Cartooning Books

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

Scott McCloud

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 125 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Reading between the lines 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

As previous reviewers have mentioned, Scott McCloud is passionate about comics; part of the purpose of writing the book, it seems is to justify the argument that comics are indeed art. I found this a moot point, although his evidence was interesting. Another reason behind the book, it seems, is to explain the message behind comics: the epistomological leaps we take when we read them, the artisitic decisions made when they are created, and the evolution the art form has taken. This was not only the strongest and most interesting part of the book, but also much less preachy.

I enjoy comics, from 19th century broadsheets to the Sunday funnies and the occasional graphic novel. Until now, however, I never really thought about the conscientious decisions the artist makes between realism and meaning when drawing them. Similarly, I had never critically thought about the fundamental differences between Asian (especially Manga) comics and Western comics. McCloud has shed much light on these topics, and explains these differences and decisions clearly, without pretense.

Avid readers of comics, aspiring comic artists and purists may find McCloud a bit pedantic - for the novice such as myself, I was fascinated, as a whole new world has been opened to me through his explaination. Why the four stars then? I took a star for his argument about comics as "art". I suppose there are those who believe comics are not art (or are "low" art at the most); while I disagree with this (and side with McCloud), I thought the argument was out of place, and ultimately moot. Still, a recommended read.

Editorial Review:

A comic book about comic books. McCloud, in an incredibly accessible style, explains the details of how comics work: how they're composed, read and understood. More than just a book about comics, this gets to the heart of how we deal with visual languages in general. "The potential of comics is limitless and exciting!" writes McCloud. This should be required reading for every school teacher. Pulitzer Prize-winner Art Spiegelman says, "The most intelligent comics I've seen in a long time."

The Animator's Survival Kit

Richard Williams

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 93 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The definitive book on animation, from the Academy Award-winning animator behind Who Framed Roger Rabbit?Animation is one of the hottest areas of filmmaking today--and the master animator who bridges the old generation and the new is Richard Williams. During his more than forty years in the business, Williams has been one of the true innovators, winning three Academy Awards and serving as the link between Disney's golden age of animation by hand and the new computer animation exemplified by Toy Story. Perhaps even more important, though, has been his dedication in passing along his knowledge to a new generation of animators so that they in turn could push the medium in new directions. In this book, based on his sold-out master classes in the United States and across Europe, Williams provides the underlying principles of animation that every animator--from beginner to expert, classic animator to computer animation whiz --needs. Urging his readers to "invent but be believable," he illustrates his points with hundreds of drawings, distilling the secrets of the masters into a working system in order to create a book that will become the standard work on all forms of animation for professionals, students, and fans.

Willie & Joe: The WWII Years

Bill Mauldin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Presenting the complete WWII cartoons of Bill Mauldin, the greatest cartoonist of the Greatest Generation.

"The real war," said Walt Whitman, "will never get in the books." During WW II, the closest most Americans ever came to the "real war" was through the cartoons of Bill Mauldin, the most beloved enlisted man in the U.S. Army. Here, for the first time, Fantagraphics Books brings together Mauldin's complete works from 1940 through the end of the war. This collection of over 600 cartoons, most never before reprinted, is more than the record of a great artist: it is an essential chronicle of America's citizen-soldiers from peace through war to victory.

Bill Mauldin knew war because he was in it. He had created his characters, Willie and Joe, at age 18, before Pearl Harbor, while training with the 45th Infantry Division and cartooning part-time for the camp newspaper. His brilliant send-ups of officers were pure infantry, and the men loved it.

After wading ashore with his division on the first of its four beach invasions in July 1943, Mauldin and his men changed—and Mauldin's cartoons changed accordingly. Months of miserable weather, bad food, and tedium interrupted by the terror of intense bombing and artillery fire took its toll. By the year's end, virtually every man in Mauldin's original rifle company was killed, wounded, or captured.

The wrinkles in Willie's and Joe's uniforms deepened, the bristle on their faces grew, and the eyes—"too old for those young bodies," as Mauldin put it—betrayed a weariness that would remain the entire war. With their heavy brush lines, detailed battlescapes, and pidgin of army slang and slum dialect, Mauldin's cartoons and captions recreated on paper the fully realized world of the American combat soldier. Their dark, often insubordinate humor sparked controversy among army brass and incensed General George S. Patton, Jr.

