Masters of Spanish Comic Book Art

By the early 1970's the black and white horror comic magazines published by Warren Publishing - Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella had fully moved beyond the days of simply being a reunion of most of the famous EC artists from the 1950's. Publisher James Warren had made a deal with Josep Toutain of Selecciones Illustradas, resulting in a wave of Spanish comic artists drawing for the company. Within only a few months these artists would come to dominate the company, providing the vast majority of the cover and interior art for Warren for years to come. These artists would provide a level of detail and exoticism far beyond anything that readers were used to. In fact for many, myself included, these artists provided horror art superior even to the glory days of EC.Unfortunately for fans of these artists, finding information about them in English was quite difficult. Hardly any of these artists made much of an impact in America beyond their work for Warren, although many have a very large body of work in their native Spain and Europe. Author David Roach, the pre-eminent English speaking expert of these artist previously produced a brief feature on them in the Warren Companion book as well as writing a book dedicated to one of the artists, Jose Gonzalez. He has returned to this subject once more, delivering what many of us have been dreaming of for years, an English language book dedicated to these artists.First and foremost, it should be said that this is not really a book about Warren Publishing, but rather the Spanish comic artist community that Warren's magazines primarily brought to the American comic fan's eye in the 70's and 80's. The book provides a detailed history of Spanish comic book artists, starting from the beginnings of comics in the early 1900's, and taking us through matters such as the Spanish art agencies that developed, their role in British romance and war comics and other countries throughout Europe before their eventual arrival to the United States. In fact the chapter on their role at Warren is pretty brief, a mere 3 pages long. The narrative continues beyond the Warren years throughout the 80's and to the present day.This book is primarily an art book; of its 270 pages approximately 50 provide a history for the Spanish comic artist community and the remaining 200+ is focused on providing an art gallery for a wide variety of the artists, just over 75 in fact. 18 of the artists have a written feature on them, while for the remaining ones we are just treated to samples of their art. These artists focused on mediums other than just comics, and that is made clear here as the art samples are not simply interior comic book pages but also a wide variety of paintings and book covers. The written features cover most of the well-known artists who worked for Warren, including Esteban Maroto, Jose Gonzalez, Luis Garcia, Manuel Sanjulian, Enrich Torres, Jose Ortiz, Luis Bermejo, Jose Bea, Rafeal Auraleon and Fernando Fernandez. Yet we also have features for other artists who did either little or no Warren work such as Jordi Bernet, Alphonso Font, Jordi Longaron and others. Learning of other Spanish artists beyond just those who worked for Warren was a highlight of the book for me, there are artists here like Enric Sio, Marika, Joan Boix and others who I'd love to learn more about now. But it’s not just that, getting to see a lot of other work from artists I'm already familiar with is a great benefit and hopefully a great starting point in discovering more of these artist's works.Ultimately, this book leaves me wanting more, but then I want to learn so much more about these artists that any book was probably going to leave me feeling that way. Having write ups for more artists would have been great, particularly for ones with large bodies of work at Warren such as Ramon Torrents, Isidre Mones, Martin Salvador and Leopold Sanchez. There are many artists who only have a single page of their work featured and more would have been appreciated. The vast majority of the Spanish artists that provided work for Warren are featured, although there are a few notables missing such as Jaime Brocal Remohi, Pepe Moreno Casares and Jose Gual. Fans of Skywald's magazines longing for their artists to be featured will find almost all of them missing here (although at least in my opinion, with the exception of Jesus Suso Rego, another artist sadly missing from this and Zesar Lopez, Skywald's Spanish artists weren't in the same league as Warren's).In the overall scheme of things though, these are longings from an obsessed fan who wants to learn as much about these artists as possible. I totally understand that there are editorial and length restraints and think that the author in almost all cases has made the correct choices about what to include and what not to include. This is a great book for any fan of these artists and highly recommended by me.

This book is an ambitious project. Covered are over seventy-five Spanish artists and examples of their work produced mostly in the late 1960s to 1990s. These artists are in their 60s and 70s now; many are dead. I think the youngest was born 1951 for example.Through their business agencies these artists' work appeared in the the UK, France, Italy, Germany and the USA. Through cover art and b&w drawings I became familiar with six of them: Luis Bemejo, Enrich, Fernando Fernandez, Sanjulian, Vincente Segrelles and especially Esteban Maroto.I truly believe that it was this group of artists who influenced the way graphics are presented today in the fantasy, science fiction, romance, horror and mystery genres. I think the gaming world took their cue from them. Modern printed comics and the Magic Game graphics I believe stemmed from their influence.The reason why I gave it four stars was because I knew the art of the six I mentioned. I felt, and this is my opinion, that the best examples of their work was not presented. So I thought "What about the other sixty something artists?"It's still worth it and I recommend it for anyone who's fascinated with modern graphics and art in the wide world of printed fiction.

Very impressive and a must have!

All Good Man

I've loved comics for pretty much my entire life. In the late 70s, early 80s, I got my hands on a bunch of Vampirella, Eerie, Creepy, and 1984 comic magazines, and was blown away by artwork--which has inspired me ever since. Nothing in contemporary comics even comes close to the illustrative quality and mind-blowing storytelling this group of creators brought to the table. Do you love incredible illustrations of beautiful women? Me too. You'll love this book!

A great informative book on the group of Spanish artist who ruled the comic scene. Theres not a lot of information about these artist in english so this book is a great resource. Could have used more examples of their artwork but all in all still good.

I have been wanting this book for a couple of weeks now and finally ordered it. This is a nice little history of Hispanic artists in the comic book industry, with works in other areas. I’m gonna enjoy going over and over on this book.

