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Beasts! #1
Beasts!: Book One
After selling out two hardcover editions, Beasts! returns in a beautiful new softcover edition. Beasts! is a classic mythological menagerie, comprised only of creatures that were thought at one time to actually exist, depicted by about a hundred of the most acclaimed artists and cartoonists coming from the most avant-garde ambits of the art world. The Beasts project has fired the imaginations of luminaries such as Tony Millionaire, Souther Salazar, Jeff Soto, Dave Cooper, Tim Biskup, Seonna Hong, Jeremy Fish, James Jean, and Jay Ryan, who will present never-before-seen art completely original to this book, superbly laid out in breathtaking, full-color two-page spreads. Beasts! collects many of the best visual artists from the worlds of comics, skateboarding, rock graphics, science-fiction, children's books, commercial and fine art. The book is conceived and designed by Jacob Covey, lead art director for Fantagraphics (Dennis the Menace, Popeye, Willie & Joe, etc.) and a well-regarded designer and artist in his own right in the Northwest rock and arts community. Other contributors include: Amanda Visell, Anders Nilsen, Andrew Brandou, Art Chantry, Brian Ralph, Bwana Spoons, Dave Cooper, Deth P. Sun, Esther Pearl Watson, Jason, Jesse LeDoux, Johnny Ryan, Jordan Crane, Keith Shore, Little Friends of Printmaking, Marc Bell, Martin Cendreda, Martin Ontiveros, Mat Brinkman, R. Kikuo Johnson, Richard Sala, Sammy Harkham, Seonna Hong, Stan Sakai, S. britt, Stella Im Hultberg, Steven Weissman, Tom Gauld, Tyler Stout and many more.
200 pages, Paperback
First published February 26, 2007
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302 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
February 28, 2016
A modern bestiary featuring beasts from the planet over, most of them associated with particular countries. 90 illustrators and comics artists including Jason, Gilbert Hernandez, Marc Bell, Stan Sakai, Anders Nilsen, Tony Millionaire, Ron Rege, Brian Ralph, Esther Pearl Watson. So as you can guess, the styles and approaches are all over the place, from dark fantasy to cartoony kid stuff. Jarring at times, I'll admit, to see the range of styles, but in a way the project taps into the comics/artistic imagination: Make a succubus, do whatever comes into your head! But the artists also had to follow some descriptions of what the beasts were supposed to look like, too. So why would you still make them all alike in style? It's like looking into the world of comics, like some, not like some.
Crytozoology is the study of hidden animals, mythology, nightmares, presumed to exist, but not scientifically acknowledged. The portraits of cryptids in this collection include cyclops and golem, but also loathly worms, maki, gorgons, harpies, kraken, and so on.
It's kind of an amazing book, with an excellent bibliography. Its content is culturally interesting, the art innovative and sometimes powerful, sometimes cute and funny. Cool book!
IMPORTANT: To check out some of the images, you have to check out the review of Beasts 1 and 2 by the always amazing Eisnein:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Crytozoology is the study of hidden animals, mythology, nightmares, presumed to exist, but not scientifically acknowledged. The portraits of cryptids in this collection include cyclops and golem, but also loathly worms, maki, gorgons, harpies, kraken, and so on.
It's kind of an amazing book, with an excellent bibliography. Its content is culturally interesting, the art innovative and sometimes powerful, sometimes cute and funny. Cool book!
IMPORTANT: To check out some of the images, you have to check out the review of Beasts 1 and 2 by the always amazing Eisnein:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
March 27, 2016
A lavish bestiary bringing together indie artists with no artistic restrictions. How'd it do?
With styles as diverse as these, sometimes you get something that’s very Bernie Wrightson . . .
. . . or something goddamn horrifying . . .
. . . maybe comical . . .
There are other pieces in the book that make this look as serious as Batman V. Superman.
. . . there's inexplicably expressionistic . . .
. . . and, finally crap.
