Being raised on DC and Marvel, it was a total shock in my youth to discover a British weekly called 2000 AD. It featured early works by who would later be the leading lights in the comic field, such as Alan Moore. But what sold me on the publication first was the artwork, with one of the standouts being Bryan Talbot, who worked on one of the freakier titles: Nemesis: The Warlock, a bizarre dragon-like creature.
It was at that moment that I became a fan. But that is not the start nor even the end to Talbot’s long career. From the earliest works which he refers to as crap, THE ART OF BRYAN TALBOT takes us from the very beginnings to his current works, with his commentary along the way.
In this oversized book, just under 100 pages, we see the growth of an artist who is brimming with ideas, with some truly great selections blown up to full pages, allowing us to really enjoy the smallest details. It starts off with his earliest work as a self-taught child to his days working for the underground comix scene.
Then it moves into one of his most cohesive and successful works, that of THE ADVENTURES OF LUTHER ARKWRIGHT. This section provides a variety of stuff for the viewer to fixate over, be it his personal favorite page of the whole comic, or the various editions that have been published, and other ephemera.
Moving into paintings he did of real-life people such as Frank Zappa and Jimi Hendrix, the book touches on the work he did for DC Comics before touching upon his time with 2000 AD, showing some truly memorable Nemesis images that still freak me out.
And then comes a collections of nudes he sketched, and also a nice selection of the work he did on THE TALE OF ONE BAD RAT, which Talbot explains was rejected by multiple companies when they saw the word “comic.” You can tell Talbot just loves the fact that RAT is probably his most well-known, since reprinted countless times in various languages. Some of his favorite panels include the book’s ending, where he copied the style of Beatrix Potter right down to the paint he used.
This is a book that comic-book fans can enjoy, since the artwork is both shocking and breathtaking, illustrating the growth of an artist, with the added incentive of his own input throughout. THE ART OF BRYAN TALBOT is not some slapdash affair where a company just reprints a few issues and calls it an overview. –Bruce Grossman
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