This book is also beautifully published and gives a great history of the immensely talented Spanish comic book and magazine artists. I knew many of them growing up seeing some of these covers and comics but had no idea how many and how prolific they were. A great book!!

If you are interested in comic book art then this is the one to get.The quality of reproduction is great and the writing totally informed.

I got familiar with numerous Spanish artists by reading the great Warren comics of the 70's such as Vampirella, Creepy and Eerie. This book is full of fantastic illustrations and drawings.

Fondé en 2005, le groupe états-unien indépendant Dynamite Entertainment est principalement connu pour la récupération de licences ou de catalogues BD en provenance de confrères, qu'il s'efforce de remettre au goût du jour. Parmi les réussites que je suis en mesure de relever, figurent les deux aventures du détective John Shaft (le personnage, bien sûr, des célèbres films "blaxploitation") écrites par David Walker, "drafté" depuis par Marvel Comics. Il faut aussi, hélas, signaler le naufrage relatif à la relance du personnage "Gold Key" de Magnus the Robot Fighter, en 2014.Quant à cet ouvrage intitulé "Masters Of Spanish Comic Book Art", autant dire tout de suite qu'il se range plutôt du côté des réussites.L'auteur, David Roach, est un scénariste, dessinateur de BD et illustrateur britannique, probablement quinquagénaire, pour autant que wikipedia puisse nous le préciser aujourd'hui, car il n'y a aucune biographie même courte de ce Monsieur dans son ouvrage au format d'album de BD franco-belge de plus de 270 pages. Dynamite ayant récupéré les droits des comic books de l'éditeur états-unien Warren Publishing (1957-1983), célèbre pour ses titres "Vampirella", "Eerie" et "Creepy" des années 1970, on pouvait s'attendre à ce que cet ouvrage se focalise sur les dessinateurs espagnols (et même catalans, pour la majorité d'entre eux) qui ont apporté une grande partie de la ligne graphique de ces publications. C'est bien évidemment le cas, comme la couverture (Vampirella - à Paris ! - par Enrich) le laisse deviner, mais Roach en profite plus largement pour dresser un panorama plus général de la BD espagnole depuis les origines au début du XXème siècle jusqu'à 2015-2016.L'ouvrage comprend trois parties :- en 10 courts chapitres illustrés, Roach présente l'histoire de la BD espagnole jusqu'aux années 1980-1990, avec en particulier le rôle central des agences basées principalement à Barcelone, qui recherchaient et trouvaient des engagements pour leurs artistes en Espagne, mais aussi au Royaume-Uni, en Belgique-France, en Allemagne, en Suède, en Italie... et, donc, aux USA ;- Le 11è chapitre est en fait un vaste portfolio consacré à 76 dessinateurs et illustrateurs espagnols avec une biographie pour un certain nombre d'entre eux ainsi qu'au moins un exemple de planche ou illustration qui leur est due ;- le 12è et dernier chapitre présente, en une douzaine de pages, la nouvelle génération née à partir du milieu des années 1980 et jusqu'à aujourd'hui, qui représente d'une certaine manière un renouveau de la présence des dessinateurs espagnols tant dans la BD franco-belge que dans les comics états-unien, mais apparemment sans résurgence des éléments graphiques distinctifs de la génération précédente.Jusque dans les années 1970-1980, les agences se sont ménagé des quasi-monopoles sur la BD publiée au Royaume-Uni pour jeunes filles (contribuant à définir le "look" de la It-girl britannique des années 1960) ou de guerre ou bien encore de SF. En Allemagne, c'est apparemment plus le genre "polar" qui a été investi. En France, Jordi Bernet, Jesús Blasco, Victor de la Fuente, Alfonso Font, Carlos Giménez, Antonio Hernández Palacios, Julio Ribera et Enrique Badía Romero sont probablement les mieux connus des artistes ici évoqués. Mais il faut aussi citer parmi les dessinateurs et illustrateurs célébrés dans l'ouvrage Josep Maria Beà, Ángel Badía Camps, Fernando Fernández, Luis García Mozos, José "Pepe" González, Jordi Longarón, Esteban Maroto etc.Dans la nouvelle génération, sont cités bien entendu Juanjo Guarnido et Rubén Pellejero mais aussi David Aja et une partie de la génération "Marvel" et "DC" d'aujourd'hui (sans beaucoup d'illustrations hélas) ainsi que David Rubín.Finalement, il s'agit d'un ouvrage très intéressant pour survoler 115 ans de BD espagnole (avec accent sur les années 1960-1990) mais aussi très frustrant dans la mesure où la plupart des dessinateurs n'ont droit qu'à une ou deux-trois pages d'exemples de leur art (planches ou illustrations originales, scans de magazines ou de couvertures de livre de poche), alors que l'on aimerait bien entendu en voir plus, en particulier de la part de Camps, Font, Longarón, Sommer etc. De plus, la plupart des meilleures ouvres de ces dessinateurs sont introuvables...Sans la protection d'un blister, la couverture de l'ouvrage peut souffrir dans le stockage, la manipulation et l'expédition.****1/3

Un libro impecable sobre los mestros españoles del cómic, ilustradores y artistas tan grandes como Pepe González, Ortiz, Bernet... Artistas que merecen un reconomicimento y, aunque no sea patrio, el libro es imprescindibles tanto para los amantes de estos autores como para los que les gusten los artbooks en general.Una etapa de oro del cómic español recopilado en un volumen comentado, lleno de ilustraciones y anecdotas.

Excelente coletânea de artistas espanhóis.