Art of Dejah Thoris and the Worlds of Mars

Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Graphic Design

Art of Dejah Thoris and the Worlds of Mars Details

Since the first serialized adventures in 1912 of the Martian Princess Dejah Thoris and her beloved hero, John Carter, science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts have dreamed of the faraway Red Planet, its wondrous sights and monstrous perils. Fans and fine art lovers need dream no longer! In hundreds of full-color illustrations, the finest artists of modern fantasy have brought the dying world of Mars to life, depicting scenes of brutal conflict with alien beasts, quiet moments overlooking Martian wastes, and enticing visions of an exotic princess at her most intimate. This magnificent hardcover collection features the talents of Alex Ross, J. Scott Campbell, Joe Jusko, Art Adams, Paul Renaud, Lucio Parillo, Francesco Francavilla, and many more!

Reviews

I haven't read any of Dynamite's Mars comics, so you might consider this review an outsider's perspective. A strictly accurate title for this book would be "The COVER Art of Dejah Thoris...", since that's the only kind of art included here. The cover images are wildly varied, ranging from the most simplistic comic-book cheesecake on the one hand to dynamic, exotic pieces by Joe Jusko, Fabiano Reyes, Jay Anselmo, Lucio Parillo, Wagner Reis and others on the other hand. Many of the depictions of DT are recognizably the same character, but many others are not. It's as if the publisher gave model sheets to some artists, and told others "oh, just do whatever." Arthur Adams' Dejah Thoris looks nothing like anyone else's. Lui Antonio's DT is built like a pro wrestler, and Ale Garza has at least three different versions of the character, including one where Dejah Thoris looks like an elf, with big slanted eyes and pointed ears.Thirty-five or so of the covers are paintings by Joe Jusko that have a markedly different look from the rest of the book; these were selected from a set of Burroughs trading cards Jusko did in the 1990s.The book's title is "THE ART OF DEJAH THORIS" and in smaller print, "And the Worlds of Mars" -- so it includes the covers from all the Mars comics Dynamite had published up to that point. Thirty-some covers do not feature DT in any form, though some of them are very neat images nonetheless.Many issues of the comics had variant covers, with a regular (or standard, or PG-rated, or whatever you want to term it - what I'm calling the "regular" covers are not actually given any special designation) cover, and a "risque" one featuring nudity. Sometimes the regular and "risque" covers are completely different images; in others they're the same image but with some items of clothing removed to produce the risque version; sometimes the difference is simply that in the regular version Dejah Thoris is wearing ornamental "nipple caps" and in the risque version she's not. (I remember reading somewhere that in the old-time burlesque and strip clubs those kinds of thingies were called "pasties" because, you know, how else would they stay on? One assumes Dejah Thoris has a good-sized paste pot on her dressing table.)The Martian moons are featured in the backgrounds of a number of the images. A couple of the artists actually drew Phobos and Deimos, but most of the time the moons are round like Earth's moon, and some of the time Mars apparently has three moons. (In reality, Mars' moons are so small that from the planet's surface they would just look like bright stars, but hey, this is fantasy, and big moon-looking moons are lots cooler.)The book has a Table of Contents, but this is more of an approximate indication than of any real use, since the pages are not numbered. An index to the artists would have been a nice feature, but again, not of much real use without page numbering.

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