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5.0 out of 5 stars
Lush and dense, Nov 19 2003
At first, I as disappointed. It's not a Sandman story. (OK, I came in late. Everyone else read Sandman long ago.) That passed fast. Everything about this book is amazing. Big things first: The art, the reason I picked it up, shows very advanced craftsmaship. The pictures are built from striking elements, composed well, and worked heavily. Everything is fair game: figure, watercolor, found objects, photography, ... all of it. I like Nick Bantock and I like the best of David Mack. Bantock overdoes sometimes, and gives a muddy image. Mack doesn't always reach the real limits of the medium. McKean does not suffer either flaw, except sometimes with type. Words can not capture the images. On a lower plane, the book itself is wonderful composition. These are small things, but they matter to me: the printing, the book design, and the page layout all bolster the imagery. The physical book is heavy, glazed paper; it has substance in my hand. The whole book is consistent: description on the left page, cover art on the right. Once that rhythm is set, there is room for wide variation. I will not mistake the sketches, negatives, and notes for the cover art, though. Comments left, covers right. Anything else can vary. Within the lefthand commentary, there is yet more discipline. The artist and writer alternate in their own voices, and rubrics describe the materials and provenance of the art. Fonts and column position on the page change, even overlap. The visual structure is so clear, though, that the overlap is not interference; the mix of fonts is message, not mess. The rest of the page is open to any format, as long as I know how to extract the meaning. I was disappointed at first - well, I'm wrong a lot. If you like an artist's monograph and like the first-person commentary, it's a good bet that you will like this. Whether you do or not, I do.
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