Marvel Comics art & cover collections
   Marvel Zombies - The Covers
   The Art Of Marvel Comics
   The Art Of Marvel vol.2
   The Art Of Marvel vol.1
   The Marvel Art Of Mike Deodato
   The Photo-Journal Guide To Marvel Comics (A-J) & (K-Z)

Various gatherings of the art produced over the decades, ranked here with the best presentation first, to the least so on the bottom.

Marvel Zombies - The Covers (2007 - Marvel) In one 'sector' of the multi-dimensional Marvel Comics 'universe', the walking-dead took hold and superheroes & super-villains could be zombies too ! At the beginning of the phenomenon there were a couple of minor story-arcs and one-or-two mini-series developed and the particularly interesting comic-book covers created got gathered into this collection. Most of the displays found here are the duets of certain classic Marvel comic-book covers (featured large-ish reproductions, with commentary) accompanied by the zombie-fied full-bleed painted homages to those covers by Arthur Suydam. As the infection grew, a few other artists got involved in the fun, and then finally the last part of the book is filled-out with some thematically-related comic covers from the past (Tales Of The Zombie) and the current-day (Zombie). So, this 7.5-by-11 inch book has 104 pages, of which 101 feature their large reproductions (four of those acceptably display two double-page-spreads) and one more page has two images. The 'well-presented' artists here are: David Aja, Kaare Andrews, Terry Austin (2), Juan Bobillo (2), Dan Brown (4), John Buscema (4), John Byrne, Jeromy Cox, Frank D'Armata, Steve Ditko, Ron Frenz, Kyle Hotz (4), Jeffrey Huet, Stuart Immonen, Klaus Janson, Jack Kirby (12), Leonard Kirk, Nic Klein, Greg Land, Clint Langley, Jim Lee (2), Jay Leisten, Aaron Lopresti, Pablo Marcos, Todd McFarlane (3), Ed McGuinness, Frank Miller (2), Takeshi Miyazawa, Earl Norem (7), Ariel Olivetti, Carlo Pagulayan, Yanick Paquette, Stephane Peru, Justin Ponsor, John Romita (4), Joe Simon, Jim Starlin, Peter Steigerwald, Arthur Suydam (33), Michael Turner, Boris Vallejo (4)**, Bob Wiacek, Scott Williams (2), Skottie Young, and Mike Zeck. Note that the book's dustcover has an additional Suydam painting that is not inside.

** - Note that the 'well-presented' pieces by Boris cannot additionally be found so in his own collections on The List.

The Art Of Marvel Comics (2000 - Marvel) Be aware that this is indeed a different book than the two similarly titled ART OF MARVEL vol.1 & 2, and scores a bit better than them as well. No text to speak of, just about every page given over to the art. Note that the dustjacket, front & back covers and inner flaps, exhibit four pieces - by Bill Sienkiewicz, Julie Bell, Ray Lago, and Alec Ross, none of which also appear inside the book. Out of 128 pages, 105 of them each display a large reproduction (eight of those are used for four fold-out double-page-spreads) along with another four pages with multiple paintings pulled together. Unfortunately, ten pages were lost to images turned sideways on the page. Everything is pulled into chapter groupings entitled Spiderman, Marvel Heroes, X-Men, Alex Ross, Moebius, Kent Williams, and Bill Sienkiewicz. There's one drawing and then all the paintings seem to be from special mini-series, story-arcs or other types of projects, most from the 1990s. Each image is captioned with the artist and then who's in them (or sometimes the title of that special project that called them into being). The 'well-presented' artists collected are: Simon Bisley (4), Tim Bradstreet (3), Joe Chiodo**, Gabriele Dell'Otto (6), Glenn Fabry, Jean Giraud (as Moebius) (7), Scott Hampton, Tony Harris, Greg & Tim Hildebrandt**, Daniel Horne**, J.G. Jones, Joe Jusko (5), Adam Kubert, José Ladronn (4), Bob Larkin*, Jae Lee (4), Paul Lee, David Mack (4), Scott McDaniel, Kevin Nowlan, Glen Orbik, Jimmy Palmiotti (4), Brad Parker, Joe Quesada (4), Frank Quitely (2), Alex Ross (13)**, Steve Rude (2), Bill Sienkiewicz (15), Jim Steranko, Mark Texeira, John Watson, Lee Weeks, Kent Williams (11), and Bernie Wrightson.

