Game Art: The Graphic Art of Computer Games

In Toon Art, Withrow, who draws a weekly digital comics series called Crackles of Speech, begins with a visual time line from Lascaux to tapestry, newspapers, television and computers. The second section walks a reader through digital sketching, with sections on flash animation and toon typography. Withrow goes ""behind the scenes with the experts,"" men and women of the new generation of independent digital cartoonists ""who are attempting (to varying degrees) to go it alone without corporate sponsorship..."" A third section showcases ""the best in the business,"" and a fourth discusses the future of comics. With 450 color illustrations, a wide cross-section of artists is represented in a playful design that gives a nod to cartoon sensibility (text bubbles and brightly colored, pointillist chapter openers), yet the overall look remains clean and comprehensible. In Game Art, Morris, creator of the PC game Warrior Kings, and Hartas, a children's book writer and illustrator, take readers from Pacman and Pong to real-time strategy games like Age of Empires or Ico. Each of 14 chapters contains ""Insider Secrets"" that have industry artists explaining in detail things like how to create a 3-D world or cinematic sequences. Dozens of games are picked apart, with their creators telling how they fashioned the styles and stories of their fictional worlds. With more than 500 digital images and explanatory text running throughout, the pages are busy, but offer a comprehensive examination of highly imaginative technological territory. (July)