{"id":15298,"date":"2016-10-04T08:25:08","date_gmt":"2016-10-04T08:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=15298"},"modified":"2016-10-04T08:25:08","modified_gmt":"2016-10-04T08:25:08","slug":"the-art-of-sean-phillips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2016\/10\/04\/the-art-of-sean-phillips\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of Sean Phillips"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Sean Phillips<\/strong>, Eddie Robson<\/strong> and various (Dynamite Entertainment)
\nISBN: 978-1-60690-420-6<\/p>\n

Win’s Christmas Recommendation: A Magical Trawl through Fan-favourite Moments\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 9\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sean Phillips started selling comic strips in 1980. He was 15 years old, still at school and for all intents and purposes \u00e2\u20ac\u0153living the dream\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. He’s been doing it ever since, with dedication, professionalism and ever-increasing proficiency.<\/p>\n

This magnificent oversized (234 x 310 mm) hardback reproduces hundreds of comics pages and covers, plus an assortment of out-industry artwork, as accompaniment to an astonishingly forthright extended interview and career retrospective of the phenomenally talented and terrifying dedicated illustrator, covering his earliest cartooning efforts right through to his next big thing. There’s even baby pictures and school work. Of course Sean and his friends did make their first professional strip sale – to the local newspaper – when they were twelve\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Compiled by Phillips and writer and journalist Eddie Robson, with contributions from fellow artists, writers and editors the artist worked with over the decades, the book includes an Introduction<\/em> from co-conspirator Ed Brubaker and offers many complete strips fans will probably never have seen.<\/p>\n

As well as many unpublished works the gallery of visual wonder include early strips on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Girls\u00e2\u20ac\u009d comics and Annuals such as Bunty<\/strong>, Judy<\/strong> and Diana For Girls<\/strong> as well as college work, try-out pages and portfolio pieces created with the sole purpose of getting into the cool mainstream\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Phillips is equally adept with paints and pen-&-ink and the book tracks his career as a jobbing artist through Bunty to early \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mature reader\u00e2\u20ac\u009d title Crisis (<\/strong>Crisis<\/em>, New Statesmen<\/em>, Straitgate<\/em>)<\/strong>, 2000AD <\/strong>and The Megazine <\/strong>(Armitage<\/em>, Devlin Waugh<\/em>), and that crucial jump to America as part of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153British Invasion\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; producing features and one-offs at Vertigo and becoming part of the initial intake who launched and cemented the radical imprint’s look. Of particular interest and strongly emphasised are his runs on Kid Eternity<\/strong>, Hellblazer<\/strong> and The Invisibles<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The longed-for move into super-heroics began with Batman<\/strong>, a sidestep into Star Wars<\/strong> and back to Spider-Man<\/strong>. Early hints of later specialisation can be spotted in Scene of the Crime<\/strong>, Gotham Noir <\/strong>and Sleeper<\/strong>, but he was also busy with Wildcats<\/strong> and X-Men<\/strong>. He truly became a major name through the monumental sensation that was Marvel Zombies<\/strong>, but more attention here is paid to poorer-selling critical hit and career crossroads Criminal<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The parade of pictorial perfection continues with finished pages and original art from many more titles including User<\/strong>, Intersections<\/strong>, Incognito<\/strong> and more, strips and covers for licensed titles such as Serenity<\/strong>, Predator<\/strong>, Stephen King’s The Dark Tower<\/strong> spin-offs and for classic film repackager Criterion<\/em>. Other non-comics work includes true lost gems such as political strip ‘Right Behind You’ <\/em>from The Sunday Herald<\/strong> depicting how a certain meeting between George W. Bush and Tony Blair probably went as a certain invasion was discussed\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The comics conversation concludes with sneaky peeks at then-upcoming projects Fatale<\/strong> and European album Void 01<\/strong> and we know just how damn good those both turned out\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Also sporting a healthy Bibliography<\/em> section, heartfelt Acknowledgements<\/em> and a Biography page, this massively entertaining, vibrant tome is as much an incisive and philosophical treatise on work-ethic as celebration of a stellar career telling stories in pictures: a beautiful, breathtaking and brilliantly inspirational compendium for the next generation of artists and writers, whatever their age.<\/p>\n

If you already have the urge to make pictures but want a little encouragement, this rousing celebration offers all the encouragement you could possibly hope for – and is just plain lovely to look at too.
\n\u00c2\u00a9 2013 Dynamite Entertainment. All artworks, characters, images and contributions \u00c2\u00a9 their respective creators or holders. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sean Phillips, Eddie Robson and various (Dynamite Entertainment) ISBN: 978-1-60690-420-6 Win’s Christmas Recommendation: A Magical Trawl through Fan-favourite Moments\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 9\/10 Sean Phillips started selling comic strips in 1980. He was 15 years old, still at school and for all intents and purposes \u00e2\u20ac\u0153living the dream\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. He’s been doing it ever since, with dedication, professionalism … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Art of Sean Phillips”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[81,42,75,66,108,107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-books","category-best-of-british","category-crime-comics","category-horror-stories","category-miscellaneous-superhero","category-science-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-3YK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15298\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}