I always love looking at art books since you get to see the process that goes into creating the finished piece. This collection has some wonderful pieces and I particularly liked viewing the pencils and how that worked. All in all this is a good collection and a must for fans of LaRosa’s work.

Many thanks to Oni Press and NetGalley for allowing me to preview and advanced copy of this excellent collection of comic artist Lewis LaRosa’s work for comics including Marvel and Valiant titled Carbon Based: The Art of Lewis LaRosa. I wasn’t familiar with LaRosa’s work prior to this collection, but the striking image of a woman warrior riding a raptor-like creature and shooting arrows at a pursuing, ferocious t-rex immediately grabbed my attention since it resembled both the bold work of some of Oni’s recent EC revivals like Cruel Kingdon. Plus, it reminded me of some of the iconic work of Frank Frazetta, so I was glad to explore the works and worlds that LaRosa’s art has helped to create. Beyond the amazing art contained in this collection, readers also learn a little about LaRosa’s interesting career, where he got his start working on the Punisher MAX series. In this first section, we see LaRosa’s work, but the collection also contains sketches and notes. I loved seeing these drafts and sketches since it helped me better understand LaRosa’s process of developing not just characters, but also conveying the themes and tones of the narrative story. I enjoyed this kind of visual development of the process involved in the story telling that moves beyond words. Furthermore, readers can see how as LaRosa’s skills and knowledge of working in comics develop, his art and work continue to convey more of the narrative elements of the story. In some of the later work from Bloodshot and Harbinger Wars, readers can get a sense of how LaRosa’s art, use of colors, and even close-up and zoom out of the images convey the action and possible motivations of characters. Other notes and sketches provide fascinating details about the fine details of certain characters. For example, in the section on Ka-Zer MAX we see some notes about one of the characters and various sketches that portray the character in different perspectives. In another section, he has this interesting character who has a kind of infection that has created a kind of skin-shield over him that not only protects him, but also has infected his mind. It’s a brilliant way to create and portray this character whose strength is also his downfall. In another Bloodshot storyline, LaRosa has this great description about how the establishing shot has to be “awful” and he wants the readers to “smell the dank odor” as they encounter the white supremacists’ compound. All of the images from this section are creepy and evocative, while also doing much to convey the story’s narrative. If anything, this book has made me want to check out more of the comics that LaRosa has worked on. However, what stood out most was LaRosa’s work on dinosaurs. As he notes in the brief texts that accompany much of the art, he is a fanatic about dinosaurs, and like a lot of kids, developed this interest in them from an early age. However, LaRosa has moved beyond an interest in dinosaurs and has used research and findings in paleontology to hone his craft in creating increasingly realistic images of dinosaurs. There’s one sketch of several anatomical perspectives of the dinosaurs that allows readers to better learn more detailed and specific his work on these creates are.
What I found most interesting, though, was that LaRosa had this period where he was teaching and not working in comics. It wasn’t until someone from Valiant reached out after 2010 that he came back to working in comics, which enabled him to move into not just the artistry, but also doing cover work for Valiant comics. The cover work is great as well, and I’m glad that this edition was able to present much of his more recent cover work in color. This was a great collection, especially if you are a fan of Lewis LaRosa’s work. However, even if you are not, it’s a great entryway into some of this striking and original art, and it enables readers to gain a better sense of LaRosa’s artistic process and what is can be like to work in comics. Highly recommended!