Book Review: Sumi: Vagabond Illustration Collection

Sumi: Vagabond Illustration Collection

The edition published by Viz Media is soft cover with a dust jacket. But the cover is actually quick thick and hardy. There are 164 pages to give this book a nice thickness.

This is the art book by Inoue Takehiko. It's based off the manga Vagabond. If you like the manga and the line art, this book is definitely for you. It contains many black and white full page illustrations, some of which comes from panels in the comic book.

The illustrations, when blown up to full page, show an incredible amount of detail. I'm talking about details in brush strokes, textures, line art and cross hatching. It's a showcase of technical prowess with manga ink. Every page is a delight.

At the end of the book are two very interesting pages. One is a full page photo of his workplace. The other is a collage of photos on his tools. There is a Stevie Wonder CD among his collection of CDs.

This book has no captions. It doesn't need them.

Fans of Inoue Takehiko or his comic should find this book very satisfying.

There are two art books released based on the Vagabond comic. This is one of them. The other is called Water: Vagabond Illustration Collection which contains water colour illustrations. Check out the my review for Water too.

Sumi (Vagabond Illustration Collection) is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

Sumi: Vagabond Illustration Collection - 01

Sumi: Vagabond Illustration Collection - 02

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Sumi: Vagabond Illustration Collection - 09

Visit Amazon to check out more reviews.

If you buy from the links, I get a little commission that helps me get more books to feature.

Here are direct links to the book:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.co.jp | Amazon.cn

The original Japanese version is called バガボンド画集 墨 by 井上 雄彦 and is available at:
Amazon Japan | YesAsia USA | CDJapan.co.jp

Here's Amazon Japan shipping rates for your reference.

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11 Comments

hi Dear Teoh first of all i

hi Dear Teoh

first of all i would like to thank you for your great blog,the art book review is so helpful
my name is Mohammad Modarres and 3dcharacter artist from iran.
i will 1 week trip to Singapore in December for siggraph convention,and want to buy more art book for my collection so if it possible for you please give me some info about good bookstore for buying.i know Borders,Mph and kinukonia book stores but if you have or know better choises let me know.
since i have not credit cart i can't buy from amazon but any help greatly appreciated

Best Regards
Mohammad Modarres

oh thanks man ,very

oh thanks man ,very informative,and another questions do you buy your book online from amazon or from local book stores?
i see the anime expo in your blog....
is there any comic colectible store in Singapore?
thank man

Hi! :) you got awesome

Hi! :) you got awesome reviews on your blog, very interesting and helpfull.

This is the thing... my boyfriend's birthday is soon, he loves takehiko inoue's work and i'm really confused between buy him this book Sumi or Water.

Which would you think is better?

Please help me!!

Hi, thanks for your reviews

Hi, thanks for your reviews parka, I'd like to get your opinions on which version to get, the japanses version or the VIS version, are they in the same size? as I know the japanese version are similar to A3 in size.

Thanks
Johnny

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