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The Distinctly Essential Dresden Codak Primer
The DC Primer is 52 pages of new art, character and location bios (including a history of Nephilopolis) and comic theory articles, as well as a 7 page opener to Dark Science. It’s quite a thing to see, and Aaron sincerely hopes you cats like it!
52 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
1 person is currently reading
66 people want to read
About the author
Arryn Diaz
6 books20 followersArryn Diaz currently lives in Portland, Oregon. They started making comics in 2005 and made it a full-time job in 2008. In 2019, they came out as nonbinary.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 24, 2013
I met Aaron Diaz at the Topatoco booth at the San Diego Comicon. He was nestled among other artists I enjoyed, and I found myself admiring his posters, which my girlfriend quickly snatched up (seriously, the man makes awesome posters.) The awkward part about meeting these people is I tend to blurt out stuff that's a bit too honest, like how I found his artwork awesome, but found the story a bit obtuse and intimidating.
And like a gentleman, he offered this book. And he was right, it's definitely good at giving some context for stuff that gets sort of rushed through in the early webcomics.
The issue was always the Hob story arc. It's 1000 coked up rats fighting in a sack, an overload of ideas and information. The Primer gives backstory and starts you off with a sample of Dark Science, his current story arc. Dark Science is excellent, a more mature, measured story with a more personal scale that even retroactively gives more weight to the antics from previous stories. If you've never read Dresden Codak, you could jump in with that arc and have no regrets.
But the main reason I really valued the book is the art. Aaron Diaz is a stunning artistic talent, a man who merges pretty much all my favorite elements into a style that demands I stop and pay attention. I have trouble not just immediately purchasing everything in poster form.
Ultimately this book works great at its exact purpose, its an entryway into a deeply eccentric creators universe that actually works.
And like a gentleman, he offered this book. And he was right, it's definitely good at giving some context for stuff that gets sort of rushed through in the early webcomics.
The issue was always the Hob story arc. It's 1000 coked up rats fighting in a sack, an overload of ideas and information. The Primer gives backstory and starts you off with a sample of Dark Science, his current story arc. Dark Science is excellent, a more mature, measured story with a more personal scale that even retroactively gives more weight to the antics from previous stories. If you've never read Dresden Codak, you could jump in with that arc and have no regrets.
But the main reason I really valued the book is the art. Aaron Diaz is a stunning artistic talent, a man who merges pretty much all my favorite elements into a style that demands I stop and pay attention. I have trouble not just immediately purchasing everything in poster form.
Ultimately this book works great at its exact purpose, its an entryway into a deeply eccentric creators universe that actually works.
October 5, 2011
As someone who only recently discovered the webcomic Dresden Codak, this primer is perfect - it gives an intro story, background on the key characters, and other bonus art and content. Aaron's art is at turns evocative, whimsical, and sexy, and it's awesome to own it in print. The book also gives insights into his character design process, which is brilliant. Highest recommendation for anyone into webcomics, and artists in general.
June 17, 2024
Dresden Codak is one of the best webcomics (or - really - comics of any sort) that I've ever read, and although I've read through the online archives plenty of times, I was delighted to get this primer and see all the fascinating behind the scenes art and development work, and read Sen's thoughts on the process.
I don't know if I would recommend this to someone who isn't already a fan of Dresden Codak, or about to read it, or into concept art in general, but as a fan, I really thoroughly enjoyed this, and I loved adding this to my book collection.
I don't know if I would recommend this to someone who isn't already a fan of Dresden Codak, or about to read it, or into concept art in general, but as a fan, I really thoroughly enjoyed this, and I loved adding this to my book collection.
June 28, 2013
I'm just starting to get into the Dresden Codak webcomic. This book, which is as much artbook as anything else, is a nice introduction with both a lot of information and a lot of design insight and art.
There's a 9 page absurd but amusing intro story, a few bio and explanatory pages for main characters and key concepts, and a lot of sketches and art samples. My favorite parts are actually a couple of silly/unusual sections. One details character classes for an in comic D&D parody, Dungeons & Discourse, where players take roles from different schools of philosophy and "do battle on the academic fields." The other is a 5 page section of drawings of the main character cosplaying as various characters ranging from Edward Elric to Samus Aran to Darkwing Duck. It's delightfully ridiculous, and the renditions are pretty awesome to boot.
Which brings us to the strongest part of this collection and the main reason the comic caught my eye: the art. It has a nice, "rounded" feel to most everything (except the cold, towering monolithic buildings) and a wonderful muted color palette that really adds to the atmosphere.
While not actually "essential," particularly if artbooks aren't your thing, The Dresden Codak Primer is a wonderful introduction to the webcomic and it's world.
There's a 9 page absurd but amusing intro story, a few bio and explanatory pages for main characters and key concepts, and a lot of sketches and art samples. My favorite parts are actually a couple of silly/unusual sections. One details character classes for an in comic D&D parody, Dungeons & Discourse, where players take roles from different schools of philosophy and "do battle on the academic fields." The other is a 5 page section of drawings of the main character cosplaying as various characters ranging from Edward Elric to Samus Aran to Darkwing Duck. It's delightfully ridiculous, and the renditions are pretty awesome to boot.
Which brings us to the strongest part of this collection and the main reason the comic caught my eye: the art. It has a nice, "rounded" feel to most everything (except the cold, towering monolithic buildings) and a wonderful muted color palette that really adds to the atmosphere.
While not actually "essential," particularly if artbooks aren't your thing, The Dresden Codak Primer is a wonderful introduction to the webcomic and it's world.
October 9, 2013
Great extension of the Dresden Codak world, with explanations that add genuine depth to the main texts and lift the curtain behind the comic-making process. For me, this only enhances the experience,
September 23, 2013
Engage cheese:
This book was everything I'd hoped it to be, and more.
End cheese. Return to your regularly scheduled reading list.
This book was everything I'd hoped it to be, and more.
End cheese. Return to your regularly scheduled reading list.
January 19, 2014
A nice little companion book to Aaron Diaz's work, but if you've been following his comic, blog, and tumblr, there's not a whole lot of new stuff in it.
March 15, 2015
98% picture book and concept art. Shouldn't count as "reading a book." Very very pretty.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews