A tome about comic perspective in comics form, this book helped me discover new principles in perspective and the REASON for these principle. Not just for your scenery, human bodies in perspective are also covered... but you had better know anatomy before hand. The reason for the missing star is because Chelsea uses two forms of curvilinear perspective, but suspiciously absent is the chapter ON curvilinear. Even with this oversight, Chelsea has written an engaging and fairly complete perspective guide. Look closely at the icecubes on page 131 and try to find the hidden pictures!

Artist David Chelsea has put together a great guide to the principles of perspective in drawing. Written in a comic-strip format inspired by Understanding Comics, David presents what he calls "the first user-friendly book on Perspective." The plot here isn't particularly harrowing -- David's friend Mugg, who sort of looks like a realistic Too Much Coffee Man, is having problems getting his superhero slugfests to come out right. And no wonder -- his perspective is all wrong. Enter David to save the day with example after example of the techniques of constructing one-point, two-point and three point perspectives, and short cuts to "fake" perspective.

Very nicely illustrated, with lots of elaborate examples, and a great testament to Chelsea's ability to use his visual gifts to teach a complex subject.

Copyright 1997 Twist and Shout Comics. Used with permission.

Perspective is hard stuff, but this book does make it much easier. Chelsea approaches perspective through a comic-book format, using himself and the coffee-cup headed 'Mugg' as student and teacher. The comic format works wonderfully to give you the words alongside the pictures, and the book moves step by step through basic pespective concepts, then to one-point, two-point, three-point, and a unfortunately over-basic coverage of the human figure in perspective. This book is aimed mainly at the beginning and intermediate artist who needs to draw backgrounds, and it fills that role perfectly. Understandable to anyone from about age 13 and up, and highly recommended. My backgrounds don't suck anymore thanks to David Chelsea (and Mugg).