Long-time readers might remember my great love of the Loch Ness Monster from my near-shrieking gif-accompanied breakdown during my Origin of the Crabs review. If Nessie's in a book, that's where I always flip to first. So I flipped to this one, and--
Did someone doodle a dinosaur in charcoal on an indie album cover? Is that a succesful Mickey Mouse club plesiosaur hunt? What the hell did the damned devil goat promise a coven of hipster witches that made them ritually sacrifice Nessie? Butter? Living deliciously? Turtlenecks?
Seriously, this is Nessie. Screwing her up in a monster book is like screwing up, I dunno, the most important part of a musical by casting someone with the emotional singing range of a wooden plank, and I can't imagine who would--
Um. Also, there's a nice interview with a Yeti researcher.
A major problem I had was one of the fonts used. The title for each monster so stylized that it's basically undecipherable. I was glad that the creatures' names are all-caps inside the text, but it was a hassle to look up.
That problem's thankfully fixed in Beasts!: Book Two
The main question is, should you buy this? If you like monsters and bestiaries, the answer is yes. You will not like some pieces in this book, guaranteed. That's just the nature of the Beasts!: Book One
See what I did there?
Still, whatever styles of art you like, the chances are that you'll enjoy much more of them. My test for any bestiary is, "Will I flip through it for more than ten minutes it if it's lying around?" The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black failed; A Natural History of the Fantastic succeeded. Also, there were plenty of creatures in here I've never heard of that I'm now considering for the cast of a future Murder With Monsters sequel.
So, despite my kvetching, fully recommended.
Just so you know: Beasts!: Book Two is even better.
With styles as diverse as these, sometimes you get something that’s very Bernie Wrightson . . .
. . . or something goddamn horrifying . . .
. . . maybe comical . . .
There are other pieces in the book that make this look as serious as Batman V. Superman.
. . . there's inexplicably expressionistic . . .
. . . and, finally crap.
Long-time readers might remember my great love of the Loch Ness Monster from my near-shrieking gif-accompanied breakdown during my Origin of the Crabs review. If Nessie's in a book, that's where I always flip to first. So I flipped to this one, and--
Did someone doodle a dinosaur in charcoal on an indie album cover? Is that a succesful Mickey Mouse club plesiosaur hunt? What the hell did the damned devil goat promise a coven of hipster witches that made them ritually sacrifice Nessie? Butter? Living deliciously? Turtlenecks?
Seriously, this is Nessie. Screwing her up in a monster book is like screwing up, I dunno, the most important part of a musical by casting someone with the emotional singing range of a wooden plank, and I can't imagine who would--
Um. Also, there's a nice interview with a Yeti researcher.
A major problem I had was one of the fonts used. The title for each monster so stylized that it's basically undecipherable. I was glad that the creatures' names are all-caps inside the text, but it was a hassle to look up.
That problem's thankfully fixed in Beasts!: Book Two
The main question is, should you buy this? If you like monsters and bestiaries, the answer is yes. You will not like some pieces in this book, guaranteed. That's just the nature of the Beasts!: Book One
See what I did there?
Still, whatever styles of art you like, the chances are that you'll enjoy much more of them. My test for any bestiary is, "Will I flip through it for more than ten minutes it if it's lying around?" The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black failed; A Natural History of the Fantastic succeeded. Also, there were plenty of creatures in here I've never heard of that I'm now considering for the cast of a future Murder With Monsters sequel.
So, despite my kvetching, fully recommended.
Just so you know: Beasts!: Book Two is even better.
June 3, 2020
From my review of the second Beasts! book:
"I love Jacob Covey's Beast books. I wish he would come out with another one. Both are collections of artwork by different artists, each illustrating a different mythical monster or other creature. Many of the illustrations are truly breathtaking. Alongside each picture, there is a brief description of the creature depicted. A lot of fun and often genuinely informative."
"I love Jacob Covey's Beast books. I wish he would come out with another one. Both are collections of artwork by different artists, each illustrating a different mythical monster or other creature. Many of the illustrations are truly breathtaking. Alongside each picture, there is a brief description of the creature depicted. A lot of fun and often genuinely informative."
