Customer Reviews

The DC Comics Guide to Inking Comics

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Simply put, this is the best book on inking I've read. Don't waste your money on other books, buy Jansen's and Miller's and learn everything you need to know.

The book doesn't stop with instruction on techniques, tools, and materials, but gives you some great tips such as why you should keep your ink bottle in an ashtray!

Anyone who has ever laboured under the misapprehension that comic book inking is just 'going over a proper artists drawing with a pen' is finally shown the error of their ways as Jansen and Miller demonstrate what a fine art inking is when practiced correctly. Moreover, this is a DC guide to inking, not a guide to inking DC characters. Once you've read this and got some practice in, you'll be able to ink everything from cartoons to the most cutting-edge comic book characters.

Great text, great illustrations, what's stopping you?

Buy it now!

I've read a lot of books on how-to-do comic art, some on writing and publishing, and this book stood out as soon as I began reading it. Last night I finished, and have to recommend this as the best book I ever read on the subject of comic book inking, and there is little need to improve over it as a feast of information. What Janson leaves out can be found in other books, but he carved the meat off the bone where others before were clawing off unappetizing chunks.

Absolutely brilliant tips, tricks and approaches are found in these pages. The reviewer that calls this book 'preachy' merely is set to stumble into the holes awaiting most comic book artists on their way to mediocrity. Janson's primary lesson through every chapter is TO CONVEY INFORMATION TO THE COMIC READER. An inker clarifies and improves on the pencils, tightens them, and makes sure the storytelling in improved from pencils if not maintaining. Inside he covers light and dark, feathering, line weight, textures, and other basics that just aren't touched on in other books with the insight Klaus provides. And to help, he provides lots of lush B&W inked art from a period that probably influenced him - the Adams/Giordano/Wrightson/Kane period of DC comics. He also compared pencils to inks with more current art he inked over from Kane and Miller.

While Janson's own ink style is rough and appears heavy handed, it does everything it has to with grit. Sometimes the art cries out, "USE THE CIRCLE TEMPLATE!!" but over all it demonstrates how he thinks in planning textures, placement of black and white or tone, and use of feathering to describe form. What the neo-Amero-Japo-manga artists need to learn, as does any art student going anywhere, is that art books give you information, and the more information they give you then the more their worth. Super enticing, glossy, sex bent art work should be reserved for the books people buy to enjoy the art and story, not the training manuals telling you info you use to plug into your own work. Janson hit it right on with this book, the rest is left up to you to DO and IMPROVE.

Other books with good inking information - "Marvel Way" by Lee/Buscema has nice beginning info, and quick but pertinent info on weak and strong inking examples. "Rendering in Pen and Ink" by Guptill is a genius book on how to render and draw in ink for illustrators (or comic artists). "How To Draw Manga: Pen & Tone Techniques" by Ryo Touda handles a brilliant look at manga pens and tones. Everything else I fail to mention by name because it really isn't worth buying. You can put together a foundation of inking information with these 4 books that can't be beat at any art school in the nation.

This book isn't so much a guide to inking as the title would have you think, rather, it's more of a reference.

Normally, this would cause me to give a book like this a 3 rating, but the redeeming qualities caused a change of heart.

The guidance it does give works so well with the pictures in the book, that I would dare say that a person who is interested in inking should definately pick this one up. And when you do, read it, and draw as much in it as possible. Learning comes by doing. The more you ink, the better you'll get. And I feel this book gives the neccessary lessons, to take your inking to the next level.

-Matt

Klaus Janson has been working in the comic book profession for decades. He is a proficient inker, but not the best author of instructional books. There are some good tips in this book, but you have to slog through his wordy and preachy writing style to find them. I haven't read any other books that are devoted solely to comic book inking so I can't recommend a perfect alternative, but here is one suggestion. Andy Smith devotes nineteen pages to inking in his book Drawing Dynamic Comics, which is excellent. You can get almost as much out of those nineteen pages as you can out of Klaus' whole book. If you pick up a copy of Smith's book and one of the many books about pen and ink that aren't specifically related to comics, you should do quite well.

