Customer Reviews

Drawing Down the Moon: The Art of Charles Vess

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Length:: 0:29 Mins

I like Charles Vess' style. The scenes and images are magical, watercolours are beautiful, and there's a classic feel to his art. He's perfect for illustrating fantasy stories. By the way, he was won three Eisner Awards among others.

Drawing Down the Moon is a well constructed hardcover from Dark Horse. There are 200 pages and a couple are translucent with line art that overlays on the finished coloured piece beneath on the next page. Unfortunately, the overlay is just slightly misaligned, for my copy.

Over two hundred pieces of paintings and comic art are featured, from covers, comics, private commissions and personal pieces, along with them notes from Charle Vess. Creating enchanting backgrounds and fairytale characters is his specialty. So much so that it makes you want to find out more about the story after looking at the pictures.

He has created a whole lot of art for countless publications. The most notable ones are probably the paintings he did for Neil Gaiman's Stardust, which was made into a movie (I love that movie!). A few of the 175 pieces created for Stardust are featured here, not the concept art though. He's able to capture Neil Gaiman's imagination perfectly and make them come real.

The book finishes off with an interesting look at his creation process, how he handles a commissioned project, though there are no pictures of how he actually paints.

This is an inspiring retrospective for Charles Vess. Highly recommended to fantasy artists.

(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

I have been a big fan of Charles Vess for over a decade and have a first edition copy of Stardust that I bought when it was first published, as well as some of his other work. So I was very excited to see this book listed and originally ordered it over 2 years ago when I first saw it on Amazon. It was definitely worth the wait. What incredibly beautiful work! I am so drawn to Charles' unique style, which never ceases to amaze me. It strikes me as an interesting blend between the old-fashioned and classic, but with a fresh twist that sets it apart from anything else. This book is a fascinating look at the progression of his work over many years, with insights into his remarkable career thus far. If you appreciate quality artwork and fantasy art in particular, then treat yourself to this wonderful book; you're bound to fall in love with it, just as I did.

This is a large (9.25" x 12.25") 200 page hard back book. Every page has beautiful examples of Charles Vess' artwork, often the full size of the page. The artwork includes both his color and ink work. Vess has included some narration of his career history and insights into some of the pieces. Chapters are separated by heavy vellum pages.

Charles Vess seems so familiar with the worlds of Faerie and magic that it makes you wonder what really goes on in those Virginia foothills he calls home...
Drawing Down The Moon is an absolute necessity for anyone who has ever longed for a peek into the worlds that exist just out of our sight.

A beautifully designed retrospective of Charles Vess' 35-year-plus career. From unpublished early and personal work to his latest collaborations with some of the finest fantasy writers working in the field, Vess' style in line and a rich palette of colored inks would be very much at home in the Golden Age of fantastic illustration. His work can be compared to the likes of Dulac, Rackham and Robinson in the late 19th and early 20th c. but he can just as compellingly illustrate today's children's books, comics, mythic fiction and urban fantasy. This book is an absolute treasure; long overdue. Highly recommended.

I've been a fan of Charles Vess since his days doing The Warriors Three for Marvel Fanfare waaaaay back in the early 1980's, so it's great to see a big, meaty collection of his artwork that spans his entire career. The selection of images used is almost perfect (If only there were another hundred pages.....), and the colors look amazing. Dark Horse has done an exemplary job here, and fans of Vess will spend hours poring over this book and studying all of the artwork in detail. Great stuff!

Assembling never-before, rare and limited-edition art from his amazing career - as well as classic favourites from his varied projects, Charles Vess allows his fans and enthusiasts everywhere a glimpse into his wonderful, wonderous and dangerously beautiful realm of imagination. Splash-pages, personal notes and insight make this compendium an essential piece of any art collection. Don't miss out on it.

I was very impressed by the size and quality of the book right off. Shiny printed cover rather than a dust jacket, and glossy thick pages. All my Vess favorites are in there as well as previously unpublished pieces and background info on the artist. Phenomenal!

Charles Vess has been one of the preeminent American fantasy artists for over thirty years. In this new collection from Dark Horse, four decades of Vess' whimsical fantasy and comic book are on display in a handsome, hardcover volume. This includes some of Vess' most early work from the 1970s which has never been previously published. To me, Vess is the consummate fantasy artist. His work has an eldritch and lyrical quality to it that seems to come naturally. His illustrations of the Fairie Realm are the standard by which all other artists should be judged. Yet it is his comic book work that Vess has perhaps found his greatest success.

Included within are some of his best-known cover work including Web of Spider-Man #1 with its gothic setting of Spider-Man perched atop a pair of gargoyles; his many covers for DC's Swamp Thing and The Spectre, and his work with Neil Gaiman on The Books of Magic. Also included are examples of Vess' work for novels, gaming products, children's books, theater posters and albums. His Theater Bristol illustrations especially are gorgeous and capture the look and feel of earth 20th century American folk art.

Vess provides a commentary on many of the pieces inside and each illustration is noted with title, year, and art form used. This is an astonishing edition devoted to a true master of fantasy.

I haven't had a chance to read the text yet, but as soon as I pulled it out of the box I sat down and absorbed the pictures on every page. I really like the chapter heading pages with the transparent page before it. The layout is really good and so is the printing quality. It's just a fantastic art book brimming with Vess' beautiful works. Even his Spiderman stuff is pretty.