Cartooning Books

I made the mistake of buying both "Learn to Draw Bugs Bunny and Friends" as well as "Learn to Draw Looney Tunes". "Learn to Draw Bugs Bunny and Friends is page for page the same (through to Tweety Bird). With the "Learn to Draw Looney Tunes" you get EXACTLY the same character images, with the addition of the Tasmanian Devil, Yosemite Sam, Marvin the Martian and K-9, Wile E Coyote and Road Runner. Treat yourself to the more complete book. While I expected the books to be similar, I had hoped the character images would be slightly different in each book. On the whole, the learn-to-draw books are GREAT for anyone that likes to draw. My little vent here, is simply because I made the mistake of buying both books and feel.....well.....duped.

This came exactly as expected. Made a young art student very happy.

I looked at this in the bookstore. It only has a few pages of how to draw scenes and the rest is blank paper. I think its 3 pages of how to draw a girl, and 2 pages for a boy. While the art and directions were nice, it could have been so much more. Like the directions, then a few empty pages, then go on to the next character to draw(and have different angles, poses, etc).

It is more of a sketchbook than anything(which would explain the title, but when I actually saw it I was thinking it would be more like the How to draw manga sketch style things) Like How To Draw Manga: Sketching Manga Style Volume 1: Sketching As Composition Planning (How to Draw Manga) (Paperback).

Quality paper, although not that big. The tutorial by Chris Hart is, as always, superb. A nice sketchbook for getting down quickies. Small enough to carry in a purse.

While some of the original artwork was intriguing, much of it was really obscene. I did like the collections of "vintage" cards and album art.

this book has the peppermint man story by camille rose garcia.the print at the m k gallery is around $500 dollars.the camille rose art makes this book worth it for me!bLINkY

Afters years of pursuing other fields of interests, I've finally decided to take out my old sketchbook and continue practicing and improving my drawing techniques, specifically in drawing Japanese manga. After reading dozens of reviews that were here before, I bought this illustration kit. One only needs to look through the clear plastic case to see that this kit has everything needed to get started. It includes 5 sheets of drawing paper, 2 pencils, a non-abrasive eraser, and an 8in/20cm ruler. The folks at the Deleter art supply company also throw in a .01 black ink pen, a 5x7in screen tone sheet for shading, and the bizarre-shaped French curve stencil. But the heart of the kit is a copy of "More How to Draw Manga: Vol. 1" by Go Office, which shows the reader everything from drawing the perfect manga face to drawing figures to even drawing cars (a full review on the book will be available in the near future)!

While this kit seems to be the full package, some of the tools are easily replacable. The lead in the pencils break when you sharpen them (the books tells you which to use). The French curve and tone sheet might as well be bookmarks for the beginning artist (their purpose is better served by computer programs like Manga Studio). As for the plasic case that keeps it all together, let's just say you'll want to replace that, too. Overall, the "How to . . ." Illustration Kit is not a bad start for aspiring manga artists, just a rocky one.

The book is great and has great suggestions. The tools were decent including the french curve that came with it.

But the case broke within the first 30 min. of having it. :-(

Other than that, great!

Usually animation books tend to focus upon the producers of animation - the Disneys, the Joneses and the Freelings. But little, except for a few videos and DVDs has focused upon the work of promoters. This book lovingly pays tribute to Spike Decker and Mike Gribble - two men who are probably the most responsible for the reemergence of short animation in a world that had been stupefied by the pap that was passing for Saturday morning cartoons. The book is divided into three neat sections. First a history of Spike, Mike and their Festivals of Animation sets the stage and helps show thee pair's growth and influence upon developing animators. Then Beck looks at what he considers the ten best pieces to come out of the festivals. Many of these animators have gone on to become household names producing regular animation shows on the Cartoon Network. He also highlights many of the other animators by showing off numerous still shots of their work. Finally for the third part he lets the animators speak for themselves, interviewing them on Spike and Mike, and the pair's role in nurturing emerging animators. This is a fascinating book for any fan of modern animation, especially those of us lucky enough to have seen many of the Spike & Mike Festivals. It is sad that we have lost Mike Gribble, but this book shows that his legacy lives on and continues to grow beyond Spike and Mike's wildest dreams.

