Book Review: The Marvel Art of Mike Deodato

One artist, hardcover, 240 pages. The Marvel Art of Mike Deodato is in pretty much the same format as other artist art books Marvel published recently, like The Marvel Art Of Marko Djurdjevic and The Marvel Art Of Joe Quesada.

Although Mike Deodato has a career in comics spanning more than 2 decades, the majority of work featured here are from 2002 to 2010.

The first chapter is dedicated to a selection of covers from that time. There are works from, just to name a few, Amazing Spider-Man, Dark Avengers, She-Hulk, Tigra, Punisher, Wolverine, X-Men, etc.

The later chapters are each dedicated to bigger titles, namely Thor, Elektra, Hulk, Spider-man, Thunderbolts, Avengers, X-Men, and a chapter collecting some other titles.

The art is fantastic of course, characterised by what the editors would say, "Tight pencils". The covers are nicely printed large, with the white space occasionally filled by the inked versions or pencils. You'll see quite a lot of pieces beautifully coloured by Rain Beredo. This is a best-of-the-best collection after all, so some covers have to be left out. There are a couple of pages on interior panel art.

I like the play on title logos when he's given the freedom to do so, especially those from the She-Hulk series. A nice one is of a villain holding a big slate of concrete HULK logo aiming at She-hulk. I also like the Spider-man and X-men art.

The text comes in the form of first person commentary and also quotes from other artists. There's quite a bit on his background. If you're wondering what's deal with him and Deodato studios, it's all in the interview as well. It's interesting to find out that he's into martial arts as a sport.

Splendid art book.

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