* - Note that the 'well-presented' piece by Larkin can additionally be found so in his own collection on The List.

** - Note that the 'well-presented' pieces by Ross, Chiodo, Horne, and the Bros. Hildebrandt, cannot additionally be found so in their own collections on The List.

The Art Of Marvel vol.2 (2004 - Marvel) (Edited by Jeff Youngquist) So, this is the better scoring volume of this pair (note that it and its twin are slightly smaller than usual at 7-by-11-inches). The first volume of this pair focused more on expressive paintings by the then-latest generation of Marvel artists - paintings that frequently appeared on the comic covers - while this one fans-out cover art from the middle of the last century thru a little beyond its turn (which means that a little more than half the book *has* to be the colorful covers themselves, rather than the just the pen & ink drawings that underlie them). In other words, we see mostly classic covers as the Marvel Universe was born and then started to take shape & mature, until we get to the 1990s, where painting took over in the area of cover presentation and for the rest of the book we are treated to numerous original images. Oddly, there are fewer artists featured in this volume, but it seems more diverse. Captioning is better in this book, providing what comic & issue bore the cover (if that kind of image) as well as each artist's name. Each of the time-periods around which the chapters are gathered has a single page introduction that tries to elaborate on themes among the highlights and give context to the thru-lines that travel along the whole time. There's more 'well-presented' pieces here, as we score them, broken among these artists: Arthur Adams (2), Mark Bagley (2), Tim Bradstreet, Mark Brooks, Frank Brunner**, Sal Buscema, John Byrne (4), John Cassaday (3), Dave Cockrum, Gene Colan, Clayton Crain, Alan Davis (4), Gabriele Dell'Otto (3), Mike Deodato (3), Terry Dodson, Steve Epling, David Finch, Adi Granov (2), Bryan Hitch, Stuart Immonen, Richard Isanove, Gil Kane (3), Jack Kirby (17), Salvador Larroca (5), Jim Lee (4), Tom Lyle, Mike Mahew, David Mazzucchelli (2), Todd McFarlane (3), Stve McNiven (2), Frank Miller (4), Frank R. Paul, George Pérez, Joe Quesada, Esad Ribic, John Romita [Sr], John Romita-Jr (2), Alex Ross, Michael Ryan, Bill Sienkiewicz (2), Walt Simonson, Herb Trimpe, Boris Vallejo**, Mike Wieringo, and Mike Zeck (2).

** - Note that the 'well-presented' pieces here by Brunner, and Vallejo, cannot additionally be found so in their own collections on The List.

The Art Of Marvel vol.1 (2003 - Marvel) (Edited by Jeff Youngquist) This book is impressively "about the art", 124 pages of it out of the book's 128. Even the double-page spreads were handled nicely, with three-quarters of them ending up very satisfactory. There are bits of text here and there, but as a whole they don't provide much context, the assumption apparently being that the reader is familiar with the characters. The book's sections are The Amazing Spiderman, X-Men, Daredevil, Hulk, Marvel Heroes and Marvel Knights. Unfortunately, such a grouping forces together art images of the same character usually wearing the same iconic costume, which plays against the diversity of having so many different artist's and their own styles represented. Each art piece is captioned with its creator (though including an artist index would have been nice). A vast majority of the art pieces get their own page, giving a great presentation to these artists: Kaare Andrews (4), Mark Bagley (3), Julie Bell**, Tim Bradstreet, J. Scott Campbell, John Cassaday, ChrisCross (2), Richard Corben, Gabriele Dell'Otto, David Finch, Bryan Hitch (2), Greg Horn (8)***, Stuart Immonen, J. G. Jones (3), Joe Jusko, Dale Keown (3), Sam Kieth, Adam Kubert (2), Andy Kubert, Bob Larkin, Salvador Larroca, Jae Lee (4), Joseph Michael Linsner, David Mack (5), Alex Maleev (2), Tom Marvelli (2), Josh Middleton (2), Rudolpho Migliari (2), Glen Orbik, Joe Quesada (11), Frank Quitely (2), Esad Ribic, John Romita Jr. (2), Alex Ross (6), Steve Rude, Tim Sale (2), Bill Sienkiewicz, Mark Texeira, Matt Wagner, and Lee Weeks. Make sure you do not confuse this book with the similarly entitled THE ART OF MARVEL COMICS.

