Alexey Merinov, artist and cartoonist

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

When you look at a number of cartoons by Alexei Merinov, you involuntarily associate with the famous expression of Mikhail Zhvanetsky: "One head is good, but with a body it's better." It is this type of humor, or rather, satire, that the author has. This is how much fun you need to have in yourself, how much you need to think and draw, draw in such a way that everything is clear from the very first minutes and there is nothing superfluous, so that, looking at the drawing, a person goes through all the stages of impression. At first - a smirk or laughter, then thoughtfully scratch the back of your head (really or mentally), grunt or sigh, or gasp: “Well, how could you draw like that!” Not so simple in these cartoons.

Short biography of the artist

Since the cartoonist Alexei Viktorovich Merinov is not honored and not popular, the details of his biography are often shrouded in a veil of secrecy to the public. But after all, Raikin Arkady, and Leonid Utesov, and Vladimir Vysotsky, too, were once undeserved and not popular, although the whole country knew them.

About Alexey Merinovit is known that he was born in 1959, a Muscovite, he did not receive a special education, it turns out that he is a self-taught artist. He served in the Navy in Nikolaev, published a “Combat Leaflet” with drawings, themes of which were dictated by the authorities, including ships and submarines, as well as cartoons of sailors who violated the order.

The career of the artist Alexei Merinov began with strict posters, for example, "Don't stand under the arrow!" in one of the construction departments. Then he worked as a designer-decorator-props, and then as a production designer in the then famous gypsy theater "Romen", staged three performances.

From the beginning of the eighties, Alexey Merinov has been working at Moskovsky Komsomolets, since 1988 he has been the main artist of the newspaper. He illustrated many books, more than twenty: from the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation to a collection of culinary recipes. Ten albums of cartoons have been published. The latest work is illustrations for a collection of toasts.

Artist Awards

The Union of Journalists of Russia chose him as a laureate of the Golden Pen of Russia award. Elected as a laureate of the Satyricon competitions, the Golden Ostap festival, as well as the awards of the magazines Ogonyok, Smena and other publications.

Aleksey is a very famous person in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and is dear to all of Russia for his caricatures. Therefore, we present a photo of Alexei Merinov, a cheerful philosopher and writer of everyday life.

Themes of the artist's works

Like Mikhail Zhvanetsky, Merinov in the subject of his works is simply “on duty in the country”, the list of topics of his drawings is so capacious and wide.

Think about the names of the cycles: "VsPOWER", "Monsters of Evil Rock", "Zero, Wrong Tales", "Spite of Every Day", "The Tale of a Fake Man", "Luboff", "Life of Remarkable Inhumans"… Like a scythe on a stone, like a collision at a crossroads. These names speak for themselves.

Not an optimist Alexei Merinov, and not a pessimist either. He is a realist. His drawings are lifelike, lifelike and therefore dreary, gloomy, but funny, very funny. It's so good to laugh at yourself sometimes, stop and think, decide something and do something, even if it's just a little bit.

And even though the drawings have a thick mixture of everyday humor with harsh political satire, they are so talentedly executed, so wisely in a folk way, and funny, of course. It's good that the regular appearance of cartoons on the pages of the most popular Moskovsky Komsomolets made Alexei Merinov truly famous, recognizable, loved and necessary in the capital. The appearance of his own gallery of the artist on the site of "Moskovsky Komsomolets" will give his caricatures the way "to the people" throughout Russia. His drawings are sure to fill the niche lost by Russians with the disappearance of the Krokodil magazine.

Features of Merinov's cartoons

This is the true eye of the cartoonist, his artistic flair, an inexhaustible variety of plots and reasons for laughter. In the drawings, such a satire on our whole life - both political, and economic, and drunkenly, love, everyday life - that you are amazed! How much funsparkling laughter, how much nimbleness and swindling! This is satire, when “not in the eyebrow, but in the eye.”

And there are laughter and bitterness of various kinds: from a slight grin to caustic mockery, bitter irony, and often a grotesque! So funny it makes me want to cry! This is how they thought and laughed at the songs of Vladimir Vysotsky or Alexander Galich. Expressiveness is one of the main requirements for a work of art, and in the drawings of Alexei Merinov this is unmeasured, his drawings are overly expressive. But because he is an exceptional artist and an outstanding philosopher.

According to the artist's cartoons, they will judge not only the "dashing nineties", but also all of our time: deeds and thoughts, anxieties and troubles, hopes and the desire to live and laugh.