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Graphic Ink: The DC Comics Art of Frank Quitely
Frank Quitely's amazing, finely detailed artwork has been gracing the pages of DC Comics since he began illustrating stories in THE BIG BOOK series, from DC's Paradox Press imprint, in the mid-90's. Quitely quickly earned a name for himself illustrating fellow Scotsman Grant Morrison's FLEX MENTALLO, JLA EARTH 2, as well as Neil Gaiman's ENDLESS NIGHTS.
Graphic The DC Comics Art of Frank Quitely collects all of Quitely's BIG BOOK stories, his ALL STAR SUPERMAN and BATMAN & REBORN covers and much, much more!
Graphic The DC Comics Art of Frank Quitely collects all of Quitely's BIG BOOK stories, his ALL STAR SUPERMAN and BATMAN & REBORN covers and much, much more!
368 pages, Hardcover
First published June 24, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
January 24, 2016
This oversized hardcover - perfect for coffee tables - contains a great selection of some of Frank Quitely's earlier stuff, short stories, Batman: Scottish Connection, and the more recent 3-issue run of Batman Reborn with Grant Morrison. I liked most of the stories included in this collection - especially the ones in black & white (from Paradox Press' Big Book of... series of books); also included are a lot of cover art for a number of different series - however, conspicuously absent from these are the covers that Frank Quitely did for Bite Club, which were as good as anything else found in this book.
July 26, 2014
This is a superb book that collects some of the best art of one of the top 5 modern comic artist.
The book is well done in that it mixes cover art and self contained comic stories ( I never knew Quitely drew so many short stories) so it can be read by itself without hardly any knowledge of DC universe needed.
As a bonus there are a couple of previously unpublished pieces ( not many to be honest, the best one being the variant for All Star Batman and Robin that was never released and graces the front cover of this book).
My only regret is that we get every cover Quitely drew for All Star Superman but none of the inside art.
The book is well done in that it mixes cover art and self contained comic stories ( I never knew Quitely drew so many short stories) so it can be read by itself without hardly any knowledge of DC universe needed.
As a bonus there are a couple of previously unpublished pieces ( not many to be honest, the best one being the variant for All Star Batman and Robin that was never released and graces the front cover of this book).
My only regret is that we get every cover Quitely drew for All Star Superman but none of the inside art.
July 6, 2014
Absolutely outstanding art book.
July 3, 2023
a collection of different works drawn by Frank Quitely (none of the works here are written by him, some comics are black and white and others in color). some of them from DC comics (mainly Batman) and others from different series and books he worked on. and scattered across the book are some covers he worked on, (covers I loved: Vamps: Pumpkin time, Transmetropolitan #6, The Authority, his rendition of The Endless, Batman & Robin, the robo cat and dog and bunny, all his covers for Batman and Robin). Truly a great read!
1- The Physicist and the flying saucers: a black and white comic about Bob Lazar, a real figure in America and one of the main people advocating to conspiracy theories about aliens and area 51 in nevada. I didn't know about him before reading this comic
2- New toys: toy story but make it horror! the last panel will keep me up at night!
3- A visit with the hanging judge: no, thank you. literally a judge who was famous for hanging people talking about the different hangings in the US.
4- Salvador dali: a biography of salvador dali, would have loved to see full-pages art of some of his paintings.
5- The Heroic Revenge Fantasy: a short revenge story. I mean, I can't deny that I've had similar fantasies.
6- The Elephant man: really sad, about the life of the "elephant man", who I heard a little about. a man who had many diformities that made life cruel to him.
7- Romancing the Stone: a story about a man who's in love with stone. he gets turned on by anthing stony. streets, statues, anything at all. it's funny at times and really disturbing at times.
8- The Cottingsley Fairy Photos: loved this! a story of two cousins and how they supposedly took pictures of fairies. also based of course on real people and events.
9- Your special day: a mafia story and a wedding story. told through photographs from a wedding from the point of view of a hired killer. very engaging.
10- Ma Barker: interesting story about a criminal family of sons and their mother in the US.
