Modern Masters Volume 14: Frank Cho (Modern Masters, 14) - Softcover

One of the most popular superhero artists going, Cho entered the genre in a roundabout fashion. In the late 1990s, he drew a moderately successful humorous newspaper strip, Liberty Meadows, set in an animal sanctuary, that intermingled anthropomorphic critters and human characters, notably curvaceous animal psychiatrist Brandy Carter. The strip boasted slick, supple brushwork and facile gags, but Cho’s flair for depicting exaggeratedly gorgeous, scantily clad women really garnered him a devoted following among the overwhelmingly young, male comics-reading demographic. Hence, Marvel hired him for such titles as Shanna the She-Devil and The Mighty Avengers. This volume in the Modern Masters series on contemporary comic-book artists features a lengthy interview, in which Cho discusses his career, including the clashes with the syndicate over Liberty Meadows’ treatment of sex that led him to discontinue it, and his creative process. The book’s true appeal lies, of course, in the reproductions: comics pages, “pinups” of Cho’s women, and a color section including jungle paintings distractingly derivative of fantasy-art master Frank Frazetta. --Gordon Flagg