Exclusive to the Society of Illustrators, The Art of the Avengers and Other Heroes Exhibition Catalog!
Featuring vintage original comic artwork within the exhibition from all years of Marvel Comics History! The exhibition is the largest selection of vintage and modern original Marvel art that has ever been displayed in the world! Perfect bound, 52 pages (including the covers) of Marvel majesty!
- Society Of Illustrators, July 2018
- No ISBN
- 8.5″ x 11″, 48 pages, softcover
- $20 USD
- Order online: Society Of Illustrators
As with all AE format material (Artist’s Editions, Artifact Editions, Gallery Editions, Art Editions, Studio Editions, etc.), this is a collection of classic comic material and I’ll be reviewing the book and not the story. For a complete list of all current and announced editions, with review links, please visit our Index. Also, see What is an Artist’s Edition and our Artist Index. This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
A softcover 8.5″ x 11″ softcover catalogue displaying 63 pieces of original art, 32 full-page, from Marvel Comics. Featuring a one-page introduction with quotes from two contributors and a short message about the exhibit.
Quite a few of the full-page scans are soft or slightly blurry. A lot of fine detail is lost because of the reductions. The highlights are the Amazing Spider-Man pages, specifically the Ditko Scorpion pages and the Romita Black Widow pages, most of which are 3-4 to a page.
The design is eye-catching with its use of red as the unifying colour. While I understand the use of comic covers as chapter dividers or breaks, I would have preferred original art to appear instead of enlarged portions of published comic covers. I was surprised to see several spelling errors in the margin notes, which appear below each piece.
A glued binding of a heavy glossy paper. The binding is aggressively glued, and flattening the pages makes for a concerning reveal of glue. To be fair it’s a $20 perfect-bound book.
I happened to be in New York and wanted to see the Society Of Illustrators. While there this exhibit and Tales From The Crypt were both on and I was able to spend a morning pouring over all that original art. It’s too bad the catalogue only covers a small portion of the art that was on display.
I appreciate the low price point on this book, but can only imagine what a full-size hardcover of this exhibit could have been.