He accomplishes, with single images, the ironies of the modern world, the silliness of our interests, the ways we suffocate from limitless choices."

Following a childhood fueled by comic books, sci-fi, and manga, Jullien honed his craft by studying graphic design at Le Paraclet in Brittany and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, before earning a Masters in Arts Communication at the Royal College of Art. But the thing that ties Modern Life together isn't an exploration of form, space, or line. The industrious illustrator says, instead, that it's humanity and humor. "Most of it is based on things I've seen or felt," Jullien tells The Creators Project. "Or trying to find a funny or interesting way to discuss graphically things that make me tick."

Humor is the thread that pulls Modern Life together, but laughs aren't always Jullien's goal. "I don't know if my work is funny, but when I make it, I often try to de-dramatise things, to put a positive spin on them, which might or might not lead to funny in the end!” Check out selects from the book below.

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Jean Jullien's Modern Life is published buy teNeues. Buy your copy here, and check out more of his work on his website.

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