BAB Book Review:The Art of Jim Starlin: A Life in Words and Pictures

Karen: I'm sure it's become apparent that Jim Starlin is one of my favorite comic book artists (and writers). His work on Warlock and Captain Marvel made a huge impression on me and is still some of my favorite repeat-reading material. So I was very excited to lay my hands on this massive book, The Art of Jim Starlin: A Life in Words and Pictures, published by IDW. This big (9 1/2" x 12") book is 328 pages of sheer Starlin beauty. Almost every page includes glossy color reproductions of Starlin's work from across the 4 decades plus of his career.

There's some of his early fanzine art (Dr. Weird), very early Marvel art, including Thanos' first appearance in Iron Man 55, some Conan work, covers for The Rampaging Hulk magazine, Captain Marvel, Epic, Warlock, Dreadstar, book illustrations -really, just about anything you can think of that Starlin has done will be found here.

It also includes text written by the man himself, and he is remarkably forthcoming about himself and his dealings in the comics industry. Particularly the last few chapters of the book, dealing with his relationships with Marvel and DC in recent years, we see how much things have changed at both companies -and not for the better. After Starlin returned to Marvel to do the Thanos and Marvel Universe: The End series, he was interested in working with Warlock again. "So I emailed Tom Brevoort that I'd like to talk to him about a new series for the character. A few days later I received an email from one of Tom's assistants informing me that someone else at Marvel was going to do an Adam Warlock mini-series and that I could no longer use the character in the pages of Thanos." He goes on to detail how he got the runaround from Marvel about this, the story about why he couldn't use Warlock kept changing, and finally he told them that he had to think about how he was going to deal with the situation. "Within the hour I got an email back saying that if I wasn't happy with the way things were I could always quit. I have a rule: if someone tells you that if you don't like something you should quit, that's exactly what you should do. It only goes downhill from there."

So the man who made Warlock into a cult favorite was basically told not to let the door hit him on the way out. No regard for someone who provided the company with one its greatest villains, along with a ton of other characters and ideas. Sure, we're only hearing one side of the story. But I wouldn't be surprised if this was exactly what happened.

In his closing comments, while Starlin states that he does love comics, he questions the viability of the art form. He mentions both the never-ending big event mini-series and the top-heavy management at both companies as things he sees doing harm to the industry.

His final words of advice to aspiring comics writers/artists are to make sure that making art is your primary goal, not money. "Creativity will take you further than being a cog in the money making machine. It is the unique that is remembered, not necessarily the best seller." And he should know.