This is first of several volumes publishing the best of Bill Mauldin's single panel strips from 1940 to 1991 (when he stopped drawing). His Willie & Joe cartoons will be presented in a deluxe, beautifully designed two-volume slipcased edition of over 600 pages. The series is edited by Todd DePastino, whose Mauldin scholarship will be on full display in a biography of the artist coming in February 2008 from W. W. Norton. Willie & Joe will contain an introduction and running commentary by DePastino, providing context for the drawings, pertinent biographical details of Mauldin's life, and occasional background on specific cartoons (such as the ones that made Patton howl).

Achewood: The Great Outdoor Fight

Chris Onstad

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

This is completely a thing 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

There aren't many times -- at least not since childhood -- when I've unpacked a book and immediately run off to sit down and read it through end to end. But that's what I did with "The Great Outdoor Fight" and it was worth it. There's a bit of a retro thing in reading what began life as a webcomic in a print medium, but for an extended storyline like this one, a book strikes me as just the right format. It gives the reader the chance to really get into the action without having to hit "Next" every few frames, and to pick up, not only on the humor, but also what is in fact quite a good storyline.

Achewood's artwork is not as complex as that you'll find in many webcomics or graphic novels, and sure, it might be interesting to see how Frank Miller, say, would tell the story of the GOF. But Onstad is no slouch with a pen and his relatively minimalist style is a big part of setting the tone for the story. Where I think he really shines, though, is less in the art than in the characters he's created. I particularly enjoy Roast Beef's distinctive turn of phrase (describing information he's known since childhood, for example, as "Dogg it is brain tape since young times"), and the friendship between Beef and Ray that is the cornerstone of this story (and with apologies to an earlier reviewer, by the way, Beef and Ray are anthropomorphic cats, not dogs). Most other regular characters have cameo appearances, including a very entertaining few panels where Cornelius Bear, my favorite character and himself no slouch in the toughness department, having won the first annual Bad*ss Games in a walk, silently locks his trumpet in its case after Lyle makes a comment that cannot be reprinted in an Amazon review.

While Achewood fans will have seen the strips before, Chris Onstad has added a good deal of extra material, mostly relating to the history of the GOF and its champions. Published in a large, almost coffee table-size, format, "The Great Outdoor Fight" is definitely a thing -- especially worthwhile for fans, of course, but more than a book of drawings, a book with a story many readers might find worth checking out.

Editorial Review:

Since 2001, cult comic favorite Achewood has built a six-figure international following. Intelligent, hilarious, and adult (but not filthy), it's the strip you'll wish you'd discovered as an underappreciated fifteen-year-old. Dark Horse presents the hardbound edition of Achewood's The Great Outdoor Fight, the story of "Three Days, Three Acres, Three Thousand Men."

Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels

Scott Mccloud

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 36 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics was published in 1993, just as "Comics Aren't Just for Kids Anymore!" articles were starting to appear and graphic novels were making their way into the mainstream, and it quickly gave the newly respectable medium the theoretical and practical manifesto it needed. With his clear-eyed and approachable analysis--done using the same comics tools he was describing--McCloud quickly gave "sequential art" a language to understand itself. McCloud made the simplest of drawing decisions seem deep with artistic potential.

Thirteen years later, following the Internet evangelizing of Reinventing Comics, McCloud has returned with Making Comics.

Designed as a craftsperson's overview of the drawing and storytelling decisions and possibilities available to comics artists, covering everything from facial expressions and page layout to the choice of tools and story construction, Making Comics, like its predecessors, is also an eye-opening trip behind the scenes of art-making, fascinating for anyone reading comics as well as those making them. Get a sense of the range of his lessons by clicking through to the opening pages of his book, including his (illustrated, of course) table of contents (warning: large file, recommended for high-bandwidth users):

The Complete Peanuts 1967-1970 Box Set

Charles M. Schulz

Amazon Price: $31.49 List Price: $49.99 Not yet published By: Fantagraphics Books

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Editorial Review:

With intros by John Waters and Mo Willems! The Complete Peanuts 1967-1968 is a particularly Snoopy-heavy collection. In addition to seeing the beagle adopt multiple personas, this volume also sees the appearance of what would be Schulz's most controversial major character: Franklin. In Charles Schulz's The Complete Peanuts 1969-1970, Woodstock makes his first appearance, Snoopy is left in the Van Pelt family's care as the Browns vacation... and the Little Red-Haired Girl moves away.

