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Dark Horse has put up a preview of the upcoming Charles Vess art book Drawing Down The Moon: The Art of Charles Vess. Not 10 pages, not 20 pages…the whole damn thing.

And you know what? It’s going to sell more books.

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Is there any way you can look at a few images of this lyrical, imaginative art and NOT want to look at it full size in a form you can savor?

When we ran the Wimpy Kid press release yesterday about the fourth book in the series having a 4 million copy lay down, someone pointed out to us that Wimpy Kid has been — and still is — a free webcomic, available to all. Hasn’t hurt sales.

As for the Vess art book, it contains:

Verdant fairy forests. Whispering mountains. The fallen towers of ancient kings. Spirit-filled lakes. The distant strains of elven bards. For over thirty years, the fantasy art of Charles Vess has been acclaimed worldwide, his rich palette, striking compositions, and lavish detail second to none in the field. Vess has been the illustrator of choice for countless publishers and writers, including Neil Gaiman, Susanna Clark, and George R. R. Martin. Embodying the timeless approach of the golden age of illustration, Vess’s work is both breathtakingly singular and yet recalls an era when paint and brush were the vessels that carried readers of all ages to distant lands, bygone ages, and realms of the imagination

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Drawing Down the Moon goes on sale in December and sells for $39.99.

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1 COMMENT

  1. Sold!

    I’ve love Vess’s work since I first saw it in an old Pacific Comics anthology in the early ’80s– that one about the girl in the wild who gets her period. I think Groo also debuted in the same ish. Halcyion days.

    Congratulations to both Dark Horse and Charles.

  2. Vess is an amazing artist, I’m happy for the fans and creator of, ‘Wimpy Kid, but if one thinks that putting out a whole book for free does not affect their actual book sales, then I think they are mistaken.

  3. As far as the Wimpy Kid books go, most of its target audience – upper elementary and younger middle school students – don’t read webcomics. I’ve asked them. They buy the books. In droves. The books get checked out from my school library all the time.

    And count me as one person who MUCH prefers the physical book in hand over an online edition. Reading the computer screen, especially looking at art on the computer screen, is not very comfortable for me. I do it a lot, for work, but for myself – I prefer the printed book.

  4. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t spend your money on either a Kaluta or Windsor-Smith book. Both of them did it better. It always looks like Vess is trying to channel one or the other, and being successful at neither. His drawings never seem to embody any sense of character or flesh and blood. I can’t image ever caring about any of the people in his drawings. That’s what bothers me the most, there is no heart or emotion to what he does, it’s just renderings.

  6. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t spend your money on either a Kaluta or Windsor-Smith book. Both of them did it better. It always looks like Vess is trying to channel one or the other, and being successful at neither.

    For an alternate opinion on the similarities to Windsor-Smith:

    Charles Vess, like Barry Windsor-Smith, is influenced heavily by the golden age of painting and illustration during the turn of the 19th/20th centuries. His art evokes comparisons with the exquisite line work of Arthur Rackham and W Heath Robinson amongst others, who set benchmarks for illustrated books that have never been bettered. He’s one of a handful of artists that could illustrate anything at all and I’d buy it.