The Active Images line has been all about revealing previously unknown gems and talent, at least for me, so this one is an exception in that it features an artist whose work I'm very familiar with. My first expectation upon hearing of Black and White was that it would be sort of a deluxe sketchbook, with perhaps some commentary from Sale on some of the pieces. Turns out, this book is much more than that. It does feature some terrific artwork throughout, much of it previously unpublished, but the spine of the book is a long, free-flowing interview of Tim Sale by Richard Starkings that examines not only his career but his views on superheroes and comics. It's a riveting look into an artist's mind alongside a visual retrospective of his work, and it's a very well put together package.
I first really noticed Tim Sale on "Blades," the Legends of the Dark Knight arc written by James Robinson, but Black and White goes back quite a bit further, revealing that Sale's origins were not in superheroes, but instead in fantasy artwork. The opening chapter features a look at Sale's work with Gray Archer Press, which published fantasy illustrator postcards, and it's interesting to see Sale's line applied to this genre. Sale's early work was heavily on the fantasy side of things, inking Phil Foglio on Myth Adventures and segueing from there to working on comic adaptations of the Thieves' World books by Robert Asprin.
Of course, Starkings and Sale hit on all the superhero stories in Sale's career as well, with a particularly strong focus on his work with Jeph Loeb. The pairing of Loeb/Sale has become a natural in the industry, such that one can hardly think of one without thinking of the other, and Starkings and Sale spend quite some time deconstructing this partnership. As with every other part of the book, Sale is pretty frank about his answers, and Starkings perceptive and intelligent about his questions, so that we see a sort of "warts and all" take on this partnership, including differences of opinions that the two have on characters, comics in general, storytelling, movies and a number of other things. The Loeb/Sale partnership has been examined in numerous venues, including extras in their hardcover collections, but Starkings manages to find some new information and some new angles here.
Actually, while this is a book that is very revealing about Tim Sale and his viewpoints and approach to the craft, it also reveals quite a bit about Richard Starkings. For one thing, it shows him to have a vocabulary for examining artwork that you'd expect from someone who made his name as a comic-book editor rather than someone who has headed up one of the most successful lettering houses in the biz. This ability to deconstruct the nature of artistic work and collaboration allows him to get some very specific and unusual answers from Tim Sale about the craft of comics, and leads nicely into the many sidebars where Sale talks about various artists who have influenced him.
While the interview is fascinating, and provides more than enough of a read to give the reader their twenty-five bucks worth (it took me most of my plane ride home from San Diego to read it), I shouldn't undersell the visual appeal of the book. There's a variety of Sale art here, from pencilled pages to inked pages, rejected cover sketches, cover sketches to finished covers and basically a visual examination of his process and how it is affected by editorial realities. Probably my favorite thing in the book are the various sketches done for conventioneers, including characters we don't often see him tackle like Nick Fury and a beautiful Captain America that makes me hope he and Loeb will go back and do Captain America: White sooner rather than later. There are also a couple of short but sweet rare stories in the back to fill out the collection.
All in all, if you're a Tim Sale fan, there's pretty much no way you should pass this book up, as it provides an insight into the artist and a showcase for his art that is unlikely to be matched anytime soon. I would also heartily recommend this to anyone who has an interest in how comic book artists work and think, because this really is the kind of process diary that we don't see a lot of, and that we rarely see done this well.
