Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

Beautiful book

Customer Rating:

A must-have, obviously, for MIGNOLA / HELLBOY completists, this book is also an introduction to a) the creative process at work in artist MIGNOLA's mind, b) his quest for his unique style. Along the years, "less becomes more" as the emphasis is put on conveying a specific atmosphere in lieu of drowning the reader with details. Not that there is no details in the gothic surroundings of HELLBOY's adventures. There are plenty. The point is that MIGNOLA does not compete with artists in the "super hero" field but with himself. The books praises that. And is good at it.

Awesome artwork	Customer Rating:
Anyone who appreciates Mike Mignola's unique art style will enjoy this book. Lot's of unpublished pieces in here that I had never seen before. Definitely worth a look!

Beautiful Art, Not Enough Process

Customer Rating:

Mike Mignola's amazing art for Hellboy looks very different from anything else being used in comics today. His distinct linework and inking style, combined with a well-honed eye for panel layout makes his artwork a perfect complement to his stories. That said, this book is mostly a collection of finished art, covers and promotional pieces. What I really expected from an "Art of" book was process, sketches, and perhaps some discussion of technique. A fair comparison would be the recent Usagi Yojimbo art book or the Blacksad Sketch Files. Maybe one of these days Mr. Mignola will put out a "Making of Hellboy" book that fills the gaps. The few sketches and thumbnails in this book really aren't enough.

Before you spurge on this, do consider...

Customer Rating:

I would be warry of spending too many of your hard earned dollars on this book. I am a new fan to Hellboy, and absolutely love Mignola's art. However, the reason I would be heasitant about recommending this art book is that there is very little new art in it. Most of it is just rehashed covers, pages and posters. Probably about 10% of it is stuff that you've never seen before; which in my mind, does not warrant the hefty price tag. If you have all the books in the series then you already have 90% of the art found in this book. The sketches and other doodles that are only in this book can most likely be found floating around the net if you look hard enough for it.

200 pages of pure Love of Comic Art.

Customer Rating:

Mike Mignola is the master of what not to put in a finished peice of art. While he draws loads of details with the original pencil lines as soon as the ink is applied, he buries them. What makes that technique work so well is that regardless of no evidence of the black flooded pencils the viewer knows the details are there. That masterful ambiguity is what makes the Hellboy art so creepy, menacing. From out of the shadows lurch horrors not meant for the eyes of humans. This is quirky, fun and scary without having to overwork the skilled designs and careful layouts. When I look at all the cartoony comic artists, with their minimalist leanings, and contrast them with the guys who insist on drawing every hair on a head while laying in invented overdone musculature that fairly bulges through a sweatshirt, it is refreshing to see Mignola's seeming ease and inpeccable black spotting that shapes even the things not seen, but definitely suspected, along with shambling ancient horror and explosions of combative violence in the defense of the human race against festering ancient evil.Words? In this book? My brain is full of words unread but ever present. That's Mike's other gift to me.My only question is when will we see a volume collecting his myriad other works?