Jacob Johnson

I’ve purchased all the Marvel Art Of books, but I had especially high hopes for Doctor Strange. The film was heavily marketed as a psychedelic visual feast in keeping with the character. So I expected amazing artwork – and was not disappointed.

This is the best art book Marvel has done in some time. Some of the books, like Iron Man and Cap, have become repetitive. I love seeing the new armor appear in the movies, but you can only look at so many iterations in a book before they all run together. Strange is a shot in the arm because so much of the art is pure imagination. There is the usual coverage of costumes, and how well they adapted Strange’s, but this art book doesn’t rely as heavily on comparisons to the comics. There’s a lot of talk about capturing the “trippiness” of Ditko’s original work, but only a few direct comparisons. The section on the Dark Dimension, and how the director was inspired by a blacklight Doctor Strange poster from the 70’s was cool.

The best parts of the book for me was how they not only showed alternative production designs, but went into detail on why they weren’t chosen. All of the books show a lot of design choices, but readers rarely get why the final design won out. For instance, there are some truly wild ideas included here for what the astral projection would look like. However, they decided to go with something simple because they didn’t want the audience to be distracted when characters are having conversations in astral form. There’s a similar section regarding Dormammu’s influence on the zealots (e.g. the eyes). This book really shows fans how the artwork underlies the production, but also the reverse - how the art is influenced by storytelling requirements and the medium of film.

Overall, this is a fantastic installment to the Art Of line. It has the usual high production values (glossy pages, slipcase). The artwork is gorgeous, and the book adds another layer of enjoyment for the film. Highly recommended.… (meer)