As much as I like Jerry Beck I wish he hadn't sold himself out with this overly sanitized "Spike and Mike approved" version of their festival's history. Here we just get an extended regurgitation of Spike and Mike's self glorifying press release along with many pretty photographs. I used to attend this festival in my college days and have friends who've worked behind the scenes, so I really wished this book showed some actual guts. Where's the sex and the drugs and the seedy backstage goings-on at the festival? Why is there no mention of the festival's universal stunning decline in quality in recent years? Why is there no accounting for all the animators that allegedly refuse to submit work to, much less even speak to, this festival anymore? That's the book I'm still waiting to read! If you're a casual fan not interested in animation history and just want to look at pictures, I guess this book would be for you though.

I bought this book for 3 grandsons (10, 12, 14) and thought they'd enjoy it as much as they have enjoyed all the TinTin comic reads. They gave it a quick look, then went right back to reading their TinTin books--with very little interest in the content of this book that does discuss the writing and characters of each TinTin book. I guess they were not interested on how it developed, just that it did develop. They read the TinTin books over and over--Maybe when they're older, this book will mean more to them, but not right now!

it's all there, it's like taking a guided tour throughout the Tintin universe; highly recommended.

This book was published at a time Mike Peters had a TV show in the US. This was never seen in other countries so reading this book may make you feel a little left out not knowing the man or his thoughts verbally.

This book however is fantastic and really shows you an easy and fast technique to drawing a unique style and how to adapt that to anything you draw as a cartoon. The best section of the cook is about caricaturing. Mike is one of the best to capturing a likeness in a cartoon like fashion without losing it.

After 16 years of cartooning myself, I keep this book as a reminder of what simplicity and style is all about.

If you are looking to learn to cartoon or draw caricatures then please avoid this book. The cartooning style is poor and the book just has the author chat about how good he is and why he drew this and why he drew that - no real instruction - just some guy explaining how good he is. If you are a Mike Petere fan then you may like it but if you are learning or studying caricature or cartoons there are some very good books on the market. I actually felt ripped off buying this book.

I bought this for my daughter and she was so very happy to get it. The instructions are clear and easy to follow. Excellent for anyone who wants to learn how to draw anime.

This is a picture book that discusses, in very general terms, anime drawing. It does not teach anything. There are no outlines of how certain anime staples are created, etc, etc. A waste of money.

I think the manga mania books are better though because they provide better examples though a little lacking in instruction.
My chief complaint about this book is the lack of animation instruction I figure since this book is about Anime it would provide some lessons in animation as it's done in Japan.

I do find the the instruction in character design and drawing to be average at best. This book gives you some examples and some useful advice for entering the animation industry but so very lacking when it comes to the imparting of useful information of the animation process that the title Anime mania is a misnomer. Most people buy how to Animation books to learn animation techniques and I for one as an aspiring animator don't want to see more animation outsourced to foreign countries seeing as animation is declining in quality in this country I see outsourcing to foreign nations as a primary culprit in that respect second only to cheap producers and uncreative executives!

Anime mania is however a nice book to have as a collector's keepsake and the illustrations are quite inspiring one of the few reasons that makes this book worth buying.

dont buy this book. buy a book from someone who actually draws manga or animates for a living. worst anime style ever!!!!

Yes millions of anime fans hate his Manga Mania because he can't do the art right and they hate his books because he hires people to do the art for him but........THIS IS THE WORST YET! Last year one of my friends showed me this book. I felt like laughing Chistopher Hart really doesn't know what anime is! He hired the worst people yet! There is like only two or three good artist (one was the one the one that did the front)and the rest of them were terrible.Most of the book is terrible mabye like ten pages are good but the rest how sad! Even if this books cover looks good don't judge a book by its cover.

Arrived in a timely fashion, in excellent condition and a fine addition to my resource library.

Although it is not really an instructional step by step book, I really enjoyed the drawings. very inspirational great reference book on motion, the only thing that I would have liked is more male figures in action. thats all.

This was not what I expected. There is no instruction provided as to anatomy or musculature, just many sketches mostly from a female workout tape. The "muscles" were non-descript. Also, if you're considering this for a younger artist, several of the sketches have annotation that they were drawn from a "stripper" tape and are somewhat provocative both in content and "clever quips" as commentary by the artist; inappropriate to my way of thinking. I've returned the book to amazon.com despite having to eat the postage.

