Author: Jack Davis
Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Release Date: December 12, 2011
Our Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars
I recently had the privileged to interview Jack Davis himself and discuss his work with him. I have to tell you that it would honestly take hours of questions to barely scratch the surface on his work. This book is packed with really great high quality coverage of all of Jack’s work. It starts from the beginning in the early days and gives a pretty thorough look at his career portfolio. I feel that the book work as a tribute to his work and would be enjoyed by his lifetime fans and newly founding fans alike.
Some of the work that “Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture” covers is his comic work in EC, “MAD”, “Humbug”, “Trump”, and horror work like “The Vault of Terror” and Tales from the Crypt”. It focuses on his work with movie posters and albums covers including “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”, “The Bad News Bears”, “Bananas” and record jacket art for musicians and bands like Hans Conreid and the Creature Orchestra’s Monster Rally and Spike Jones. Jack’s work has also been featured in magazine like Playboy, Sports Illustrated, Time and TV Guide. Lastly a main draw for the book has to be unpublished illustrations and and newly found drawings from Davis.
I did not think that one book would be able to encompass all of it all of Jack’s worth but this one does a decent job. The images though are very clear and crisp whether in black and white or color. You can even see the pencil marks on some of the pictures, which adds to the beauty of the images. After you finished enjoying all of his work, there is a great biography written about Jack to round up all of his work and delivers some great information about his career. Fans of Jack’s and of art in general should definitely check this out if you are able to pick up a copy from Fantagraphics.