THE ART OF VAMPIRELLA
The Art of Vampirella [May 2013]
Standard cover - Dave Stevens
[Writer - Davide Barzi : Art - Many including Frank Frazetta, Joe Jusko, J. Scott Campbell and Jae Lee]
This is a huge, hardcover book with over 230 pages. Everything is the best quality and it is a pleasure to hold it in your hands. Once you have read it you just want to start all over and read it again.
Davide Barzi provides an introduction to Vampirella with an emphasis on the Warren era followed by some of the best Vampirella artwork ever.
Though many artists' work are shown there are some featured artists. Specific artists with their own section including interviews and biographies are:-
- Adam Hughes.
- Joe Jusko.
- Amanda Conner.
- Jae Lee.
I was surprised that Mark Texeira and Mike Mayhew didn't have their own dedicated section but there is plenty of their work in the book. José Gonzalez was well covered in the initial section so it would have been superfluous to have a dedicated section for him.
Towards the end there is a short story - Lust for Life [Writer - Ty Templeton : Artist - Bruce Timm] (reprinted from Vampirella #20 - 1999) - and interviews with Kurt Busiek and Alan Moore.
Personal preferences being what they are, there are some pages of art that appeal to me more than others.
It would be almost impossible to select a single piece of art as a favourite but one page that did leap out at me was the Stephen Segovia cover B from Vampirella Quarterly (Summer 2007) as it is so vibrant and full of life.
