#TODD MCFARLANE COMIC VBOOK GREATS MOVIE#
#TODD MCFARLANE COMIC VBOOK GREATS FULL#

McFarlane skips around a lot, emphasizing some parts over others in ways that feel awkward at times. It's just that the reading experience feels jumpy. I don't need a full-scale autobiography, necessarily. I just wish there was more in the writing. The 'Art' works for the most part, though, so most people will still be happy with it. While bits and pieces of it can be entertaining and helpful, as a whole the book winds up feeling thin in the narrative. Is this a book about learning to draw comics and passing along those lessons? Is it a behind-the-scenes look at specific parts of the comics industry? Is it an honest look at how one artist's work has evolved and grown? 'The Art of Todd McFarlane' goes back and forth between all of those things, by design. The biggest problem is the lack of cohesion in the book. Not everyone was an obsessive fanboy in the early 1990s, though for them, this book will shed light on a lot of fascinating things. Honestly, I've learned more about McFarlane from what I've read in 'Comics Interview' and 'Comics Journal' interviews 20 years ago than I did in this book. There's not that much text in the book, so I'd like to learn more from what I get. In the first 100 pages, for example, McFarlane tells the story about how he got to ink his own work for the first time on three separate occasions. Sometimes, it would happen twice in the same chapter. The rest of the chapter is made up of quotes straight from Todd McFarlane, often immediately repeating the introduction. At the beginning of each chapter, there's a page of text to summarize what comes next. The problem with the book, though, is with its presentation. That's the part I'm least interested in, so I skimmed over it, mostly just looking at the sketches.

#TODD MCFARLANE COMIC VBOOK GREATS MOVIE#

McFarlane also did a good job inking over Rob Liefeld's covers, a few of which are presented in the book.ДЄfter that, additional pages cover the music videos, the 'Spawn' movie and TV series, the toys, etc.

The artistic continuity worked well there. Greg Capullo gets a few pages in this book, since McFarlane was inking over him during his lengthy run on 'Spawn.' It's funny to see art that looks like McFarlane's, just tighter and with better anatomy and storytelling. There's even a large chunk of pages devoted to more recent McFarlane 'Spawn' covers, which their homages to the likes of 'The Walking Dead,' 'The Dark Knight Returns,' 'Youngblood,' et. There's lots of examples of Spawn next to Batman, which look beautiful.

#TODD MCFARLANE COMIC VBOOK GREATS FULL#

There's some pencil sketches leading to full pages. There are examples of multiple re-colorings of specific pin-ups and covers. There are blown-up panels to show the amount of line work McFarlane put into his pages. Then there's a lot of 'Spawn' stuff, starting on page 199 and carrying through the next 100 pages.

In other interviews McFarlane has talked about running out of things to draw on the covers (which explains why they got a little crazy at the end) and ultimately leaving the assignment. I would buy an art book just showing off the original art from those covers, particularly the X-Men guest starring ones. There are lots of promo images and magazine covers McFarlane did at the time in various places, including the 'Marvel Team-Up' series. Of course, 'Spider-Man' gets a large section, including all of his 'Amazing Spider-Man' covers and samples from the adjectiveless book, including a full-page spotlight on original art from the Hobgoblin/Ghost Rider story. This is a strong page layout, with a nice straight line of equally-sized covers, and a double-page wide panel detail that shows off the energy of McFarlane's work One two-page spread even gives us all the little UPC boxes he drew art for during his 'Amazing Spider-Man' run. Those pages are included in the book, as well. The first time any editor took him seriously was at DC, where they sent him a 'dummy' script to draw a Batgirl story. You can see the original 'Boof and the Bruise Crew' from 1983 during his college days. There are pages from an aborted project he was doing at DC with Roy Thomas, 'Valda,' that I had never heard of before this. It's unfinished and the reproductions are small, but you'll get the gist of it when you see it. (Keith Giffen didn't respond, the cad!) An early 'Spawn' comic he did in high school - 35 pages long - is reprinted in its entirety. The hand written charts McFarlane used to keep track of his art submissions are included. An early spread shows lots of sketches he did when learning to draw as a teenager, where it was obvious he liked to copy the works of Neal Adams ('Green Lantern') and John Byrne ('Alpha Flight'), amongst others. There are a lot of little gems along the way.

Todd mcfarlane comic vbook greats