Page 23
INTERVIEW
That was insensitive of me. Actually,
I was trying to push you away from
drawing. Fortunately, I didn‘t succeed,
you didn‘t give up and you kept on
drawing!
At some point, in the days before scanners and
emails, I realized I had to think about whether
I would be an illustrator or a writer of historical
articles in my spare time. I felt that if I did both,
I would soon go crazy. I decided to do historical
research and publishing, but my experience as
a modest artist still makes it easy to communicate
with the fellow artists about their profiles
or paintings.
Where did you get published?
At the end of the 90‘s I first published articles
in Czech HPM magazine, then I became an
author and later also an external editor of
the Czech aviation-historical magazine REVI.
I published articles in it with my nickname Králík
(rabbit) as Jan “Králík” Bobek and I even started
a modelling section in it, which is still published
today. Back then it was called in Czech language
as Bobek Rabbit Modeling Section. REVI is a very
professionally produced magazine, aimed more
at those seriously interested in aviation history.
Its publisher, and my friend, Petr Stachura is an
aviation history buff who didn‘t admit that the
1990s were over. Somehow, after a few years
of cooperation, I couldn‘t come to terms with
some of his views, for example, I was bothered
by the absence of external communication on
the Internet at that time. So I decided to start
a rebellious editorial blog called Revi Illegal. On it
I began to comment humorously on the progress
of the preparation of individual issues of REVI
and other topics. When Petr came out of his
unconsciousness after seeing the blog, he at first
strongly asked me to cancel it. Gradually, however,
he found the whole „online thing“ beneficial and
ended up publishing an advertisement for my
blog in his magazine.
So as a member of the editorial board,
you led a kind of resistance within the
law, shall we say. You used Rabbit as
your author‘s pseudonym, so rabbit
was already your alter ego?
Yes, that‘s when the rabbit came to the world!
For the blog, I developed the rabbit character as
the mascot of the Revi Illegal blog. I‘m a fairly
friendly non-smoker, so I designed the rebellious
rabbit as my alter ego in the form of a rodent
with a bandit‘s tape who smokes cigarettes at all
times. The graphics were designed by my friend
Michal Skurovec, who worked for HPM. After
a couple of years, I also started a Facebook
gallery with my cartoons under the name Upset
Rabbits. The first version of the rabbits didn‘t
have toes on their front paws yet, but they had
a bit of sharp features, which gradually rounded
out. The rabbits gained weight as they got older.
I still create bandit rabbits on my Facebook page.
So REVI and Petr Stachura helped
the rabbit to be born.
Undoubtedly! One of my very first rabbits was
the editor-in-chief of REVI Petr Stachura. In the
drawing I pictured his office, his chair and himself
as a rabbit, who says in the Ostrava dialect that
“publishing a magazine is a very difficult job”.
Fortunately, he still does it today, with the help
Polikarpov I-153, oil on cardboard, 1993. Thanks to this painting Jan Bobek and Vladimír Šulc
met for the first time. Vladimír advised Jan not to continue painting.
Airship by Paul
Haenlein, Brno, 1872.
Acrylic on cardboard,
1994. Painting for the
LHS magazine.
INFO Eduard
23
January 2024