I am a professional artist, and figure drawing is a favorite subject. I have collected many 'how-to" books on figure drawing over the years, and, therefore, have seen many systems of innovative anatomical figure construction. With that said, I must say that Muscles In Motion is a disappointment.
Although there are some quite good individual drawings by the author,Glenn Fabry,the vast majority of the book is drawings from photographs of female bodybuilders in posing or exercise routines. Fabry draws well, but his approach shows little to no
insight into the constructive nature of the figure, which I see as the main reason for purchasing a 'how-to" book on this subject in the first place. Also, I find it strange that the author has used, almost exclusively, female bodybuilders as his prime models for this subject. Yes, men and women do have the same basic muscular system, with the skeletal structure accounting for the greater differences. However, in a treatise on the human muscular system in motion, I feel that using a more traditional approach with the male physique as the primary example would be more appropriate for the subject, while using to a lesser degree,female examples to show the similarities.The female form is absolutely beautiful, but using drawings of the female form in its muscular extreme to illustrate muscular motion in general, I find quite atypical for the subject matter.Had I been able to see an excerpt from this book first, I would not have been interested.

What a big error to buy this if you are looking to learn anything about anatomy or anything about drawing period. The entire book consist of little tiny sketches he did while watching an exercise tape.

Ok, Christopher hart is not the best in the manga business. I think this book is more for expanding your horizon of villians, not teaching you how to draw them. I have to admit though, it showed me some things I didn't think of before. It also showed that some of the harder aspects of drawing are not so hard if you break them apart. Three stars.

I'm a manga artist myself. I don't make them, but I do a lot of fan-based art and such.
Anyway, I do a lot of evil characters. Since I've already developed a talent and a style, I just use this to perfect my villains. Books by Hart like the Fantasy one he did (helped me do dragons an' demons better. And I learned how to make gnolls ^_^) helped a lot. As did this one. Only buy if you know what you're doing. Otherwise, How To Draw Manga series is right up your alley.

However unfairly, I believe that it is necessary to be able to draw manga before publishing a book instructing others how to do it.

Unfortunately, the art in this book is very westernised (not to mention ugly) and most of it does not even approach a "manga" style, and threfore is pretty much useless to most aspiring manga artists.

Avoid this book (and all other members of the same series by Chris Hart) at all costs.

I had mixed reviews about this book, but I had to admit the reason why I bought this book was because of the title. Afterall, no one has drawn a book totally dedicated to villians.

First of all, the book starts off by introducing you to drawing villian’s eyes, which is rather helpful since eyes are one of the important aspects when drawing villains. There’re also the “Good” vs “Bad” expressions and some explanations to go along. Then, there’re various types of baddies, from fighter chicks to medieval villains, and not to forget villains such as monsters, demons and aliens.

Unfortunately, there are mostly one or two examples for most villains, which can be rather limiting if you’re trying to draw the same type of villain in a different way. However, I think this is where your imagination will come in. Some of the arts also strike me as rather kiddy (or perhaps, it's meant to be more for children), although some of the full-page color artworks are very nice.

In addition, I’ve also noticed that most of the examples have a certain “American” (instead of Japanese”) style to it. For the serious mangaka-wannabe though, you are better off getting more “technical” and “Japanese-Style” books such as the “How to Draw Manga” Series, but overall, this book will make a nice reference or resource book for people interested drawing American cartoon.

I've been hosting anime drawing workshops at local libraries, and I've always been on the lookout for books I can recommend to kids interested in continuing to draw in the anime and manga styles. So I checked out this book at a library recently with the intention of compiling a new list of drawing books that I would recommend to the people attending the workshops this summer.
This book will not be on that list.
Quite frankly, despite the fact that there are several very talented artists who contributed to this book, it's lousy. Most of the artwork featured is either mediocre or *not* done in the manga style Hart claims the book revolves around; in fact, seeing how Mr. Hart's art numbers among the worst in the book, I'm skeptical as to whether or not he is a credible source regarding non-Western artistry at all. (His Western-style cartooning is really quite good, so I'm rather surprised at his ineptitude in this field, myself.)
As I said, there are some very good pieces in this book as well--they really stand out when you see them--but they simply make for good references, as most of the "step-by-step" diagrams are about four steps long, adding up to a pretty useless instruction method overall. The proposed "villains" in the book, in fact, are rather one-dimensional from a character perspective, but I can understand how it would be far easier to resort to stereotypical black-and-white personalities than to flesh out a really interesting villain (because, well, that wasn't what this book was supposed to be about, so I can't really hold it against him.)
Most, if not all, pictures were colored digitally--something that most people won't have access to--and a number of them were printed with rough and jagged edges as if they had been drawn with the pencil tool in a Photoshop (or even paint. Strangely enough, these rougher works are actually some of the better ones in the book, if I recall correctly.)

Please, if you're interested in drawing in the anime or manga style, find another book. If you're interested in Western comics, check out Hart's other work (or the Marvel/DC instructional books, which are quite good.) But if it's manga style you're looking to learn about...then this is NOT the book for you.