I saw an unboxing video of this book some weeks ago and blogged about it being a drool-worthy, albeit expensive, item. Afraid it would sell out quickly, I immediately ordered a copy, much to the chagrin of my gift-idea-starved wife. I just got my copy and I can safely say it’s worth every penny of the price tag.
The concept with these “Artist Edition” books from IDW is that they take untouched high resolution scans of original art boards and print them, with pencil lines, white out, paste-ups and all, at their original size on paper that they say approximates the surface of the actual boards. The result is supposed to duplicate the experience of looking at the actual, original art as much as possible.
I’d say they succeeded.
I wish I had not missed this. It’s no longer available on Amazon. You can still pay full price at IDW.
I just got a look at a friend’s copy last night, it’s amazing. It’s insanely great to see the original artwork of the great MAD artists at actual size. Jack Davis, Wally Wood, Bill Elder, Harvey Kurtzman…the whole furshlugginer thing is potzrebie.
One day…
Scott Dunbier at IDW is knocking these out of the park, one after the other. I’ve helped on a few, tracking down art or getting hi-res scans, and it’s been amazing seeing these come together.