17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A showcase of manga prowess, November 23, 2008
This review is from: Sumi (Vagabond Illustration Collection) (Paperback)
Length:: 0:26 Mins
The edition published by Viz Media is soft cover with a dust jacket. But the cover is actually quick thick and hardy. There are 164 pages to give this book a nice thickness.
This is the art book by Inoue Takehiko. It's based off the manga Vagabond. If you like the manga and the line art, this book is definitely for you. It contains many black and white full page illustrations, some of which comes from panels in the comic book.
The illustrations, when blown up to full page, show an incredible amount of detail. I'm talking about details in brush strokes, textures, line art and cross hatching. It's a showcase of technical prowess with manga ink. Every page is a delight.
At the end of the book are two very interesting pages. One is a full page photo of his workplace. The other is a collage of photos on his tools. There is a Stevie Wonder CD among his collection of CDs.
This book has no captions. It doesn't need them.
Fans of Inoue Takehiko or his comic should find this book very satisfying.
There are two art books released based on the Vagabond comic. This is one of them. The other is called Water: Vagabond Illustration Collection which contains water colour illustrations. Check out the my review for that too.
(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Da Vinci of Comics, September 15, 2008
This review is from: Sumi (Vagabond Illustration Collection) (Paperback)
Before having this set of artbooks in my sweaty, trembling hands, I used to think that Takehiko Inoue was one of the greatest comic artist of the last couple of decades. Now I see what a fool I was: Inoue is in fact the best comic artist of all time.
No Katsuhiro Otomo, no Moebius, no Manara, no Frank Miller (in the good old days), no Bradstreet, no Kirby, no Breccia (Sr), no Tezuka, no Lee, no Hitch, no Cassaday or Quitely can top this unleashed beast of pencils, inks and brushes that Takehiko Inoue is.
This man is the Leonardo Da Vinci of comics.
Now let's talk about the editions, and let's talk about the set of them, because it's nonsense to only buy one, you have to have both.
These editions are from another planet. And that's it. Never before have I seen such a printing quality in my life. The definition and sharpness of those images will just cut you to the very bone, just as deep Musashi would. The effort that the people of Viz put in these books is really commendable: the moment I opened them I was struck by an intensity of black so pure and strong that I felt I was looking at the fu**ing originals.
And the COLORS... I won't even talk about the colors, because there is no point in describing them: I could waste an entire dictionary of adjectives and never get close to make justice to this palette and the quality of its impression. These color, you have to see them for yourself.
I know I may sound excessive, but I repeat you, the quiality of this printings is superior to anything I've seen before (not even in Taschen deluxe editions can beat The Water and The Sumi).
The paper, of course, is beautiful, as white as it gets. And the smells is splendid, too.
Oh, one last thing... these books are not hardcovers. However, the sleeves -of very nice quality- are much more thick than any given paperback. So all in all, it's a perfect edition and this should not frighten you away from getting them. The price is more than fair, believe me, now that I've seen it for myself, I'd be willing to pay for this set with my very own internal organs.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Sumi (vagabond illustration collection), February 19, 2012
This review is from: Sumi (Vagabond Illustration Collection) (Paperback)
This book is filled with very beautiful and detailed sumi artwork from the manga Vagabond. The book cover is slightly thicker than a normal paperback book. There is a dust jacket. Most of the 158 pages of art is black and white but some are colored pages (for example, a red colored background with black and white art) to change the mood. Takehiko Inoue did a really good job picking the paper the artwork should be printed on for this book. This book captures the details (all the strokes, lines, brush stoke movement) of some of the earlier Vagabond manga volumes. The more recent Vagabond mangas (artwork not in this collection) seem to have less detail and looked really rushed.
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