Rating: 
Summary: Not for beginners
Review: Although a generally informative book, it glosses over too many subjects too quickly. The instruction is sound enough but the author assumes an already established level of draughting ability for the reader. For this reason I would certainly not recommend this book for the beginner. If you already have a quite high level of drawing skill & experience with comics, then perhaps you'll love this title, otherwise leave it alone until you've covered the basics.
Rating: 
Summary: Got Technique?
Review: Andy Smith has put together a truly solid reference for those who are looking to improve the quality of their comic book artwork. The sample characters he uses to demonstrate figure drawing are excellent examples of the "modern superhero/superheroine" style.
Using basic form-blocking methods to establish proportion he shows how to then add the sleek and well-defined musculature typical of the most popular comics today. Other areas of instruction include light and shadow, 1,2 and 3-point perspective, page layout, choosing "camrera angles" for panels, composition and visual pacing/flow through a page. Other sections detail scripting and script types, inking techniques/tools, and an epilogue page about breaking into the industry. All in all, this book is a pleasure to work from. I highly recommend it as a desk reference for anyone starting out and also for those who want to return to basics and rediscover what makes the difference between great comics and those that collect dust on the shelf.
Rating:
Summary: Still not the ultimate guide to drawing comics
Review: Another handsome volume on drawing comics from Watson Guptill. And Kubert School graduate Andy Smith uses this book to take you through the basics of drawing comics figures and arranging them in panels. What you make of the book will be determined by your tastes and drawing level. Though it claims to be for any talent level, I don't believe this book would be useful for a complete beginner. While drawing heads and figures are well-represented, he mysteriously omits instruction on hands and feet. As these are the two major stumbling blocks for tons of aspiring artists, this omission is a bit puzzling. Smith's style is the heavily exagerated muscle style that some desperately want to emulate (I'm not one of them, myself, but that hasn't affected my rating). There are only a few examples of other artists' styles, and many of them are from Bart Sears, who makes Smith look restrained in his depiction of the heavily muscled. It would have been nice to have a discussion of different ways of representing the super-heroic musculature ranging from cartoon simple to ultra-powerful over-realistic. The section on inking is helpful, but only if you know how to use the tools already. Though the user is encouraged to use a brush, there's no mention of the correct manner of holding the brush. You are told it takes a great deal of practice to use a brush, but not how to go about that practice. On the good side, there are great discussion on panel layout and flow, using reference materials, drawing the face in different ways and in different ages and a very good guide to the different facial features. The writing is clear, the art well executed and the teaching style encouraging. For someone serious about drawing comics, this is a worthwhile addition for your bookshelf. But don't start here. I'd personally start with Christopher Hart's How to Draw Comic Book Heroes and Villains, which covers the same ground as this book while including most of the omissions I mentioned above. And for working on your figures, I highly recommend How to Draw Anime and Game Characters: Basics for Beginners and Beyond (don't be put off by the manga base for this book, it will benefit anyone interested in comics).
Rating: 
Summary: Very Excellent Book
Review: For me personally, I think this book is terrfic. A day after purchasing this book, I could draw comic heroes in a snap. There is great discussion on topics, ranging from perspective and paneling to human anatomy and line of action. This is indeed a good addition to Christopher Hart's How To Draw Comic Book Heroes And Villians. It is true that the author, Andy Smith, is a much better comic book artist than Hart. It would have been nice if the book had talked about drawing hands and feet, but, hey, we could draw our own hands and feet. This is a must-buy for any wanna-be comic book artist.
Rating:
Summary: Better than the others, so far...
Review: Granted this book isn't particularly special and covers pretty much the same sort of basics, fundamental principles, etc, as a lot of the other 'how to draw comics' books out there - it's a bit different and somewhat better by comparison. It's extremely tough to find a good 'how to...' book out there that covers both basics and more advanced areas which is also helpful and satisfying for most people with different needs for it. I have searched many bookstores and I found pretty much the same sort of thing every time. In the end I thought of which one was more informative, precise and practical without being overly stressful, repetitive or boring. One that didn't rely on flashy colourful examples or reference material that looks great but doesn't really guide you in the right direction. I thought this one was one of the better ones, if not the best. I thought some of the other books really focused more on the finished product and work which was appealing, slick and contemporary-looking - but there wasn't much of a guideline for how to achieve those sort of results. They sort of suggested that most serious comic-drawers draw in the same style. This one isn't really an exception in that way, the same sort of old-fashioned aesthetics and ideals apply. However, I felt this book covered most areas further and the points were not as strict or stubborn. Anything you learn from this book can be loosened and applied to your own individual style. I also felt that this book was easier to understand, adventurous and fun. This is one of the best 'how to...' books so far. It explores most areas further than the other books and introduces new themes. It's probably not what some comic-drawers are hunting for but it's better than most the others
(that are more accessible) and it's also excellent for those who want to recap a lot of things.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful with Clear Instructions
