Pipeline and Sundry: Free Asterix, Free Reynes, and a Spirou Artist’s Edition (Not Free)
Homages to Uderzo
The tributes to Uderzo came in so fast last week that I missed a lot of them. Thankfully, the folks at ActuaBD.com put together a pretty great compilation of the tributes, including the likes of Sienkiewicz, Mignola, Francq, Marini, Zep, Nob, and so many more.
The one that really got me, though, was this one from Christopher Rainbow:
Free Asterix
It’s only available in French, but you can download a free Asterix Magazine from the official Asterix website right now. It includes a tribute to Albert Uderzo, excerpts from a bunch of different Asterix books, and some little games and coloring pages.
It’s fun to flip through the digital pages and see bits and pieces from all those different books across the years.
Free Art Book
Mathieu Reynes, artist of the “Harmony” series of albums, has published three of his past years’ portfolio books digitally. The 2016 edition is free if you use the code he gives on his Instagram page, while the 2017 and 2018 edition will run you, all told, about $5.
It’s a great selection of his commissions, covers, sketches, and styles. As the years go on, there’s more and more Harmony in them, but that’s a feature, not a bug. You’ll also get lots of Harley Quinn, X-Women, Batman, etc.
There was a movement a few years back for artists to put out cheap sketchbooks and short PDFs that they could sell for as little as a buck fifty. It fizzled out pretty quickly, but I still like the idea. You can still sell the print editions to the die-hard at shows for a fatter profit margin, but capturing the digital audience at home that just wants to look at the art for a low price is a great deal, too.
The Opposite of Free
I love Artist’s Editions books. French publishers (or their licensees) publish oversize black and white editions of albums more often than we do there, but they’re always printed in limited runs. The prices are just too much, particularly if you try shipping one of those monsters back across the Atlantic Ocean.
Quel dommage.
So I have to settle with watching videos of other people taking videos of themselves flipping through the books. Here’s one with Tome and Janry’s first “Spirou” album. Go full screen with this to get the full impact.
I like Janry’s art a lot, and seeing it at a larger size like this would be awesome. You can see all the details and little things he does with his ink brush to give it that style. The solid black areas work to guide the lighting in the dramatic scenes. It’s just a lot of stuff you don’t pick up on when you’re reading the same material in full color.
Keep watching to the second half to see all the extra material they include in color in the back of the book. There’s interviews, sketches, closeups, and a lot more.
