SDCC COVERAGE SPONSORED BY MAD CAVE
Oni Press has announced an upcoming Kickstarter campaign for Carbon Based: The Art of Lewis LaRosa, and The Beat has all the details.
Since Lewis LaRosa made his comics debut more than a quarter-century ago, he’s become one of the most celebrated artists in the industry. Carbon Based is his first-ever career retrospective featuring more than 250 pages of character designs, rarely-seen covers, concept sketches, and more, from publishers including Marvel and Valiant, among others.
“It’s happening, guys! Thanks to the fine folks at Oni Press, a retrospective of my art spanning over 20 years is in the oven,” said LaRosa. “What an incredible honor. From my early days at Marvel launching Punisher MAX to my years helping relaunch the Valiant Universe, this will showcase some of my best work in one lovely tome. I’m making sure to include some rarely seen odds and ends, as well as insight into my old school analog process revealing how the sausage is made. Whether it’s the muscly figure work, sleek robots or prehistoric dinosaurs, hopefully these images will inspire you to pick up the pencil and DRAW!”
Carbon Based: The Art of Lewis LaRosa will come in a Kickstarter-exclusive, foil-stamped hardcover edition. The Beat can exclusively reveal the cover art, seen below.
“Left to my own inclinations, my approach to covers is to go for maximum impact. I will often zone out, maybe even lay down, close my eyes and try to visualize a scene. I’ll play the scene in my head and move the camera around, trying to find the most exciting moment, POC, and composition. I want the elements to explode and pop off the page right at the viewer’s face while still retaining clarity. I want a well developed foreground, middleground, and background so the viewer feels immersed in the environment,” LaRosa said in an exclusive statement for The Beat.
“I’ll make several loose doodles working out the figures, trying to find the most dynamic poses at the peak of action while balancing it with a pleasing silhouette. I’ll arrange and rearrange the elements of a scene to fit together like a puzzle except the guiding image is hazy and the pieces need to be reworked and sometimes tossed out entirely. I try to keep the forms fun and interesting while rendering them in three dimensions. I try to give everything texture for a tactile experience,” LaRosa continued.
“I want the viewer to feel the image on their fingers. I think about lights and darks and try to develop a hierarchy of values to maximize weight, solidity, depth of field, and readability. I try to avoid tangents while still keeping the image full of tension. And, if I can, I add dinosaurs. Dinosaurs make everything better,” he concluded.
In addition to the book itself, Kickstarter backers can claim limited-run signed and slipcase editions of a deluxe portfolio set featuring some of LaRosa’s most memorable Valiant covers, t-shirts, and more. The full slate of rewards will be revealed when the campaign launches next month.
“When it comes to Lewis LaRosa, ‘immense talent’ seems like a titanic understatement. For the first time between two covers, we’re proud to collect a comprehensive, career-spanning appreciation of Lewis’ artwork in one heavyweight, coffee-table book-sized tome that’s suitably oversized to capture all the grit and grandeur of Lewis’s wholly unique, un-replicatable style,” said Oni Press president and publisher Hunter Gorinson.
“It’s an honor for Oni Press to be able to collaborate directly with Lewis on this one-of-a-kind collection spotlighting his unique position in the pantheon of comic book greats,” he added.
To stay updated on the campaign and receive a notification when it goes live, register for the Carbon Based pre-launch page.
English (US) · 