July 12, 2007
Just about every page of this is BLOWING MY MIND!
March 5, 2024
A fantastic combination of illustration and folklore - perfect for anyone with a passion for art and/or cryptozoology!
January 3, 2012
This compilation presents over ninety portraits of mythological creatures from around the world created by ninety artists in various fields. The contributing artists had no restrictions put on the art they created and were only asked to depict the creature based on the well-researched description. With complete artistic freedom, the artists contributed some of the most humorous, eerie, frightening, atrocious pieces their imagination could inspire. The beasts depicted in the book hail from the folklore of various cultures in Eastern and Western Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, North and South America and many island tribes. The result is an amazing book unlike any to be found anywhere else. Each full-color portrait is accompanied by the name of the creature and a paragraph-long description on the opposite page. The book includes a taxonomical diagram categorizing the beasts into land, water, human-like, animal-like, scaled, plant, chimera, giant, hairy, hairless, small or large allowing the reader to easily cross-reference types of beasts and culture of origin. It also has an excellent bibliography. Its content is culturally rich, relevant and well-researched, its layout stylistically superb, and its art is innovative and inspiring. It takes a great deal of information and presents it in a pleasing and exciting way. More than a picture book, Beasts serves many purposes and would be an excellent resource for anyone studying mythology, culture, art or design.
May 13, 2009
A modern bestiary, with a small team of editors writing descriptions of mythological creatures and a huge array of contemporary artists rendering them in every style imaginable. There is a notable absence of the stereotypical fantasy art style, with the artists more at home in Juxtapose magazine than a D&D Monstrous Manuel. Hardly surprising as this is a Fantagraphics book, after all, and the gorgeous design and gilded hardcover evidence their commitment to their craft. And now there’s a Beasts Volume Two!
July 2, 2008
This is the most bizarre ideosyncratic collection of art I've ever seen. I safely checked this out of the library before buying it and I can assuredly say only 20% to 30% of the book is great. As for the rest, I think Covey is either drinking the bongwater or is seriously screwing with the reader.
You go from great pieces by Jeff Soto or Sam Weber to something that looks like it was drawn by kindergardeners. There were four or five that used crayola marker in their pieces. It's too jarring.
You go from great pieces by Jeff Soto or Sam Weber to something that looks like it was drawn by kindergardeners. There were four or five that used crayola marker in their pieces. It's too jarring.
Read
July 27, 2007This book rules! It’s so beautiful and scary and it features the Beast of Bray Road—my hometown’s very own “hidden creature.” Sadly, Delavan is spelled incorrectly (Delvan) but I won’t hold that against this fantastic collection.
October 23, 2007
granted: a friend was intimately involved in the making of it. But what a lovely piece of art/story-telling. It's a respectable coffee-table book for those that generally find coffee-table books repugnant.
January 17, 2011
The only thing I don't like about this book is the typography for the names of the different monsters. It is so stylized as to be unreadable. I hope to buy book 2 sometime soon to add to my collection.
August 15, 2007
...so I might be biased, but I think this is one of the most beautiful books ever published.
March 10, 2008
This book is beautiful. Jacob Covey designs a good book.
May 15, 2008
A gift from Em for my 21st birthday (May 2007). I sat down and devoured it immediately, and by devoured I mostly mean soaked up the enjoyable illustrations.
October 14, 2012
brilliant artworks of various cryptids with accompanying text
March 28, 2009
Visually stunning with historical and anecdotal descriptions of each illustrated beast. Many artists featured in each book.
May 4, 2009
Beautiful variety of styles depicting well-known and more obscure cryptids. A fun and visually engaging read.
Read
October 3, 2011great coffee table book. one of those that passes a few minutes very very quickly with some interesting pictures and descriptions of mythical creatures. can't wait to read the second one
November 25, 2010
An awesome book that makes me smile. (:
September 9, 2016
5 stars - Review to Come
July 3, 2012
28.95
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews