THE ART OF COMIC BOOK
INKING, VOL. 2 pt 3

Welcome to part 3 of my review of The Art of Comic Book Inking, Vol. 2 by Gary Martin. To read Part 1, go here.

In the previous two parts of the review, I looked at the book section by section. Now, I’ll give my final thoughts on the work as a whole, along with my own personal rating on a scale of one to ten–ten being indispensable to anyone interested in the art of comic creation, one being so bad you should make every attempt to avoid the potentially stupefying content within. Thankfully, this book fell on the positive end of the spectrum.

That said, on with the review.

Overall, the The Art of Comic Book Inking, Vol. 2 is a quick read and quite instructive. And even though the examples are of somewhat lesser quality than the first volume, if you are trying to learn how to ink or want to improve your technique, this book is definitely worth a look. I first read through it when I started learning to ink and then about a year or so later, and each time I gleaned different but valuable information.

If you’re buying this book instead of using the library, there are Bristol board pages included that can be torn out and inked over as practice. Unfortunately, the library copy I checked out has long since been denuded of these.

Conclusion: I wouldn’t rush out and buy this volume (as I would with volume 1), but it’s still worth checking out from the library and getting from it what you can. Then, a year or two from now, once you’ve gotten better at inking, check it out again and study it some more. I think you’ll be surprised at the new information you discover.

Rating: 6 out of 10.