David Petersen's Blog: Art Book Info

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Art Book Info

In July a new Mouse Guard art book will be released that celebrates and explores my work over the 10 years Mouse Guard has been in-print and goes into almost a decade of drawings prior to that showing the development of Mouse Guard before it ever was Mouse Guard.

Here is the full solicitation:

THE ART OF MOUSE GUARD: 2005-2015 HC

Retail Price: $59.99
Author: David Petersen
Artists: David Petersen, Mike Mignola, Stan Sakai, Geof Darrow, Various
Cover Artist: David Petersen

What’s To Love: Since its debut in 2005, David Petersen’s Mouse Guard has been a New York Times bestseller, won Eisner and Harvey awards, and has become an influential staple of the comics industry, earning thousands of fans. In honor of the 10-year anniversary of the series’ debut issue, The Art of Mouse Guard: 2005-2015 is a celebration of the beautiful world, memorable characters, and intensive artistic process of David Petersen’s beloved series.

What It Is: Celebrate the first 10 years of a comics classic from the very first sketch. For the first time since the series debut, David Petersen’s process for creating the world of Mouse Guard and bringing it to life in stunning illustration is documented in exquisite detail. With never-before-seen sketches; 100 pages of full-color, oversized artwork; and commentary from colleagues, collaborators, and Petersen himself, readers and fans get an unprecedented look behind-the-pages at how their favorite characters and adventures were born.

Last spring, my then editor, Rebecca "Tay" Taylor came out to our home in Michigan to go through all my archives of sketchbooks, file drawers of notes, hard drives of files...it was three days of intense digging, recollecting, note taking, and scanning (of which I only really did the recollecting.)

This is a massive book! 368 pages 12" x 12" with tons of stuff the general public has never seen, as well as things seen for the first time at full-size or without text/logos.

The unofficial theme of the book is "evolution". I found it hard to look at some of the drawings I was doing as a professional even long after Mouse Guard started. But it was seeing the book as a whole and watching as my art changed from chapter to chapter, as the process changed, and how Mouse Guard will continue to change. Art books are a peek behind the curtain into an artists studio, to see all the flaws and cracks and work that leads to the published book, and I think we accomplished that with this book.

If you are interested in The Art of Mouse Guard 2005-2015, please pre-order it from your local comic shop. We rely on fans to tell their retailers they want the book, it's the way shops know to order it and how many to order.

Below you can see more samples of the types of content you will find inside the pages: