cover image The Great Comic Book Artists

The Great Comic Book Artists

Ron Goulart. St. Martin's Press, $12.95 (1pp) ISBN 978-0-312-34557-0

SF-novelist Goulart, author of more than 125 books, has written for both comic strips (Star Hawks and comic books, in addition to extensively documenting comics history (The Adventurous Decade. Here he offers alphabetical essays on the lives, careers, styles and works of 60 leading comic-book talents, ranging from the simple, bold lines of C. C. Beck (Captain Marvel) and the obsessively detailed art of Wallace Wood (""I would rather draw than eat'') to graphic innovators Bernard Krigstein and Frank Miller (Ronin). Often quoting from a leading trade publication, Comics Journal, Goulart gives each artist a single page of copy facing a full page of art. This format is preferable to the many books about comics that negate the concept of sequential storytelling art by excerpting only single panels. (June