05/08/2008

I'd heard about this book a while ago and swore to myself that if ever i came across it, it was going to be mine. For anyone with more than a passing interest in comics then Studio Space by Joel Meadows and Gary Marshall is a must have.
Growing up reading comics gave me an appreciation for the medium that a casual interest could not accommodate. I knew the names of every top fight artist on every book that I'd buy with my meager pocket money. I'd copy over and over the poses on the pages, often blowing up a two inch frame to fill an A4 sheet of cartridge paper. I tried to learn all the nuances of the trade by visual decoding alone, often wishing that there were someone or something that would let me in on this secret world, the exclusive club of the comic book artist.

Well, it was a thirty year wait but that something has finally arrived. Joel Meadows and Gary Marshall have put together an exquisite book, brim full of secrets, not only of the comic book artists trade but secrets and revelations of those artists that I admired so much in my youth. The greats are all here; Brain Bolland, Frank Miller, Howard Chakin, Dave Gibbons, Walter Simonson et al. plus some of the modern masters with who I am now getting acquainted. This is a true fanboys dream. Yes, I used the word fanboy, because in all us 40+ comic book fans lurks a stary-eyed twelve year old.

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