The Beast Within - The Art of Ken Barr

Just a small complain - it wouldn't have hurt to include the title and year for each painting.SPECIFICS:Page Count: 48Number of images: 54Small images: 9Half page images: 4Full page images: 402-page spreads: 1BW images: 0TEXT:2 page biographyART:4 images: 5 stars26 images: 4 stars24 images: 3 stars0 images: 2 stars0 images: 1 starOverall: 3,5 Stars

A good book showcasing a great artist. Honestly, This man deserves a larger book that can go in depth into his talent and career. It needs more but I'm happy to at least have this

I think my first exposure to Ken Barr's art was back in the mid-70's with the many fantastic covers that he did for Marvel Comics' old black and white line of magazines. As a young teen, I was struck by just how spectacular these painted covers were compared to the typical comic book covers. They were so lush and so realistic. One of my favorite Barr covers was from Marvel Preview Magazine which featured a cover of Thor, my favorite Marvel character, standing on a pile of defeated warriors and thrusting his mystical hammer into the air as a lighting bolt crackles down to meet it. Great cover!Barr got his start in the early 60's doing covers for British war comics such as Commando before coming over to the United States in 1966. Barr first came to notoriety with his work for Warren Publications on titles such as Creepy and Eerie. Over the next thirty-five plus years Barr would go on to work for both Marvel and DC Comics, do movie posters, book covers, trading card series, and even a collectible plate series for the Danbury Mint.This book from SQP features 48 pages of Barr's work in full color. The subject matter includes science fiction, fantasy, adventure, superheroes, and horror. These are culled from the sources I mentioned. Barr did a number of covers for Marvel's Planet of the Apes Magazine and several are reprinted here. From issue #12 we see one of the apes in a space craft watching in horror as the Earth explodes. From issue #16 we see a mother ape carrying her baby and fleeing a helicopter that is trying to shoot her. Great stuff!Rampaging Hulk #6 contained another great Barr cover, this one showing the Hulk battling Prince Namor, The Submariner, and about to smash him with a marble pedestal. Also included from Marvel's magazine line is several of ken's covers to the Doc Savage Magazine.This collection of Barr's art shows that he was a fantastic artist no matter what genre he was working in and its great to finally see this enormous talent recognized.Reviewed by Tim Janson

Very good ++++++

Love this mans work wish the book was larger how about a volume 2 guys