Product Description: From the award-winning creator of Liberty Meadows, Zombie King, and Jungle Girl, this 144-page, full-color collection showcases Frank Cho's past and present illustrations and reveals why he's one of the top masters of the female form and fantastic beasts.
This book is mainly a collection of comic book covers done by Frank Cho throughout most of his career. It starts off with Marvel covers that feature a lot of his work with Captain Marvel(Carol Danvers), but has a little bit of everything from the Avengers and other titles. The later art is mostly from his work on She-Ra and some Liberty Meadows, though not as much as you might think, given his long career with that series. Throughout the book he supplements it with some sketches, released or unreleased.
The art is amazing, but the meat of it is it's mostly eye candy for fans of Cho's work. If you're not a fan, most of this book will probably go unappreciated and you might be better off buying individual comics with his work instead. And as good as this book is, it's probably more satisfying to visit a comic convention and get some sketches and other items from Frank personally, as it is from any artist you like.
Great book of fantastic Art ^ This is one of the great Artbooks I've bought this year. Buy it here not at a "book store" for the full price....i wish I did. A perfect find for comic book art fanatics. Buy it buy it buy it this is a super collection to view again and again.
Monkey Boy Rocks ^ I love this book. I want to get some more by Frank Cho. Just wish there was a lil' bit more apes and babes. No just kidding. It really is a nice book. Also, the fact that it is hardcover makes it extra nice.
He knows his anatomy ^ Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3788IPAKHGWM6 Apes and Babes should be the first art book of Frank Cho feature more of his action and superhero comic art. It's a 144-page hardcover with a dust jacket.
The book features comic covers he has drawn for Marvel, Jungle Girl, Liberty Meadows and Mars. I'm not sure what Mars is but it's something like Conan, Xena, Frank Frazetta kind of art. For many of the illustrations, he has included the pencil line art version so you can see the before and after. Even though the subject is similar, the feel of the art is very different when colours are added on.
The most impressive part about is art book is probably his knowledge of anatomy. Even though the characters might still be a bit stylised, the anatomy adds a more realistic dimensionality to the character designs. I like the way he uses extremely thin lines to portray muscle contours. The colouring -- in this case probably called lighting -- is fantastic.
This book is recommended to superhero art collectors and Frank Cho fans.
(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)
Apes and Babes: The Art Of Frank Cho Book 1 ^ Overall this is a nice book. If you can't afford or find, the Mars Maidens, Jungle Queens, or the Sketches and Scribbles books, this has a nice sampling of the works from those. The book is from Image, and like the Liberty Meadows books, it's a nice quality hard cover with bright pages. And it's also the same size as previous LM books. Under the dust jacket, the book itself is dark green with a shiny silver skull surrounded by the name of book in the same color. Don't stare too long kids.
I like the way on most of the work, you get a comp sketch, with loose or tight pencils, that precedes the finished work. And the piece will encompass the full page on the left, then the full page on the right. So that you can compare and see what compositional changes were made before going to print. On some pages, there are the finished inks preceding the final.
For about the first half of the book, it's mostly marvel stuff he has done recently. Then the jungle section is basically that, apes and babes, with a few of his older pieces you can see in the Sketches and Scribbles books. Followed by some Brandy and friends. And then ends with the Mars section. Some Conan, Red Sonja, Dejah Thoris, and 4 armed apes. It's a nice selection of images, new and from books mentioned previously.
If you're new to Cho, or have been following his work, it's worth saving your lunch money for. I don't think you'll be disappointed. With a strong foundation in anatomy, and super clean inks, he fits into that Frazetta, Suydam genre.
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