Mood:
caffeinatedTopic: Comic Book History
TODAY'S FEATURE - Blog #3444: As you can tell if you are a first time reader of my blog, I am a 'fan' of Stan Lee. The photo shown at the top left of this blog was taken at the 1993 San Diego Comic Con / Comic-Con International. No, I'm not a personal friend of Stan Lee... But he has been a big influence on my choice of reading, accumulating, collecting, trading, buying, and selling of comic books since the early 1960s. Now that this has been made known to you, here's an additional piece of info: I've already mentioned Stan's earlier work, "How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way' in this blog years ago. Plus followed up on the topic, after viewing the DVD for the book and blogging about it. Here's the link to that blog from August 11th of 2007. Please excuse the blog format, as it was written for a different blog platform, instead of this current one. Also, here's a link to where you can purchase that earlier book, How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way So, now I've told you of why I value Stan Lee's advice, and that there was an earlier 'version' if you would call it that, of this book. What is this book then? Here's what the publisher has as a promo for this book: In Stan Lee's How to Draw Comics, Stan Lee sets out to teach everything he knows about drawing and comic book characters, The book focuses primarily on action-adventure comics, but will touch upon other genres and styles, such as romance, humor, horror, and the widely influential manga style. From producing concepts and character sketches to laying out the final page of art, the man with no peer—Stan Lee—is the ultimate guide to the world of creating comics. Fair enough! Kind of a 'generalization' though... Here's just some of the chapters in this book: Preface, Introduction, A Brief History Of Comic Books... By A Guy Who Lived Them, Tools of the Trad, The Basics: Form, Perspective & Foreshortening, The Human Head, Characters & Costumes, Bring On The Backgrounds, Peerless Penciling, Lively Letering, Commanding Covers, Getting Work, Suggested Reading, Websites, Schools & Suppliers. So you see... This book covers from the history of comics to 'old school' comic book crafting, to modern day techniques, with a little help on 'Getting Work'. Plus suggested additional reading! I found that although I have a love of comics, I still didn't know how the modern artists, letterers, colorists, etc. were 'doing it' today. This book brought me up to speed, although illustrating is not my forte, and never was. But for those of you that are thinking this field might be one you'd like to get into, or you know someone that is fond of illustrating, this just might be the book to kindle that interest into something more! Sure, there's at least 60 books on how to draw comics on Amazon alone to choose from! Heck, I've even seen a few of those at comic cons and brick n' mortar stores myself! However, this book is one that has been written by the Master of Comics, (along with contributing writer David Campiti), and has illustrations by contributing artists including Neal Adams, Frank Cho, Vince Colletta, Joe Sinott, Michael Turner, Jim Lee, Jae Lee, Jack Kirby, and several others to make the chapters stand out even more! Definitely worth taking a look at, and the book would make a good gift to someone you'd like to encourage taking a look at the world of comics for a possible source of income. The cover price is only $24.99, written by someone who has been there from almost the beginning of comics, and is knowledgeable of what is going on today! Now that the 'sales pitch' is over, (wink), I've got to admit that it wasn't hard to give this book a 'comic book grade'! My comic book grade for this softcover book is a NEAR MINT (NM) 9.4 out of a possible 10.0 grading scale, of course! Or as Stan himself would say... 'Nuff Said! Here's the info for purchasing the book: Paperback: 224 pages Here's the link where YOU can buy it online, as I don't have it listed for sale in my online comic book shop: Stan Lee's How to Draw Comics: From the Legendary Creator of Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Iron Man And yes, I may be a 'fanboy' at heart when it comes to Stan, but this is a really good updated for the 2010s book for someone wanting to check out the waters for becoming involved in the illustrative side of the comic books industry! ~Michael D Hamersky
BTW, You can 'follow' this blog by clicking the 'Follow' Button at this NetworkedBlogs app! We currently have over 2,462 'Followers'! Thanks to ALL of YOU that have already clicked that button! And for those of YOU that haven't yet... I would appreciate it if YOU would!!! ~ Michael D Hamersky Note: My online 'Local' Comic Book Shop (LCBS), carries many different genres of comics, magazines, graphic novels, and comic con promotional items. Possibly even copies of the item that was reviewed here today...! If I have it... You can find it 'Under The Big Top Of Comics' at: http://www.ComicBooksCircus.com/ Web Page Note: This blog post is written for the IE Browser standards. Chrome, Safari, Netscape, Firefox and the other browsers serve the page up differently, sorry about that!The screen display resolution is best seen at the setting of 1024 x 768 on your laptop or desktop computer. NOTE: All images and characters within this blog post are copyright and trademark their respective owners.
To mail printed items to us for possible review, send to: Make It So Marketing Inc., PO Box 130653, Carlsbad, CA 92013  Also, if you are a Facebook member, I would have liked you to send me a 'Friend Request'. However, I have reached the maximum limit of 5,000 Facebook Friends and Fan pages already, so I've added a New 'Facebook Fan Page' so that even more of YOU can 'Like' what I am doing, and be interactive with me and others there. Here is the link to that 'Facebook Fan Page': Michael D Hamersky On Comics! Please click the 'Like' button on that page!
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