Dangerous Drawings: Interviews with Comix and Graphix Artists

I have owned this book for years, and I still find myself picking it back up and re-inspiring myself to be more devious in my own comic-writing.Personally, Julie Doucet is my favorite comic book artist, and I learned about her first through this book. Eli Langer has pushed the limits so much & gotten away with it. I love his story. It's also nice to be able to put a "face to the name" and get to see the artists' mugs- which are often also quite amusing.All that I have to suggest is that if you are not willing to expose yourself to the whole "bloody-pedophelic-rape-abused" experience, I would say don't buy this book. Otherwise, it s a great read, especially to an aspiring underground-comic artist.

This book contains a whole bunch of interviews with a whole bunch of artist, mostly comic-book artists working outside of the mainstream. The interviews themselves are quite interesting, but for me the best thing was getting a look at some work by cartoonists that I was not very familiar with. The book is filled with samples of each creator's work.The interview with Chris Ware made me go out and buy all the issues of "Acme Novelty Library" that I could find. In fact, a single excerpt from his work (printed on page 51 of this book) made me decide. He draws in about 12 square inches what takes Scott McCloud 100 pages to describe in Understanding Comics.The one complaint that I have is that a few of the subjects don't seem to fit. Three out of the 14 interviewees don't work in comics. While they are interesting interviews (I remember the Eli Langer case, so his interview was fascinating), they don't feel like they belong in this book. Either they should have been cut, or we should have had *more* of them. Because as it is, 11 of the 14 interviewees work in comics. And that makes the other 3 stand out oddly.In any case, this is a great read, and it makes a good gift to people interested in cutting edge art who *aren't* into comics. It will let them know how cool some comics really are.