The Art Of Rachel And Terry Dodson (book review)
I only came across this book, ‘The Art Of Rachel And Terry Dodson’ recently and, fortunately, a few copies available in the UK, so saves international postage. I’ve reviewed a couple books by the Dodsons in the past, like ‘Red One’, and like their clean style. Terry does the drawing and design and his wife, Rachel, the inking and when needed, both colour digitally. This book shows how they developed their covers through all these stages, as well as some of the preliminaries as they decide which is the best choice. As I’ve commented in the past, if you think professional artists just look at a blank piece of paper or Bristol board and just start drawing then think again. Terry work out a few designs in sketch form to see which look the best, maybe take pieces of each for a composition and then build up the final design. You really do have to like drawing to do this, especially the repetitiveness some of the time. That’s why they are professional and many stay amateur.
The selection here covers their work from DC Comics, Star Wars and Marvel, as well as a selection of interior pages and their personal projects. With each, both give their comments about the work that gives some insight into how they work.
A section at the back of the book shows how they built this book’s cover from simple designs to digital manipulation, showing the various tools they have. This gets hardcopied and further drawing and correcting before handing it over to his wife to ink. It’s interesting that Rachel points out she uses a colour changer on the black to change some of the tone on the figures but doesn’t explain how she stops it from spreading to other lines. They also have an A3 scale scanner and printer to accomplish this. Me turning on my objectivity does wonder if they got through this process on all their pictures and never ponder on how they can reduce some of the time taken.
Even if you don’t want to learn from their art techniques, you certainly get a full selection of their comicbook covers sand copy to look at.
GF Willmetts
June 2025
(pub: Flesk, 2024. 179 page large softcover. Price: varies. ISBN: 978-1-64041-064-0)
check out website: www.fleskpublications.com/books/p/art-of-rachel-and-terry-dodson-paperback
