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I couldn't believe, but mr.Ross did it again!Even better!The second edition of the hardcover edition is even better than the first one! The cover is already a gem! You have to see to believe it!Not to mention the extra amount of pages of new art and updated material!Go for it!AAA++++
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This is the perfect gift for the comic book fan who has every comic book. Also, looks great on a coffee table.
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This book was so impressive we were glad we bought it for our friend! She loves it, and didn't put it down all day after receiving it!
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More an inside in Ross' work and his drawings than the mythology of the dc characters... beautiful book
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This book will astonish you even before you open it. The jacket has the images of two of the most iconic superheroes of DC, Superman and Batman, and below the jacket you'll find an unbelievable piece of art showing almost every DC superhero battling versus their respective villains.
With an introduction from M Night Shyamalan, the book presents Alex from his early beginnings as a child trying to create comic book characters and how his mother kind of influenced him (even though he affirms this didn't happen, take a look at her mom's works and try to believe him)
He then presents the DC characters one by one (the Batman session has some pages dedicated to the Joker only, no other villains are shown), the early drawings, original artwork from classics and the homage he has paid for covers, posters or special editions. Analysis on the symbols and the myths of each character are used to describe what Ross wants to project with his images. I don't think it necessary to mention which character has the larger amount of pages dedicated to himself only. You get to see in drawings the creative process he follows when creating a piece, the ideas scratched on a piece of paper, the drawings and possible posing and then the final image. There are pictures I has never seen until I got this book, when I first saw them my fisrt thought was ` I need to frame these', which came up as a bad idea as I would have had to frame the entire book.
The abandoned ideas for `Portraits of villainy' are presented here in the form of pencil sketches that look pretty well, it is hard to imagine how they would have looked if the project had been completed. His takes on Hanna-Barbera, Mad magazine, Alan Moore, the animated style and World's finest are also present.
Then there are pages and pages dedicated to 'Kingdom Come', from the early concepts and ideas, passing through sketches until the realization of the project. The possible prequel that never occurred, `The Kingdom' is also mentioned and the preliminary sketches by Ross are shown.
Uncle Sam is also analyzed near the end of the book in the same way the other projects previously were.
Then we have this section called `The process', in which we obviously get to see how Alex works using the book's cover as example. The final part of the book is a very nice bonus, a Batman/Superman special story written by Chip Kidd and Alex Ross created exclusively for this book.
Indeed a great piece of collection, this book is a must for comic book fans. The hard cover presentation, the paper in which it is printed and the bonus stuff are worth the price to pay.
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