11- Immune: this was terrifying. a story of a plague and immune people, and how the first symptom isn't physical, it's the paranoia. a little bit genius in my opinion.
12- Pavel Navratsky's Pig Pen: an interesting story about a Ukrainian man hiding from the Russian troops and a sad conclusion to his story. reminds me of the classical story about the man who spent around 40 years asleep and went back to his village and found everything changed.
13- Nice Neighbourhood: huh. this was interesting. geezers in a zombie-like state caused by something like viagra. I mean, it's a lesson in getting old.
14- St. Polycarp: The Cult of Saints: religious story about an old saint. liked the art but the story was too short. a small biography piece.
15- Batman: Scottish Connection: there's some gorgeous art in this one, also it's nice to read a Batman adventure outside of Gotham. this one incorporates myths and legends and scottish heritage.
16- Flexibility: about the funny superhero "Offspring" whose super power is flexibility to take any shape and control his body any way he wants, reminds me of Reed Richards from the Fantastic Four. but I loved the aspect of father-son duo, I don't see it much in superhero teams.
17- Watching You: well, this was horrific. a real horror tale of obsession and love and addiction.
18- Glitterdammerung!: this one was too weird for me.
19- Destiny: I'm in love with his art for The Sandman and his portrayl of the Endless. has to be one of my favorite artists drawing these characters. this was perfection.
20- Batman Reborn, part one: in this story, Bruce is dead and Dick Grayson (one of our old Robins and previously known as Nightwing) takes his place, with Damian by his side as Robin.
21- Batman Reborn, part two: delving a lot into the psychology of Damian and Dick, and how each of them deals differently with losing Bruce.
22- Batman Reborn: part three: a bad-ass ending, and it makes me want to continue reading that series
23- Time and the Batman: Today: very short, and we're still with Nightwing as Batman, and Bruce isn't in the picture. also keeping the legacy of "where Batman was born" alive.
24- Snapshot: Revelation! while many of the stories don't really require a lot of background info, I felt totally lost reading this one.
1- The Physicist and the flying saucers: a black and white comic about Bob Lazar, a real figure in America and one of the main people advocating to conspiracy theories about aliens and area 51 in nevada. I didn't know about him before reading this comic
2- New toys: toy story but make it horror! the last panel will keep me up at night!
3- A visit with the hanging judge: no, thank you. literally a judge who was famous for hanging people talking about the different hangings in the US.
4- Salvador dali: a biography of salvador dali, would have loved to see full-pages art of some of his paintings.
5- The Heroic Revenge Fantasy: a short revenge story. I mean, I can't deny that I've had similar fantasies.
6- The Elephant man: really sad, about the life of the "elephant man", who I heard a little about. a man who had many diformities that made life cruel to him.
7- Romancing the Stone: a story about a man who's in love with stone. he gets turned on by anthing stony. streets, statues, anything at all. it's funny at times and really disturbing at times.
8- The Cottingsley Fairy Photos: loved this! a story of two cousins and how they supposedly took pictures of fairies. also based of course on real people and events.
9- Your special day: a mafia story and a wedding story. told through photographs from a wedding from the point of view of a hired killer. very engaging.
10- Ma Barker: interesting story about a criminal family of sons and their mother in the US.
11- Immune: this was terrifying. a story of a plague and immune people, and how the first symptom isn't physical, it's the paranoia. a little bit genius in my opinion.
12- Pavel Navratsky's Pig Pen: an interesting story about a Ukrainian man hiding from the Russian troops and a sad conclusion to his story. reminds me of the classical story about the man who spent around 40 years asleep and went back to his village and found everything changed.
13- Nice Neighbourhood: huh. this was interesting. geezers in a zombie-like state caused by something like viagra. I mean, it's a lesson in getting old.
14- St. Polycarp: The Cult of Saints: religious story about an old saint. liked the art but the story was too short. a small biography piece.