On the one hand, this book will give you every practical bit of information you'll need to, basically, critique your own inking and bring it up to an acceptable level. This book is appropriate for the novice artist.
Unfortunately, there is almost nothing inspiring about this book, including the art.
DC has had some tremendous inkers, which you'd expect from such a large company with such a long tenure. But you'd also expect that the bulk of the work from a large company would be average and unnotable. It is in the latter category into which this book falls.
It was written and the bulk of it illustrated by two stalwarts of the industry, who have done tremendous work in the past.
But the image on the cover - of two breasts charging at you - pretty much sends the worst, loudest message the comic book industry has: No depth, just something to grab your attention.
What certainly isn't shown or described, except for the 3 or 4 images by Berni Wrightson, are examples of careful, beautiful, meticulous artwork. Sadly, that IS the kind of work that is predominantly seen in comic books today. What disappoints me is that the best work is not what this book is about.

I've read some of the other reviews on this product, and I agree that it's hard to find core rules of inking when sorting through Klaus Jansen's "preachy" style of writing. It also doesn't expand a great deal on anything that wasn't laid down already in "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way" by Stan Lee. However, I would say that Klaus' experience shows through his writing. The images that he provides in the book, along with the blurbs he writes with them, are far more instructional that the main parts of the text. The main parts come off as a stream-of-consiousness that switches between the subject of inking comics and working in the industry as a whole.

Long story short, it covers the basic tenets of inking, but also gives a lesson spread throughout about working in comics as a whole. I did learn some things to try in my own artwork, but nothing that changed it a great deal. Still a good reference for an aspiring comics artist like myself.

I do recommend this book for anyone interested in comics, whether or not you're into writing, penciling, inking, coloring, or just reading. Inking, I think, is one of the most underappreciated art in comics because it really is the one of the most defining characteristics of the medium, as the book will explain. Much of the look and feel of comics is transmitted directly through the inking. The book shows, through example inked comic pages, the different effects (mood, weight, shadow, color, texture, etc.) which inking can create in a page, and generally how to go about achieving them. The only reason I didn't give it five stars was because it's a bit short and I think it could've been made beneficially longer if they had added some tutorials or exercises which could help with the different techniques that are described. Especially for techniques like feathering and cross hatching for texture and shadow it would've been a bigger help to have examples or drills which the artist could perform to increase their skill. Other than that, the reading was laid back and so interesting that you'll find yourself remembering parts of this book for long after you set it down, especially if you practice your inking. Enjoy!!!!

This second book in the DC Comics master class on comic book creation is this volume on inking from Klaus Janson - author of the first volume on pencilling. Once again, a huge amount of information and valuable wisdom has been packed into what might seem like a very "text heavy" book, but delving deeper I found priceless nuggets of information on how to improve my own style.

One example - the answer to the age-old dilema of "do you use a pen or a brush" - is given in the sentence "the hard metal point of a pen might best be used to ink drawings of hard and metallic shapes . . . (while) . . . any shape that has a softer element to it can be handled very well with a brush." Now why didn't I think of that?!!

Once again, as with the pencilling book, Klaus Janson presents a serious advanced manual for serious artists. Not perhaps the step-by-step DIY book that beginners might need, but definitely a treasure trove of ideas, experiece and inspiration from a master artist in his field.

Highly recommended.

Janson gives a well written breakdown of the techniques needed to develop into a good inking. He discusses the finer points of story telling through the medium of illustration and uses a wide range of artists he admires as examples. It has become one of my go to books when drawing storyboards. This book, as well as his one on penciling is a must for anyone seriously interested in illustration.

This book is excellent for those who love to draw cartoons and comics although it may be a bit confusing for a novice. The bright colors in the Superman comic books and the Sunday morning funnies drew me to doodling my own cartoons as a kid. Often I stared at my efforts, a bit disappointed in the results, and wondered, "How did they do that?" Thanks to this book, now I know. Mr. Janson has both practical knowledge and experience doing this. He's an expert in the field and I found his book to be the best I've ever read on inking comics.