The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation

Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 61 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The love produces animation! That book exhibition that! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

The love produces animation! That book exhibition that! That amazes of book! That fantastic thing is the friendship and the production of those two geniuses of the animation! The life and the those two men's art is a thing that contemplates in all us, impassioned by animation. They are my life examples, and one day I would like cannot at least to arrive close to what did. That book, and the dvd about the life of the two, is obligatory things in any school, or shelf peculiar of any person that has feelings and sensibility to understand the beautiful things of the life. Wonderful? Spectacular? Grandiose? I don't have as defining that book. He is more than any definition that somebody can create. It is the love transformed in cartoons overflowing for the pages of that wonderful book. I will buy more a, to be in the shelf without nobody opens it, and my descendants only can you make it for they know a time and such some brilliant people and magics as these highlighted in that spectacular book.

The Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories

Nicholas Gurewitch

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 53 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Perry Bible Fellowship 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I went to Syracuse and looked forward to the PBF comic in the daily paper. I'm so glad i can finally own a hard copy of these raunchy, ridiculous and witty comics.

Excellent 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I was already familiar with his work and bought this book so I could enjoy the beautiful illustrations. I was surprised that my wife and her father both loved the twisted humor. This would be a great gift for someone who has the same sick sense of humor you do but has not seen the work. It is fun to watch them start to realize what they have just picked up.

If the "Far Side" was multi-panel and in an alt-weekly 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The title is how I described PBF to someone who hadn't heard of it before.

It's a wonderfully perverse and hilarious comic and this collection is presented very well. The comics have been produced in really nice color and the cover art is awesome. This book is a great way to have an offline copy of the comics you've enjoyed on the web site.

Editorial Review:

The award-winning Perry Bible Fellowship has a achieved a cult following both online and in its weekly appearances in newspapers and magazines around the world. Now, for the first time, the hilarious cartoons of Nicholas Gurewitch are being collected in this handsome hardcover edition.

Scorchy Smith And The Art Of Noel Sickles

Noel Sickles

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

At long last a fitting tribute to a classic illustrator 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Ever since discovering that Noel Sickles was Milton Caniff's inspirational, groundbreaking partner, I've been longing for someone to publish his story and experiences. I received my wish today with the arrival of Scorchy Smith and the Art of Noel Sickles. This is a massive, deluxe volume, covering almost every facet of Sickle's career. IDW reaches a new pinnacle in their collective works on the classic cartoonists and illustrators with this publication. It's chock full of illustrations from Sickle's career as an illustrator post Scorchy Smith, as well as early work.

I have the two volume set of Kitchen Sink Scorchy strips from the 1980s, and this volume outshines them completely. This is a large book, and absolutely stunning in layout, design and production.

If you have a soul and appreciation of the finest in comic strip art and classical illustration, don't hesitate another moment; order this book today! It's a sterling companion to the Terry and the Pirates series also published by IDW.

Editorial Review:

Noel Sickles drew comics for three brief years, yet his groundbreaking work on the 1930s aviation adventure series Scorchy Smith is a milestone in the history of newspaper comic strips. Over the past 70 years, however, readers have seen only occasional excerpts of this seminal work. Now, IDW's Library of American Comics presents Scorchy Smith and The Art of Noel Sickles, a comprehensive, oversized volume that collects, for the first time, every Sickles Scorchy strip, from December 1933 through November 1936.

Creating Characters with Personality: For Film, TV, Animation, Video Games, and Graphic Novels

Tom Bancroft

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Great Book 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I am a student studying animation, and I purchased this book for my character design class. I really love this book, it is quite usefull, and my two roommates reference it as well! One is an illustrator, and one is a video game designer. Useful to anyone and everyone...

Editorial Review:

• Character design is the key in many industries—and they're all covered in this book

• Practical step-by-step exercises

• Contributors include Glen Keane, Supervising Animator, Disney

From Snow White to Shrek, from Fred Flintstone to SpongeBob Square-Pants, the design of a character conveys personality before a single word of dialogue is spoken. Creating Characters with Personality shows artists how to create a distinctive character, then place that character in context with a script, establish hierarchy, and maximize the impact of pose and expression. Practical exercises help readers put everything together to make their new characters sparkle. Lessons from the author, who designed the dragon Mushu (voiced by Eddie Murphy) in Disney's Mulan—plus big-name experts in film, TV, video games, and graphic novels—make a complex subject accessible to every artist.