15- Batman: Scottish Connection: there's some gorgeous art in this one, also it's nice to read a Batman adventure outside of Gotham. this one incorporates myths and legends and scottish heritage.
16- Flexibility: about the funny superhero "Offspring" whose super power is flexibility to take any shape and control his body any way he wants, reminds me of Reed Richards from the Fantastic Four. but I loved the aspect of father-son duo, I don't see it much in superhero teams.
17- Watching You: well, this was horrific. a real horror tale of obsession and love and addiction.
18- Glitterdammerung!: this one was too weird for me.
19- Destiny: I'm in love with his art for The Sandman and his portrayl of the Endless. has to be one of my favorite artists drawing these characters. this was perfection.
20- Batman Reborn, part one: in this story, Bruce is dead and Dick Grayson (one of our old Robins and previously known as Nightwing) takes his place, with Damian by his side as Robin.
21- Batman Reborn, part two: delving a lot into the psychology of Damian and Dick, and how each of them deals differently with losing Bruce.
22- Batman Reborn: part three: a bad-ass ending, and it makes me want to continue reading that series
23- Time and the Batman: Today: very short, and we're still with Nightwing as Batman, and Bruce isn't in the picture. also keeping the legacy of "where Batman was born" alive.
24- Snapshot: Revelation! while many of the stories don't really require a lot of background info, I felt totally lost reading this one.
May 25, 2015
I believe my first exposure to Frank Quitely's art was most likely in All-Star Superman. At that point I was more interested in the characters than I was in the creative teams so I didn't totally appreciate it. It wasn't until his run on Batman & Robin with Grant Morrisson that I really started paying attention to his work and realized how much I liked it.
This art book, like other ones that DC has put out, isn't in my favorite format. Instead of being filled with sketches, and covers, and pages, it's mainly reprinting old issues. Yes there are a lot of covers included, and yes all the art in those issues is great. Unfortunately I find reading one random issue here and there can just be confusing and mess up the flow of the book.
This art book, like other ones that DC has put out, isn't in my favorite format. Instead of being filled with sketches, and covers, and pages, it's mainly reprinting old issues. Yes there are a lot of covers included, and yes all the art in those issues is great. Unfortunately I find reading one random issue here and there can just be confusing and mess up the flow of the book.
December 27, 2018
Librote en formato gigante que incluye cronológicamente muchos trabajos de Quitely para DC, incluyendo los del sello Vertigo. Entre otras cosas este tomote incluye: historias para la colección The Big Book of... (del difunto sello Paradox Press), tapas de Flex Mentallo, All Star Superman y otros, e historias de Batman, Batman & Robin, The Kingdom, antologías, etc.
February 8, 2022
This collection is so beautiful I am sad that the Graphic Ink line ended so abruptly (before Jim Lee and Gary Frank's came out). I also have the Darwyn Cooke one which I highly recommend.
To start - Quitely's art is not for everyone. I know because I hear other comic lovers say that. However, I have always loved his style. It is unique, it is beautiful to my eye and it evokes emotions in me like almost no other artist. I understand why it isn't for everyone because it is very extreme and different, but it is for me.
This collection collects a lot of DC work he did that wouldn't fit into another collection. For his best work get JLA Earth 2 or All Star Superman collections. But the size of this - the colours - the way we get to see his style evolve is a a revelation. Even the early work that is a lot of short stories about true life figures or short horror stories were so much fun to see and read. Beyond Frank's art there are a lot of great stories in this collection.
The stand outs - to me are a full length Scottish Batman tale I had never heard of, and a Batman and Robin three parter.
The weakest one was The Invisibles story which - out of context - makes zero sense (but the art is still great). And reminds me why I could never get into The Invisibles by Grant Morrison.
Overall - I couldn't be happier with this collection. Quitely's art has never looked so good. The only thing that makes me sad is this Artist centric line of graphic novels was cancelled prematurely.
To start - Quitely's art is not for everyone. I know because I hear other comic lovers say that. However, I have always loved his style. It is unique, it is beautiful to my eye and it evokes emotions in me like almost no other artist. I understand why it isn't for everyone because it is very extreme and different, but it is for me.
