DO BE POLITE
Photojournalists Jack Jackson and Julian Hartley of London have found a way to avoid the dreaded 9 to 5 job and do what they love: make art. Their sundry line of museum-quality greeting cards, Polite, showcases the work of European eclectic minds in art, design, photography, and typography. Berlin-based photographer Sebastian Hanel’s “Old Man at Pool in Budapest” perfectly evokes the recurring Polite visual theme of fantasy and escapism. Several London galleries and even the Tate Modern now pedal Polite, but these trenchant tarots have appeal in places that don’t normally stock greetings cards. Latest sighting: a barbershop in Glasgow.

NELSON MANDELA, SUPERHERO
The Nelson Mandela Foundation is teaming up with South African publisher Umlando Wezithombe to publish a series of nine educational comic books illustrating Mandela’s life from his birth in 1918 through his successful fight to end apartheid. The publisher and creative director of Umlando, a white South African named Nic Buchanan, is now printing the second book: One million copies are to be distributed to schoolchildren across the country, free of charge. According to a 2001 census, 4.5 million South Africans have no formal schooling and therefore do not have access to the historic Mandela legend. Buchanan believes the graphic medium is perfect for providing teenagers both a powerful story and important history that has been long neglected in both black and white classrooms. Westerners may find the illustrations rough around the edges, but when was the last time a Western publishing house did something for free?

ADS THAT FLOAT
“I have a passion for landscape, and I have never seen one improved by a billboard,” said legendary adman David Ogilvy. His pastoral sentiment hasn’t kept his namesake agency from plastering billboards across the highways of the world. He liked money, too. But chances are he wouldn’t think too kindly of the imposing new ads floating across the Mediterranean. But such is the latest—forgive the pun—sign of clutter in European advertising. SailsVision of Amsterdam is printing the 8-stories-tall ads on the sails of yachts and catamarans as outdoor media. A two-week campaign along the Côte d’Azur will buy advertisers four yachts to sail in four harbors, four times a day, for a mere $250,000. Not so blasé! And of course we’ll import it: 800 million households are expected to watch regattas sail into the New York Harbor during the Volvo Ocean Race in May. The quotable Ogilvy had nothing to say of seascapes.

JUNC IN THE TRUNK
Overlooking the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard (aka Sunset Junction) is the neighborhood’s namesake art gallery, Junc. Every month it presents group shows of emerging artists including photographers and illustrators. Freelance graphic designer and Junc gallery director, Mike Kelley, says the thematic connection between the artists of this season’s show is patterns. But regardless of the weak correlation (patterns?), the individual talent of the four illustrators presented— Kelley Lynn Jones, Camilla Engman, Mari Araki, and Maxwell Loren Holyoke- Hirsch—is obvious and on view Jan. 14 through Feb. 14.