I've been reviewing more and more artbooks as they start to come out more frequently, and honestly, it's not easy. My vocabulary for dissecting art is much less than the one I have in talking about writing, and so I often find myself reduced to little more than "art pretty. Randy like." Even if I were an art professor, though, that might be my stunned reaction to Process Recess, which is a gorgeously-designed look into the skills and style of James Jean, the talented cover artist behind Fables, Batgirl and various other mainstream titles. Process Recess steers clear of Jean's mainstream work, however, instead giving us a look into his sketchbooks and his paintings for commercial art work, and it's a glimpse into a brilliant (albeit sometimes disturbing) intelligence and talent.
Longtime readers and those who know me might know that I'm a bit of a design whore. I love the fancy hardcovers, the unified trade dress, all those little design-y things that most of us notice on a subconscious level more than a conscious one. Adhouse Books is a publisher that has always had one of the strongest design senses to be found in comics publishing, and Process Recess is another triumph of design. Oh, sure, I might have wished for something oversized to really show off the detail in Jean's work, but this small, long-wise opening book is a terrific little package, understated and inviting and perfectly capturing Jean's sensibilities before you even crack the covers open.
Once you do crack those covers, though, you'll be mesmerized. The book is divided into several sections, divided at times by subject, by the year of the sketchbook or even by theme. There's a pretty good variety of style and approach within each section, as Jeans veers from realistic to impressionistic and back again. Some of the pieces look like they were done by different artists, and yet somehow all of it is recognizably from Jean's pen (or brush, or what-have-you.) Life drawings of Kristie, oftentimes sleeping, and usually with notes about daily activities jotted down, have a strange intimacy as Jeans opens the book of his daily life and the woman who shares it. Drawings of people and places in Vienna, New York and other locales, covered with notes, show an artist whose mind is always working, and who allows images to flow through him but also analyzes them, putting down in words what the images mean to him even as he creates them. The "Process" part of the name is easily discerned, as we get a pretty good glimpse into how Jean sketches and thinks in these pages.
It is the "Recess" part, however, that is my favorite section of the book. On his website, Jean says that "Recess" is about childhood and ghosts, and that's pretty easy to pick up from skimming through the art in the book. Haunting imagery like a nude woman being thrown out of (or yanked into) a school bus filled with riotous children or a monstrous apparition floating outside the window of a children's classroom blends the everyday of suburbia with the more horrible things that lurk in the corners of our mind. My favorite piece in the section, and thus in the book, might be the one that shows an incredibly hot teacher teaching sex ed to her students. Unlike the rest of "Recess," this piece goes for humor more than for shocking or disturbing the reader, and it says everything so perfectly with only one visual snapshot to work with that it speaks volumes about Jean's ability to tell a story quickly and effectively. It is this ability that makes him such a great cover artist, as his single pieces suggest volumes about the story inside. "Recess," being composed largely of painted pieces, is the section that most closely resembles Jean's cover work.
However, it is the rest of Process Recess that really gave me more of a glimpse into who James Jean is as an artist. His process is meticulous, and his use of imagery unusual. His work on the human body, examining both its beauty and its potential for the grotesque, reminds me of the work of Dave Cooper, and his fluid lines and ability to stretch and exaggerate reminds me of Paul Pope (who provides the introduction), but his work stands out as unique, distinctive and easily identifiable as his. Process Recess is a glimpse into the mind and art of one of the more accomplished cover artists in mainstream comics, but to give James Jean that appellation is to undersell him by a wide margin, and one glance at Process Recess will open readers' mind to the true range of Jean's talent. 10/10
