REVIEW: The Book Of Ballads - The Original Art Edition: Fantasy at Itâ€™s Best

Titan Comics delivers a solid, highly entertaining, and beautifully drawn book withÂ The Book Of Ballads- The Original Art Edition.Â Maybe because I“m a writer myself I tend to start out talking about the writing in my reviews and then the art, but this time I have to make an exception.

The book is drawn by industry legend and Eisner Award winner, Â Charles Vess. Â Not only that, but we don“t get final polished pages, we get something much better. We get the original art pages just as they were originally drawn. You can even see some margin notes or page numbers on occasion. To me this brought the book to a new level. We get a direct look at the raw artwork and it really gives the book more of a personality and presence. Â We also get script pages, thumbnails and sketches so you really get a look inside Vess“ creative process and can see how the book evolved.

The book features stories that are based on ballads from English, Irish, and Scottish folklore written by an incredible collection of writers. Â While there is not enough room for me to tell you about all of the stories in the book, I can tell you who wrote them and it is quite an impressive list. Emma Bull, Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman, Elaine Lee, Sharyn McCrumb, Delia Sherman, Jeff Smith, Lee Smith, Midori Snyder, and Jane Yolen all contributed tales to the book.

I am a fan of fable and fantasy settings and reading this reminded me of reading Sandman for the first time (I guess it didn“t hurt that Neil Gaiman wrote one of the tales). I settled in on the couch with a soda and some snacks and had a great start to my day off reading this book. The combination of great stories and great art kept me turning pages until I ran out of pages to turn. Â I think I spent more time pouring over the notes, sketches and other extras than I did reading the main stories.

I would really like to see more books take an approach like this and give you that look inside the creative process. The book was as informative as it was entertaining.

If you are a fan of fantasy fables or are just interested in how comics are made thenÂ The Book Of Ballads- The Original Art Edition is something you should seriously consider adding to your holiday wish list.

Story: 4.5
Art: 4.5
Overall Rating: 4.5

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(W) Various (A) Charles Vess