We tend to whisper when something catches our attention and we believe it's not right to make it public. Truth be told, there are things we all know, but we condemn to silence. It takes an irreverent and shameless act to release the tensions of modesty and burst into shameless laughter. Eduardo Salles (Mexico, 1987) knows where things are going and takes advantage of it to create images capable of unleashing our cynical spirit. If we were proper and well-educated, as we've supposedly been taught, we would look at them again and again without finding any meaning in them, but that's not the case, which highlights the hidden truths.

Illustrated Cynicism compiles various illustrations that appeared on the blog of the same name over the course of five years. Above all and for everything, there is cynicism. We can see the planet of the Little Prince, a Saint-Exupéry character, invaded by a Starbucks; a homeless man begging for a like on his laptop; the graphic description of narrative knots according to certain writers: digestible for Coelho; intricate for Joyce; as well as the icons that determine our mood throughout the day: low battery, one or two popcorns in WhatsApp messages, happy emoticons, etc. Culturally demanding illustrations are not left out, such as those that exemplify Socraticism or associate objects with historical figures.

The constant references to technology and the customs we have adopted through it are central to Salles' critique. These are not repetitive expressions like memes, which couple a discourse with a univocal image; these go further and are richer because they capture social contexts to be reinterpreted by each individual. The interesting thing will be to know if they survive the dizzying passage of time and how they will be valued by future generations. For now, what is clear is that every cultural expression is self-critical. There will be cynicism for a while, as there was in the past with Antisthenes in Greece in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC.

«Review written by Gamaliel Valentín González, El Péndulo Perisur»

Cinismoilustrado.com is the name of the blog with which the young Eduardo Salles (Mexico, 1987) has spread around the world—from Alaska to Patagonia, via Europe and Japan—a fresh humorous genre that challenges the imminent apocalypse of print media. Salles combines graphic design and social criticism—especially regarding the use of the internet—with a language that the millennial generation would be more likely to identify with than any type of educational material.

Cinismo ilustrado compiles and remasters for the first time the best of the first five years of this web project, which currently has hundreds of thousands of followers who share and comment on its cartoons daily on various social networks. This book is not a simple printed adaptation; it is a physical testimony to something that is already part of digital popular culture.