Book Review: The Art of Drew Struzan by D. Struzan and D. J. Schow

The Art of Drew Struzan written by Drew Struzan and David J. Schow

Drew Struzan was a poster artist working in Hollywood starting in the 1970s and continuing all the way up to the late 2000s. He's had an illustrious career, working on many franchises, like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Police Academy, and Back to the Future. He also worked with directors like Guillermo del Toro and Frank Darabont (who wrote the introduction for the book), creating poster art for their films and DVDs. Sadly, later in his career, the Hollywood dream factory became more factory and less dream. Struzan had a lot of jobs where his work eventually wasn't used or was photoshopped around to create something to sell tickets rather than to be art.

Struzan goes through a bunch of projects, he couldn't possible go through everything because he worked on over 200 films. He describes the creative process and the business side of the work. Sometimes he had to work with little information (like on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, where the script and production were highly secretive) and sometimes with a tight deadline (his iconic John Carpenter's The Thing poster that he literally did overnight!). The stories are very interesting, even if the narrative arc leads to his retirement from a career that became more and more disappointing as the work became more and more corporate.

The Thing from the artist's website, where you can buy it!

The art is fantastic and it is interesting to see various concept pieces that led to the final work. As a movie lover and an art lover, this is a great and fascinating book.

Highly recommended.