** - Note that Julie Bell's 'well-presented' piece here cannot additionally be found so in her own collections on The List.

*** - Note that in regard to Horn's 'well-presented' pieces here, some, but not all, can additionally be found so in his own collections on The List.

The Marvel Art Of Mike Deodato (2011 - Marvel) A 240-page book divided up into chapters titled Cover Gallery, Bringing The Thunder-Thor, Assassin-Elektra, Meeting The Monster-Hulk, Amazing Artistry-Spiderman, Osborn Unleashed-Thunderbolts, Earth's Mightiest-Avengers, All-New All-Different-Xmen, Sensual Shadows and Closing The Book. Looking away from the many examples of Deodato's sequential art and photos of him working out his dramatic compositions himself, there are still 178 pages dominated by his single-image work, of which 143 are large-reproductions each spanning a page. The endpapers are each a double-page spread that work well, with only half of two internal ones being as successful. The works are all well-captioned with each identifying the inker and/or colorist, if those tasks were not completed by Deodato, and many times the artist injects his own comments about the displayed piece. The text is introduction, biography and commentary, frequently by fellow comics creators, about his artistic progression during his career with the publisher. The subjects of the work gathered are from all over the 'Marvel Universe' of the mid-2000's and there's quite a diversity in place, but some of the perception of that is taken away by the grouping together of the major projects to form the chapters listed above. Many of the pages with a dominant piece of art are, in my opinion, then somewhat cluttered by the insertion of preliminary sketches & thumbnails that were part of the process of creating that particular work. Since this book focuses on a single artist, though grouped with the others here, it has also been given a duplicate entry on its own separate page.

The Photo-Journal Guide To Marvel Comics (A-J) & (K-Z) (1991 - Gerber Publications) (compiled by Ernst & Mary Gerber) (Note that these two books are additionally identified as vols.3 & 4 of the set of the Gerber's Photo-Journals.) The pair was indeed a follow-up to the earlier large general comics tomes, attempting to apply their same process to the huge library of titles produced by Marvel Comics from 1961 through 1985 (along with a sampling of some their releases into the 1990s). They did decide to include only a handful of those considered 'teen' books, restrict the number of Western examples, and turn their back completely on romance titles. They also made a point of not including Marvel magazines or foreign editions - the second book has two pages showing some samples of both. They score with near ideal manageability for this large 13.5-by-10-inch size. Anyway, you'll find 170 pages of cover reproductions in the first book and 158 in the second. No full-page reproductions here, the largest found are where some of the pages display their covers as large as to allow only 16 on a page. The introductory pages here are a lot of information about cataloging 'system' the Gerber's developed and aspects of comic collecting, while speaking directly to what the couple have perceived Marvel as pioneering in their storytelling approach. The second book has an artist index that one will find useful, but know that nearly 30 years ago the data about cover artists was clearly not as extensive as it is now. The arcane nature of the development of Marvel's production logistics lends itself to confusion - for example, the covers of the Thor series is *not* in the second book, but rather in the first, because it started within a series entitled Journey Into Mystery and then took it over, continuing its numbering without a break. The quality of the reproduction continues, even in the images as small as to be 36 to a page. (This duplicates the entry appearing on the Photo-Journals page.)