MYTHOLOGY

THE DC COMICS ART OF ALEX ROSS


















Writer Chip Kidd and photographer Geoff Spear brought us this amazingly wonderful book which is or has to be, in my humble opinion, the cornerstone of every collection of Alex Ross' art, along with Wizard's Alex Ross - Millennium Edition Special. This tome, published in 2003, truly honors its title, not only does it deal with those mythological heroes but it's also THE guide for the art of Mr. Ross at DC. It has EVERYTHING! I mean that, whenever I'm doing research on some of his art for this blog I turn to this book. Also, apart from having those wonderful front and back covers (left and right respectively) on the dust jacket, it also has a magnificent George Perez-like wraparound cover beneath that with the image you see below of all the DC heroes versus all the DC villains.



Not happy with all these goodies, well there's more, like a Robin origin told in the same 2-page spread style of the oversized books AND a new Superman - Batman team-up story written by Kidd and fully painted by Alex, some of its art can be seen below.


After the success of this book in it's hardcover version, came the obligatory, and cheaper, paperback edition (left) which reprints all the material we've already talked about with a new cover which isn't as great as the original one, this one makes Superman look like a robot or something. Then came a revised or special edition in 2005, this one had more art, to cover what Alex did during the next years such as some justice sketches, we can call it a revised and expanded edition. The cover reprints an image from a very popular poster of the JLA. What's also cool about this edition is the inclusion of a Shazam paper doll painted by Alex for this edition only, so you can play with it. (NOTE: DO NOT play with it! It's NEW art by Ross! What are you thinking?!?!?!)


Finally, people enjoyed the Superman and Batman covers so much, that DC asked Alex to continue the trend of these in-your-face poses, for posters and lithographs. Below - Left to Right: Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and The Flash.