Draw Comics With Dick Giordano (book review).
Set yourself a task. You’re probably after a specific book title or author, maybe after discovering a book you missed when it first came out. Such was the case with ‘Draw Comics With Dick Giordano’. Said artist was a multi-talent, from editing to drawing comic books and especially inking in his spare time before inking others. The latter was for a lot of pencillers over the years and in his own biographical notes acknowledges Neal Adams, John Byrne and George Pérez amongst them.
Not many comic book artists turn their hands to ‘how to’ books. Unlike the others, Giordano resists using characters from the Big Two and only a couple of pages of characters from Future Comics, where he was working at the time. The five chapters go through all the basics for the novice artist, saying in the introduction that for experts you start at page 127, which is the end. He does specifically say that art is always a learning experience, and that is probably why I don’t discriminate when I look at art books. So you get the basics in drawing the head, the full body figure and surroundings. He then moves onto inking and then sequential storytelling, where the important advice is given.
I do think this book is just as much use to the experienced artist because it reminds you of the basics, which is always to go back to the basic shapes and get that right before doing the details. He demonstrates this a lot with foreshortening, weapons and buildings and the important perspective. He also compares his brush technique to that of and includes Terry Austin, who is mostly pen dependent, and there are samples of the same pages comparing their techniques. Frankly, I think there is a middle ground between them depending on the pencil pages.
In his acknowledgements, Giordano acknowledges Andrew Loomis’ book, ‘Figure Drawing For All Its Worth’, as a major influence. After this book’s 2005 release, at least most of Loomis’ books have been reprinted. For continuity and application to comic books, there is still a lot to learn here. If you can lay your hands on a copy and love drawing, then it’s worth you getting your own copy and honing your skills.
GF Willmetts
January 2026
(pub.: Impact Books, 2005. 127-page illustrated large softcover. Price: varies, but it is possible to get reasonably priced copies. ISBN: 1-58180-627-2).