Review: Helping my friend wither her online comic got me interested in drawing people, too. I read through Bridgman's Anatomy and tried my hand at it, but the classical style - beautiful as it is - didn't quite click with me. That's why Andy Smith's book was such a find. I've drawn animals, plants, fantasticals, etc all my life and starting out with people was really intimidating. They rank with horses for difficulty, but this book breaks it down into simple steps. The clear cut instructions make human anatomy all the more attainable. Some valuable lessons in anatomy are skipped, but that's forgiveable b/c it really is too much for a comic book guide to cover. Besides, there are plenty of resources out there that can supplement these lessons. It's probably helpful to have more than one book anyway, since it gives you access to a wider range of styles. Another helpful part was the way he had a wide variety of angles on the torso and waist boxes, then used these examples with the musculature. It really helps the reader follow along with the process. A lot of people have mentioned this book isn't good for beginners, but this is my first time drawing people and I'm really liking the results. Then again, I've had a lot of practice and prep with drawing...so yeah, just another POV. Smith's book supercedes Lee and Buscema's How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way since it incapsulates a lot of what their book covers along with more in-depth lessons on faces and inking. A sort of two for one - although HDC the Marvel Way has a lot more examples of foreshortening and gesture drawing this book could benefit from. For someone who already has a collection of these How-To's going, some of this book could be redundant (or they could be helpful! who knows?), but for a beginner like myself, it gives a concise overview of the basics that is extremely helpful.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful with Clear Instructions
Review: Helping my friend wither her online comic got me interested in drawing people, too. I read through Bridgman's Anatomy and tried my hand at it, but the classical style - beautiful as it is - didn't quite click with me. That's why Andy Smith's book was such a find. I've drawn animals, plants, fantasticals, etc all my life and starting out with people was really intimidating. They rank with horses for difficulty, but this book breaks it down into simple steps. The clear cut instructions make human anatomy all the more attainable. Some valuable lessons in anatomy are skipped, but that's forgiveable b/c it really is too much for a comic book guide to cover. Besides, there are plenty of resources out there that can supplement these lessons. It's probably helpful to have more than one book anyway, since it gives you access to a wider range of styles. Another helpful part was the way he had a wide variety of angles on the torso and waist boxes, then used these examples with the musculature. It really helps the reader follow along with the process. A lot of people have mentioned this book isn't good for beginners, but this is my first time drawing people and I'm really liking the results. Then again, I've had a lot of practice and prep with drawing...so yeah, just another POV. Smith's book supercedes Lee and Buscema's How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way since it incapsulates a lot of what their book covers along with more in-depth lessons on faces and inking. A sort of two for one - although HDC the Marvel Way has a lot more examples of foreshortening and gesture drawing this book could benefit from. For someone who already has a collection of these How-To's going, some of this book could be redundant (or they could be helpful! who knows?), but for a beginner like myself, it gives a concise overview of the basics that is extremely helpful.
Rating:
Summary: DDC DELIVERS!
Review: Many people have given this book fewer stars, citing it's ommissions as the reason. I feel this is unfair as this a book intended to teach the reader 'HOW TO DRAW DYNAMIC COMICS', not just 'HOW TO DRAW'. It may not be a book for a complete beginner (even though it does cover many basic drawing techniques), but someone who has a modicum of artistic talent and wants to know how to develop his skills for the comic book genre will find this book invaluable. As for the ommissions such as hand drawing and digital colouring, these are topics that deserve an entire book to themselves, and to try and cover either (or both) of them in a manual of this size would only have done both subjects a disservice. For subjects such as hands, animals, and vehicles, the reader would be better served by looking at the works of Burne Hogarth (Dynamic Hands), Jack Hamm (How to Draw Animals), and Christopher Hart (How to Draw Fast Cars, Monster Trucks, & Fighter Jets). Once you've got these skills, turn back to this book to see how to use them in the creation of a comic book. Andy Smith has written a book that promises to teach us how to draw Dynamic Comic Books. It does exactly that, with entertaining text and many superb illustrations. He talks about tools, techniques, and style, and covers everything from basic anatomy, figure construction and posing, to perspective, panel layout, and inking. Drawing Dynamic Comics delivers the goods. What more can you ask? This would be a great addition to anyone's how-to library.
Rating:
Summary: i like how he simplifies hard subjects.
Review: Ok the book has its good points and its bad points.For the good points,he described perspective in a very thorough way.Like for two point perspective he says that the two vanishing points must be on opposites sides,and only one vanishing point can be in the picture plane.Most books on perspective don't tell you that important point.He shows you an easy way to divide the face into correct proportion.I like how he divided the ear into shapes that you can remember.As for the bad points,If I were a new reader I would not try to understand his steps for dividing a head or a body part into proportion because he makes it too confusing.In other words don't read how to divide the head proportionally look at the picture of steps and learn from that.I thought personally that the first chapter could have been alot longer.In the first chapter he talks about how to see the basic shapes in anything you draw,but he didn't follow through.For instance he would say a car is really a cube but he didn't show the steps that started with the cube to the finished car.It showed the car sitting in the cube.He said that to draw a figure you start with a waist box and a torso box.Later on the book when says to draw Penumbra,Apollo,Monarch,and the other characters he starts with a gesture drawing.What I'm trying to say is that instead of telling the reader to draw waist boxes he should have told the reader the draw gestures.I recommend this book to those artists who high drawing skills,because the chapter on drawing panels is really informative.To all artists good luck at improving your artwork!
Rating:
Summary: A book of mixed quality...
Review: On the one hand, there were parts of this book that were direct knock-offs of classics like How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, and many sections didn't give any new information. On the other hand, there were two sections of this book that were extrordinarily helpful and which I've never seen anywhere else: an insightful section on perspective and a section that showed the aging of the male and female face from age twenty to age seventy, with ALL the in-between stages. Those two sections (which amount to six pages) are absolute gold, but it's up to you to decide if those six pages are worth the price of the whole book.
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