Zap!: How to Draw Fantastic Sci-Fi Comics

I love this book and hows to draw tips and comic making advice I would strongly recommend this book but only if you want to make your comics its art tips are cool though

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Great collection of sci-fiction art. Anyone interested in drawing sci-fiction art should take a look at this book. Bryan Braugh is always good.

The book is good but it does not match up to other books in how to draw series by Steve Miller and Bryan Baugh. I have found Freaks!, Sacred!, Beasts!, and Thunder Lizards! to be much better in instruction and quality of content. Nevertheless, Bryan Baugh still deliver his best work. It'll be a good reference for classic sci-fi comic.

Not exactly what I was expecting but an interesting look at constructing science fiction characters and cartoons. Decent for the price.

I enjoyed this book both from the perspective of an artist and a fan. I greatly appreciate the historical lesson about how science-fiction emerged from the pulps and how these stories evolved from the 1930s up to the present day. Examples of pioneering sci-fi art includes some works by Wally Wood, Al Williamson, Berni Wrightson, Basil Wolverton, and the inimitable Alex Raymond. Of all the modern artists displayed in this book, Bryan Baugh is the one whose work stands out the most. Baugh's artwork perfectly captures the BEM (Bug-Eyed Monster) aesthetic of 1950s-era comics & movies and combines it with modern sensibilities.I enjoy his depictions of male heroes as grizzled, hardened veterans instead of the typical square-jawed, immaculate, musclebound paladin. Bryan Baugh really shines in his depictions of various aliens and creatures. Long story short, this book is more for those who are serious about being illustrators and those who love the subject matter depicted therein. I appreciate this book and others as springboards for my own artistic ideas. Anyone who enjoys depicting similar subjects will enjoy this book.

Watson Guptill Continues their fine series of comic art instruction books with their latest invaluable tome "Zap! How to Draw Fantastic Sci-Fi Comic" by Bryan Baugh. The book features hundreds of B & W and color illustrations geared to the beginning or intermediate comic book artist.I applaud the book for beginning with a history of Sci-Fi comics and illustration as this form of art even dates back to the pre-comic book days if one considers newspaper comic strips and pulp magazine illustrations which to this day continue to be vastly underrated and undervalued. Baugh takes a look at pioneers like Alex Raymond and his Flash Gordon work, Basil Wolverton's Spacehawk, and EC Comics' legendary Al Williamson and Wally Wood. The book also features a short, but entertaining interview with Williamson.The instructional portion starts with drawing all sorts of Sci-Fi characters from astronauts to space pirates and space queens to space zombies, all with great tips on getting the figure started and finished. Next up comes great robots, everything from Gundam type Mecha to 50's style Robbie the Robot-like bots, as well as cyborgs, androids, and transforming robots.The final and longest chapter is on aliens and this is where Baugh really shines. He even comments that drawing weird life forms from other planets is the most enjoyable aspect of drawing sci-fi comics. Baugh truly shows off his imagination with a bizarre host of strange and monstrous alien beings, and not just clones of things you've seen a million times either. There are insectoid alients, octopoid aliens, reptillain aliens, and countless others. The theme in this chapter is to just let your creativity run wild and see what you come up with. There's really no way to do something wrong.My only complaint about the book is that it strictly displays figures and, to a lesser extent, heads. There's nothing here that really covers comic story-telling or drawing in a panel format. That would have been nice. Still, with contributing artists like Bernie Wrightson, the book is very enjoyable and gorgeously produced.Reviewed by Tim Janson

For a species that can't know what the future holds, we seem to have reached a pretty good consensus on what tomorrow will look like.' In trying to nail down that aesthetic, I picked up "Zap! How to Draw Fantastic Sci-Fi Comics" by Bryan Baugh. It's meant to teach artists how to create robots, aliens, cyborgs, androids, and even something called a space gorilla. But the best part is its chapter on the history of sci-fi comics. Among its most interesting points:''A great definition of sci-fi: "deals with fantastic circumstances that are scientifically plausible based on current scientific beliefs and theories." (If you substitute the word "outdated" for "current, you actually get a succinct definition of steampunk and other retro-futurist art movements.)The difference between "space opera" and "hard science fiction" is that the former leans more on "feeling," and the latter on "thinking." So in a hard sci-fi work, detailed gears/wires/moving parts are shown to help create a sense of realism; "this could really happen," the audience thinks.'The 1920s marked sci-fi comics' rise to prominence, a time when society was feeling optimistic. The art reflected these feelings, and Baugh states "the depiction of futuristic technology was always shiny and flawless. Spaceships were sleek rockets with elegantly curved fins. Astronauts wore flashy jumpsuits, and robots often had the decorative look of walking jukeboxes."''The reason Star Wars appeared so realistic is that while all the ships and outfits were futuristic, they also looked worn, with scratches and dents. The result "was a completely make-believe sci-fi world that had a gritty, real feeling." The work has cast a long shadow on images of the future through today.