Simon Bisley's Illustrations from the Bible

by Simon Bisley

AFTER YEARS IN THE MAKING, SIMON BISLEY PRESENTS "ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE A WORK IN PROGRESS - 120 BEAUTIFULLY CRAFTED ILLUSTRATIONS AND PAINTS. THE BOOK HAS BEEN REPRINTED IN A NEW FORMAT AND IS NOW BACK IN STOCK

Genres: Art, Comics

First published September 1, 2004

About the author

Simon Bisley is a British comic book artist best known for his 1990s work on ABC Warriors, Lobo and Sláine. His style, reliant on paints as well as inks, was strongly influenced by Frank Frazetta and Bill Sienkiewicz and took inspiration from rock album covers and graffiti as well as traditional comics art.

Reviews

[Marquise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Four stars for the art but three stars for the presentation and choice of scenes/subjects to illustrate. Bisley's style is quite unique and some of the illustrations here are impresssive and visually stunning, he goes more for metaphorical takes sometimes, but it's always interesting to find out how he views certain key scenes.

As for presentation, I might be mistaken but I'm assuming these were originally included in an illustrated edition of the complete Bible, but this one collects only the illustrations sans the text. So, if you're not familiar with Biblical chronology and events, you're likely to feel very confused about what exactly an illustration is supposed to be depicting. There are no quotes from the Holy Book, nor explanatory lines to guide the reader, so I'd consider this more a book for artwork enthusiasts and Bible-knowledgeable people (and no, you don't have to be religious for that, there's people who've read it out of historical/storytelling curiosity.)

One quibble I'd like to mention about the presentation is that Simon Bisley tends to ignore the Old Testament, which in my humble opinion is the part that has the best scenes, the most engrossing stories and the most "epic" feel in the entire Bible story-wise. He merely does some scarce pieces for the commonplace landmark stories, like the apple-eating at Eden or Abraham and Isaac, and not much else. Huge chunks of the Old Testament are left artwork-less. And, on the other hand, Bisley spends too much time illustrating every single boring scene from the Gospels. And on top of that, he adds two sections that aren't Biblical: the saints and the Roman Colosseum. That's more Catholic tradition (the former) and plain old history (the latter), and I fail to see what was the point of all that. I mean, if this was to illustrate the Bible and you fly over the largest portion of it as is the Old Testament, and waste space in New Testament scenes that could've been just glossed over, and crown it all with addenda you could definitely let pass. That's not a balanced or ideal distribution of artworks for a very long book.

[Kat Perano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grunty, gritty and passionate. Some technically stunning art work. This guy knows the human drawn form, big time . absoulutely luv it ! more!

[Fugo Feedback · Rating 3 out of 5]

Con libros como este va a ser muy fácil llegar a los 200, ya que son puro dibujo. Por suerte son dibujos de Bisley, británico con mucha pero mucha cancha a la hora de plasmar personajes y situaciones exxxxxtremos.
En este caso, todas las ilustraciones tienen temática bíblita. Bisley
No sé cómo le caerá a los cristianos que haya tetas sueltas y sangre a borbotones por estas páginas (aunque seguro que los pezones les parece más censurables que la ubicua violencia extrema), pero como agnóstico me parecieron una visión interesante. Claro que no he leído más de dos o tres versículos de la Biblia así que me falta chequear la fuente original, aunque tampoco está entre mis prioridades. Me gusta cómo queda el precio en la tapa de esta edición :D

[Dony Grayman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Edición argentina que reentapa los dos cuadernos originalmente publicados por separado.

[Dudley Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breathtaking