The Art of Painted Comics
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
The Art of Painted Comics Details
The history of painters in comics goes back to the dawn of pulp magazine covers. From "The Shadow" and "The Spider" to "The Black Bat" and so many other characters, painter's works have graced the covers of comics and pulps, which have influenced many artists over the decades. This deluxe coffeetable art book, edited and overseen by Alex Ross ― one of the comic industry's most recognized painters, whose expertise has helped guide and define its contents ― is the most important, most comprehensive prestige hardcover retrospective of the history of painters in comics, of all time.
Reviews
To be clear, the book is beautiful to behold and well written, much more than just a coffee table 'art' book...but I found that byincluding in it's scope both pulp art (Doc Savage was only ever marginally a comic character) and paperback books, it skimped in areas more directly related to comics. We all love Norman Saunders, but his work is exhaustively dealt with elsewhere...While I was happy to see a chapter devoted to Western publishing covers, I felt they really gave short shrift to what really was some of the most iconic work in the genre of painted comics (ie Turok, Boris Karloff, Twilight Zone, Doctor Spektor, Magnus)...could have a whole chapter just devoted to Mo Gollub's Tarzan covers! And what about horror? There was more than just Warren back in the day! Skywald and Eerie Publications featured some astonishing and lurid painted cover art in the 70s, deserved at least a mention. There is a lot of modern stuff in here, and I know the subject matter is so deep that it would be tough to meet the expectations of all fans, but to me the 'Golden Age' of painted comic cover art (60s and 70s) didn't get the coverage I was hoping for...nonetheless, a lovely book, I'm glad I bought it...
