Out this month are two new volumes in the TwoMorrows Modern Masters interview/art book series, both by Eric Nolen-Weathington, the series editor. The first is dedicated to Mark Buckingham, whose credits include Death: The High Cost of Living, Fables, and Miracleman. Note that he did not, as I first thought, draw Ultimate Spider-Man. That’s a different Mark B., Bagley. Obviously, I need the education this volume provides. Neil Gaiman’s introduction starts things off with praise for Bucky’s skill and versatility. […]

I’m still waiting for TwoMorrows to deem a woman worthy of inclusion in their Modern Masters line of interview books, but in the meantime, I’ll enjoy this Chris Sprouse volume, co-written by our friend Todd Dezago. (The other writer is nice guy Eric Nolen-Weathington.) I find Sprouse’s clean art lovely in its simplicity, and he works incredibly hard to achieve that appearance. As with the other Modern Masters books, the text is a lengthy interview in which the subject talks […]

At the end of 2008, W.W. Norton issued updated editions of Will Eisner’s classic instructional manuals on creating comics. Comparing the revised Comics and Sequential Art to the original edition (first published in 1985) showed me immediately how much of an improvement the new printing was. The presentation is much sleeker and more modern, with a layout that looks like it was created by a professional art designer, instead of the high school research paper appearance of the original. There […]

What a clever format for a how-to book! The Manga Artist’s Workbook is bound with a top spiral, and the content — repackaged from Christopher Hart’s Manga for the Beginner: Everything You Need to Start Drawing Right Away — is presented in such a way that the reader is encouraged to try the lessons immediately. The wrap-around cover keeps everything neat and together. The whole thing was designed by Melissa Chang, who deserves a lot of praise. When the workbook […]

Sarah Kuhn has written a short novel featuring characters and settings of interest to many readers here. One Con Glory is the story of Julie, a geek journalist covering a huge comic/sci-fi convention. She’s bitter and jaded, with few friends, and those she hangs out with are likewise media types, nerdy enough to fit in but feeling set apart by their glimpse behind the curtain. The title comes from Julie’s love of Glory Gilmore, a lesser-known superhero team member and […]

After a five-year gap, the DC Comics line of guides to creating comics has been brought up to date with the newest entry, The DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics. I was previously unfamiliar with author Freddie E Williams II, probably because he only began working for DC in 2006, and I cut back on my superhero reading around then. His best-known credits are Robin, The Flash, and Final Crisis Aftermath: Run. He works entirely digitally, providing him the […]

This textbook is arranged in 15 lessons that promise to teach the reader “the foundations of visual storytelling”. And you know, given the authors, I believe them. Matt Madden previously created the amazing 99 Ways to Tell a Story, as well as the graphic novel Odds Off. Jessica Abel‘s works include La Perdida and Life Sucks, and together, they have taught years’ worth of comic courses, gaining important practical experience in what works instructionally. (And because they’re artists, they can […]