In 2004, The San Francisco Chonicle introduced the All Over Coffee comic saying:

“Paul Madonna shuffles around his San Francisco apartment in corduroy slippers, working on his cartoon art.

When he goes out to sketch, he has plenty of shoes to choose from — a nice pair of Fluevogs, some favorite hiking boots, a well-worn pair of running shoes.

It’s a far cry from his shoeless days, those penniless months more than a decade ago when he peddled his comics on Telegraph Avenue.

On break from his studies at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, he whiled away a lost summer with two friends.

Despite the fact that he couldn’t afford BART fare then, the budding artist moved back to the Bay Area upon graduation.

“I really romanticize that time,” he says. “I didn’t remember the hunger, the fights, getting ripped off. I remembered the intense feeling.”

The feeling of All Over Coffee, Madonna’s new strip, which premieres this week in The Chronicle, is less intense than contemplative.

But the attention to detail — the chance detail of everyday existence — makes for a potent kind of poetry.”

Yes, this illustration is poetry.

For anyone who has lived in this city, these buildings, streets and falling sidewaks make us nostalgic and eager to return as soon as possible to one the most fantastic cities in the world.

These sketches are pure San Francisco.

Why doesn’t every newspaper do the same?

(Click on the images to see them bigger)

I have known Gabriel Campanario since he was a journalism student.

Gabi has become a very talented newspaper designer, working for several U.S. papers, including USA Today.

A few months ago, he decided to change jobs and now is at The Seattle Times devoted just to news illustration, his real passion.

A journalist, designer and illustrator.

A great mix!

These are some recent pieces from his large sketchblog.

The Catalan painter Antoni Tapies has done dramatic illustrations for newspapers around the world.

Tapies has used newsprint for many of his masterpieces.

These are two well-known illustrations, a full issue of Liberation in Paris painted by him, and this detail for the new nameplate of the Catalan newspaper AVUI in Barcelona.

18 years ago, Milton Glaser and Walter Bernard launched the redesign of La Vanguardia.

A good excuse to remember one of the best illustrators in the world.

And watch this video clip.

Newspapers and magazines have been always excellent public art galleries for the best illustrators in the world.

This is a tradition that we have to keep alive.

Please join me in this tribute to the best of the best.

Let’s start with these two from Saul Steinberg, the first done in 1948 and the second (“View of the World from 9th Avenue”) a cover drawing for The New Yorker from March 29, 1976.