This collection collects a lot of DC work he did that wouldn't fit into another collection. For his best work get JLA Earth 2 or All Star Superman collections. But the size of this - the colours - the way we get to see his style evolve is a a revelation. Even the early work that is a lot of short stories about true life figures or short horror stories were so much fun to see and read. Beyond Frank's art there are a lot of great stories in this collection.
The stand outs - to me are a full length Scottish Batman tale I had never heard of, and a Batman and Robin three parter.
The weakest one was The Invisibles story which - out of context - makes zero sense (but the art is still great). And reminds me why I could never get into The Invisibles by Grant Morrison.
Overall - I couldn't be happier with this collection. Quitely's art has never looked so good. The only thing that makes me sad is this Artist centric line of graphic novels was cancelled prematurely.
January 8, 2021
after like halfway through, i stopped actually reading the comics and just flipped through looking at the pictures. it's a good book for if you're interested in comics, like it could maybe be a good intro if you're not sure what you're looking for, but i also felt like they just weren't the best comics that could've been chosen. also, the art style was clearly well done, but not really my favorite style. the low rating is less indicative of the actual quality of the book; ultimately i think it probably just wasn't for me, but it's definitely for some people out there
April 25, 2021
Absolutely fantastic. This showcases magnificent art of Frank Quitely. Rather than putting out only covers and art, DC has included some of the short stories on which Mr. Quitely worked on. I definitely think this is great as most of these stories are out of print. It makes for a good comic book with all of the stories drawn by Mr. Quitely.
September 12, 2024
I like Frank Quitely's work, but the book itself was a little disappointing and not really what I look for in an artist showcase. There are no sketches, no insight from Frank, etc. I liked his black and white non-fiction comics, but a large chunk of the book just reprints Morrison Batman stories in full, which isn't really what I expected to see when I picked up this book.
May 19, 2020
This is just an excellent book. I love Vince's artwork and storytelling and this is just a superb 'best of' collection. Batman in Scotland is an absolute gem (and is shown in it's entirely here) so for me this is worth the price alone. This guy is one of Scotlands national treasures.
October 21, 2017
5 stars for the art but some of the stories are poor or presented without context.
October 17, 2018
This is a beautiful book. Wonderfully collects a nice cross section of his work with DC. Collects several stories as well as cover work and man...did I mention it is just beautiful?!
June 29, 2020
Lays out the development of Quitely's gifts for caricature, crowd work and horror with a thoroughness that'll leave you hunting for a way into the gaps.
May 22, 2015
I thought this was going to be more like some of DC's previous art books, with sketches, layouts, and commentary from the artist. We don't get any of that. Instead, this is a collection of short works and a couple longer Batman stories with covers interspersed.
Most of the stories (outisde of Grant Morrison's Batman Reborn, which is great) are interesting but not too memorable. But anyone reading this book is reading it for Quitely's art. It's interesting to see how Quitely has gotten better through the years, especially with his page layouts and panel flow, and there's enough here to see why he's one of the best working today. I just wish they had done something to make this more than just a collection of previously published material.
Most of the stories (outisde of Grant Morrison's Batman Reborn, which is great) are interesting but not too memorable. But anyone reading this book is reading it for Quitely's art. It's interesting to see how Quitely has gotten better through the years, especially with his page layouts and panel flow, and there's enough here to see why he's one of the best working today. I just wish they had done something to make this more than just a collection of previously published material.
August 20, 2014
I find graphic novels and art interesting but a little distant and out of reach. Perhaps I was just born too early to completely grasp it. I didn't read much of this and what I did read seemed to be easily forgotten. But my curiosity is still here, so I'll probably try it again soon.
August 9, 2025
Dinamita para la página. Ácido para las retinas. Un Quitely potenciado gracias al tamaño gigante del libro y su curación.
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November 22, 2018Repaso artístico de la carrera de Quitely en DC. Incluye capítulos completos de varias de sus obras.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews