New caricature art book is READY

[Geuseppe]

Howdy, CAers.

If you're at all interested, the new website is finished and my first book is ready for pre-order.

REJECTS - the extreme art of retail caricature is an entertaining art book with over 100 drawings of real people done live at theme parks and retail locations all over the world.

If you want to order your copy, I'm doing a unique sketch inside every copy that is pre-ordered through August 1st, so drop by and take a look - RejectsTheBook.com.

Keep sketching!

[charger]

so i must ask do the pics have the text with them like in the previews on the site?

[Steph Laberis]

Great work dude and grats on the book! I'ma linkin' you on my blog, didn't realize you had one

[Geuseppe]

Charger- yes, but not all drawings have captions or quotes. There is some text in the book, but it's predominantly the art.

[Geuseppe]

I've been traveling to shows and meeting a lot of great people.

The book is moving fast, and I may run out quicker than I had planned! You can still order the book at RejectsTheBook.com - I'll be in Toronto for TCAF this weekend and Baltimore, MD for the big Comic Convention there, on the week of Sept. 2nd.

Here's one of the reviews I've recently received, from Lar deSouza, artist of "Least I Could Do" web comic:

Artist sketchbooks are glimpses into a body of work. Considering they tend to have short print runs, they can often be rarities as well. I have a collection that I use in personal study, and contrast and compare against each other and my own work to help me decide how to improve myself.

With recent advances in small press technology, it's not too surprising to see an explosion of artist 'sketchbooks' on the market. Many are still low budget affairs, but this book has a lovely hard cover, with glossy colour pages on good weight paper and, imo, is well worth the cover price. Some photos are slightly blurred, but not so much as to hinder my appreciation of them and are so, doubtless because Joe wasn't able to secure the original long enough for a proper reproduction.

Considering that each drawing in this book took him mere minutes, it's taking me way longer to digest and appreciate them. The more I look at each drawing, the more I find. I was fortunate to be able to grab my copy from Joe when he was at the NCN table in San Diego, and I've been poring over each page since then. It's a book I visit, ponder, and then revisit again and again. Eventually I will likely even try copying some of the work as a personal exercise but right now, I'm still in the stages of appreciating it and trying to analyze and internalize it.

His superb choices of exaggeration aside, Joe's handling of line is fantastic. All the more so because those are the most crucial decisions that need be made intuitively on the fly. His colour technique is mind boggling. He displays incredible observations of shape, planes, light and reflected light. Whenever I've worked live colour I find myself in unfavourable lighting conditions and need to 'make up' the source. Joe grabs the lighting conditions and exaggerates that as well to it's best effect. Colour gets laid in dynamic swaths, building upon the transparent qualities of the medium which then are often accented by sharp strokes to lend a painterly texture.

It's an effing midway caricature!! Who knew the bar could be set so high? I would love the opportunity to smack each customer who walked away dis-satisfied. They must lead pathetic lives and I would enjoy abusing them.

What more could I want? Joe covers a wide range of age, and ethnicity in his Rejects. For the less experienced artist, it would be nice to see more body situations to inspire them, but that really wasn't the focus of this book. Perhaps another volume in the future, I couldn't say. There is a page of the process that would be nice to see expanded, or have multiple examples of. I don't know if that kind of static sequence could do it justice, and it runs the line of a 'how to' rather than a collection of work.

So yeah - bottom line. I like the book. A lot. I like from an artistic pov, and a caricaturist's pov. The work is so engaging that I think it is also a gem from an non-artist pov and would be suitable to an art lover. I am considering who else I need to buy this book for, for Christmas presents. It may mean Joe can eat for another week, but that's a risk I'm willing to take.

[theincredibleandy]

Everyone needs to hurry up and buy theirs! I got mine at SDCC and it was the happiest 100+ pages of my life. Good book, Joe!

[otis]

LOL!! I luv it how theme-park tourists don't realize how stupid they REALLY look!!! You gotta get this book in the hands of a famous comedian!

I laughed out loud when I saw the white-trash couple riding the rollercoaster!

Great work! I'd love to see your take on me! ; P