Added to my goals of 2022 is the acquisition of the new Alex Ross comic book recanting the origins of the Fantastic Four.

Alex Ross is probably my favorite comic book artist that is still alive. The late George Perez was my favorite comic book artist of all time...but all good things need to end I suppose. RIP George Perez. I learned that (just yesterday) Alex Ross is going to be at San Diego Comic Con this year, and he will be seated at booth #2415.

If you are one of the lucky folks who attend the convention, and you happen to also be one of the lucky folks who get to meet Alex Ross at his booth (I'm sure it will have like a three-hour line that will rapidly run out of product), you will be able to purchase his new comic book called Origins: Fantastic Four. Yes, I want a copy of this book desperately (as soon as I heard it was going to be available). And I can also just put my name on the waiting list (which is what I'm doing) that you can find at his website HERE.

Given that money is sloshing everywhere in our economy, I'm sure the $195 price point will not deter any of his fans (especially since Brandon Sanderson had fans that contributed $45 million to his platinum-lined coffers for books that they know nothing about). That's why inflation is running amok. People in this country appear to be loaded, but unequally so. The haves got money running out of their arse. The have nots...well...they are really struggling.

If you are unfamiliar with Alex Ross, he has a photo-realistic style that I really enjoy. Not only are his comics fun to page through, but pages of them are quite honestly frame-worthy. If I had full-sized prints in frames, I'd put them on the wall of my game room. This stunning, realistic style is in contrast to a lot of other kinds of comic book artists, who use line art with coloring to bring their heroes and stories to life. For lack of a better example, Ross paints his heroes and villains with the kind of passion as a renaissance painter. This serves to capture the emotion and movement and power of a scene in a different way. To look at his work technically, he uses gouache and wash paints (think of watercolor) but gouache is more opaque and wash is less opaque. The effect is to produce layers of color that have no clear brushstrokes. Below is an image he did of the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz, and you can immediately see what I'm talking about.

There are complaints of course. Some people think that Alex Ross's art is too good for comic books. In other words, they feel that it is just so damn good that when you are reading, it loses that comic book feel to it and starts to feel more like a literal picture book, which shakes you out of your suspension of disbelief. Others say that his commitment to realism and using models hurts him, because it emphasizes how silly these costumes would look like in real life. See below for an example of Ross painting the Flash and you'll see what I mean.

I think it manages to be both beautiful and goofy at the same time, which is probably not what many comic book nerds want. Additionally, word balloons do kind of look out of place in his comic books due to the jarring effect that they tend to have. Again...a minor complaint. Ross also tends to draw people in statuesque poses. This makes his art look a little out of place in a comic book. "Dynamic posing" is a staple of comics, and any tutorial will talk about energetic posing to a great degree. Anyway, none of that matters as it is all subjective to any collector. This collector (me) likes Alex Ross a lot, and I'm going to be happier when I get my hands on his new book. In the meantime, check out this panel that I got from his website. It exudes the Alex Ross feel I love from his previous publications.

Click to Embiggen

Have a great weekend. I'm seeing Thor: Love and Thunder tonight, so I'll probably be reviewing that movie on Monday.