At a Comic-Con International a few years back, I met a photographer named Greg Preston who had an interesting project. He'd been travelling the country taking photos of comic book and comic strip artists in their studios. The pictures were magnificent. Not only had he gotten shots of some of the best in the field, not only had he gotten some important ones (like Carl Barks and Jack Kirby) before we lost them…but the photographs were good photographs. They looked like the people and in most cases, captured some key aspect of the person's personality. You could just look at one and understand a little more about a favorite cartoonist or illustrator.
Greg was then looking for the right situation to put them in a book…and I'm delighted to say he found it. Dark Horse has recently issued The Artist Within, a handsome hardcover that needs no hard sell from me. If you're not convinced it belongs on your shelf, go look at a few samples of what's in it. Then click here to order a copy from Amazon. I'd gush further but the photos really speak for themselves.