Book Review: Star Wars Art: Posters

This is the fifth book in the Star Wars Art series and it's one of my favourites. The earlier four books are Visions, Comics, Illustration and Concept, and they all look at different type of art.

My favourite is still Star Wars Art: Illustration but I'm loving this poster artbook too.

Star Wars Art: Posters is almost as thick as the earlier books at 180 pages. It's still hardcover and it's still huge.

There's a nice foreword written by movie poster master artist Drew Struzan and an introduction by artist Roger Kastel, both reminiscing the early days of painting Star Wars posters.

All the posters in the book are reproduced without any type or logos. You get to view the artworks in their full glory. The reproduction is fantastic. Many of the artworks are printed right to the edge of the paper. Selected pieces are zoomed in even further. It's wonderful to look at them huge and scrutinise the details.

There are more posters than I expected. In addition to the many poster variations to the original and prequel trilogies, there are also those created for spin-offs such as for video games like LEGO Star Wars, animation like Star Wars: Clone Wars, advertising, exhibitions and limited edition poster art commissioned by Mondo Tees and Acme Archives.

There's a nice variety of styles, especially in the more recent years when the franchise expanded beyond the movies. It's quite cool to see the cartoon style posters for the animation, or Star Wars characters appearing in their LEGO form.

While most are the finalised full coloured paintings, there are also concept treatment for the posters in colour in black and white. 53 artists are featured and all their works are top notch. You'll get to see artworks from Drew Struzan, John Alvin, Howard Chaykin, Tom Jung, Ralph McQuarrie, Adam Hughes and many more. It's quite interesting to find out who are the artists who have contributed art to the Star Wars universe.

This is a fantastic artbook certainly not just for Star Wars fans.

Highly recommended.

Star Wars Art: Posters is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP)