Classic Comix

One of the many books I bought for my learn-how-to-draw-someday library was Action Cartooning by Ben Caldwell. On it's surface, it looks like any of a number of the dime-a-dozen "draw cartoons TODAY!" books, but there's something about Caldwell's book that actually made it worth buying. His characters are more striking, the anatomic fundamentals are more solid, and the section on superheroic combat and motion were quite inspirational.

So when I found out Caldwell had a hand in a sort of "Classics Illustrated" project, telling the stories of high literature through the popular medium of comic books, I was immediately interested. Their version of Classics Illustrated is called All-Action Classics, and I like what I see. I'm definitely buying The Odyssey when it comes out (Andy down at Chapel Hill Comics is looking into it for me) and will probably pick up Tom Sawyer as well.

I particularly like the fact that the All-Action Classics webpage shares a lot of sketches and art with us. It's always fun to peer into the making of a comic book, and some of the designs here are fascinating. It looks like they're taking an animation-style approach to producing the comic book, such as painting full backgrounds and drawing out model sheets. When I get good enough to produce a full comic book, this is the approach I want to take to my projects.