4.58 avg rating — 788 ratings

"Bosch. Of COURSE, Bosch. The imaginative firepower of Jerome Von Aken (better known as Jheronimus Bosch; as with many Renaissance & Baroque masters, he was given a surname based on the town of his birth: s'Hertogenbosch) continues to amaze me every time I explore the medieval mysteries of his surviving oeuvre, in particular 'The Garden of Earthly Delights', 'The Temptations of St. Anthony', 'The Last Judgement' and 'Haywain'. Bosch is the wellspring of artistic dream & allegory, the foundation of the Symbolist thread running from the Renaissance to the post-Surrealist present. His demonic monstrosities & the hybrid creatures populating the Garden are based on a keen observation of the natural world that is almost unprecedented in the late 15th century, with the exception of fellow masters like Albrecht Durer. But it would be decades until anyone demonstrated anything remotely approaching Bosch's ability to conjure the fantastic, another Netherlandish master, Pieter Bruegel... who began his career with engraved reproductions of drawings based on Bosch's work. Inspiration is always a nebulous subject for debate or conjecture, but in the Age of (Mis/Dis)Information, we're currently drowning in subject matter. Bosch created his nightmarish religious allegories in a time & place where information was something that came in muddy, piss-flavored, or poisonous trickles. His work largely predates Gutenberg's printing press, and books - even Bibles - would not be available to commoners until long after his death. There was no way an artist could easily access the art of peers & predecessors. The local church might have boasted a triptych by Van der Weiden for its altarpiece, but there were no galleries or museums. Masterworks were jealously guarded within the Royal Collections of the great cities of Europe, and in the centers of Catholic wealth & opulence. There was no understanding of historical change, no real conception of truly foreign culture, the look of clothing or architecture outside a 100-mile radius or 100 years in the past. The Catholic Church had kept Europe in a state of intellectual stagnation for over a millennium. Bigger & grander churches were built, but life for 90% of the population in 800 A.D. was indistinguishable in any meaningful way from life in 1000 A.D., or 1200 A.D., or 1400 A.D. Bosch was a genius trapped within a benighted Judaeo-Christian perspective, but whose brilliance was largely responsible for the illumination that became known as the Renaissance. Knowledge of Asia followed the Silk Road to the Middle East, but things became a murky, ridiculous mess of rumor & bullshit anywhere East of Afghanistan. Even the first popular account of life in the Chinese Khanate among the ancestors of Genghis & Kublai, long after Bosch was dead and well beyond the summit of the Renaissance & the Protestant Reformation, was Marco Polo's largely invented fantasia."

4.70 avg rating — 54 ratings

"And OF COURSE, Bruegel. It's almost impossible to mention Bosch without including Bruegel. Even though I gave him my number 2 spot, that's basically a matter of chronological & alphabetical sorting, rather than any kind of assertion that Bruegel is the lesser artist. I personally believe he's the greatest artist in history. His work spurns the verisimilitude of"

4.58 avg rating — 96 ratings

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"These two monographs are about as on-topic as inhumanly possible to find"

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"Mike Mignola & Charles Burns are the undisputed masters of comic art macabre; the former is famous for pulp-era Lovecraftian cosmic horror, the latter for stylized grotesques & freaks mining the pre-code horror & science fiction of EC Comics. "

4.68 avg rating — 44 ratings

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"This is the volume in which Mignola hands over his signature character to comics horror legend Richard Corben. Corben had already illustrated 'Makoma' before the titular stories of Volume 4, but the Crooked Man in particular feels like the writer-artist collaboration has perfectly fused, with Mignola relinquishing the artistic wheelhouse to the veteran favorite from the decades of schlocky brilliance throughout Creepy & Eerie. Mignola was also turning over the final story-arc in the long, meandering epic that began with 'Seed of Destruction' in the early 90's to the phenomenal Duncan Fergredo, who nailed an intricate chiaroscuro that felt like prime Mignola-style combined with elements of Eduardo Risso, Marcelo Frusin & Ryan Sook... see the Hellboy Library Ed. Volumes 5 & 6 below."

4.69 avg rating — 925 ratings

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"Guy Davis established himself as the artistic hand & eye of BPRD with his first guest arc, originally just one artist of several to eagerly contribute. Mignola has always been so deeply admired & liked, he's had his pick of an astounding number of talents once he decided to expand the Hellboy Universe with BPRD... and later backed away from his regular art duties on Hellboy. He never completely put his pencil & pens away, however... slowing down, but still producing enough to satisfy hardcore fans of his artistic genius, esp. when he took over primary arc artwork with 'Hellboy in Hell'. Davis brought a radical stylistic departure to BPRD, while previous artists like Ryan Sook & Michael Avon Oeming used a style that consciously emulated Mignola's immediately recognizable chiaroscuro. Mignola's eye for talent is as sharp as anyone in comics, and Davis became a star, responsible for 1000-pages representing the high point of John Arcudi's story-telling on BPRD; some of the most fun, electrifying work of the last several years... found mostly in the Omnibus Volumes 2, 3 & 4."

4.38 avg rating — 1,973 ratings

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4.29 avg rating — 806 ratings

"Guy Davis already made his mark in the epic, 1500+-page BPRD 'Plague of Frogs' narrative, but the first story-arc of 'Hell on Earth' would be his last. Fortunately, this opened the door for another two young talents who would immediately make 'HoE' their own: Tyler Crook and James Harren. The reason Mignolaverse books look better than anything else on the stands is a simple decision to throw out the regular monthly model. Instead, the series is released as 5-6 issue mini-series, representing a contained or semi-contained story-arc. The series is able to keep 2 regular artists going simultaneously, giving them as much time as they need to get the art right... and it pays off. Fucking jackpot. Crook is a natural fit, with a cleaner version of Davis' idiosyncratic, sketchy style. His greatest work came after leaving BPRD, with amazingly painted colors on 'Harrow County'. But just as jaw-dropping is every fucking panel of the 400+-pages James Harren contributes to the second, third & fourth omnibus volumes, beginning with 'The Long Death'. Mignola, Corben, Davis & Crook are all proven legends of monster design & illustration, but Harren is a fucking prodigy. "

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