Moby Dick In Pictures One Drawing For Every Page
Author 5 books 29.9k followers
So I was initially just going to skim this book--once again, I am not going to read Moby Dick right now, anyway, I just wanted to see what this crazy guy did and let you know about it--but then I slowly got obsessed with Matt Kish's obsession about a fictional ship captain named Ahab who was obsessed about the revenge killing of a white whale. Moby Dick you already know is a big book, even if you haven't read it, Melville's obsessive treatment--including encyclopedia entries on various whales--of a mad voyage. Kish was obsessed with Moby Dick and had read it several times, but one day he read Zak Smith's (equally obsessive) book about Ulysses, Smith creating an illustration for each page of that brick of a book, and thought: I'm going to take a couple years of my life and jeopardize my career and every relationship I am in by creating this 552 page book that features an illustration for every page of my beloved Moby Dick. His essay that opens the book is amazing; he uses a pretty low tech, non-digital approach to each illustration, making them on found pages torn from old books, and using a variety of media. Here's some of it from his website: http://www.matt-kish.com/moby-dick/20... Here is my review of a comics adaptation of Moby Dick by Christophe Chabouté: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
- fiction-19th-century
188 reviews 64 followers
How great is Goodreads? This great. I found out about this here book somehow or other because my antennae are always up when it comes to anything about Moby-Dick. I add it to my 'to-read' list. Resident nice guy, tim, notices this and, as you'll see in the comments below, let's me know that Powell's has ORIGINAL PRINTS from the artist on for sale in their gallery. I call Powell's. Am treated as a curiosity because I don't live in Portland and can't get down there to claim one. I am abandoned to voicemail oblivion. But behold! I am become Ahab. I get ahold of my little Portland buddy, Which won't be until next month because all of the artwork is still on display. I will soon have something in my house that was displayed in a gallery. And is based on Moby-Dick. Goodreads win.Fedallah Eh?/! She huffs it down to the gallery and gets somebody there to text me images of available prints. I pick one. Eh?/! buys it -- BUYS IT -- for me and doesn't want the money until after I actually have it in my hot little fingers.
- art-n-such pictures
2,046 reviews 7,448 followers
Now I have a reason to enter the Euromillions lottery and win a cool 100 million smackers. Because I now want to commission a book just like this wild, obsessive compulsive disorder of a book only for James Joyce's Ulysses. What I will do (when I win) is hire 782 artists, one for every page of Ulysses, and their contract will stipulate that they all sit down on Bloomsday (16th June) and made a lovely picture inspired by a specific given page of JJ's insane novel. So, copying Matt Kish's idea, but doing it slightly differently. It woould be magnificent. It would win prizes. I would establish a prize myself, and award it to it. As for Moby Dick in Pictures, well, Moby is one of my four favourite dicks, the others being Phillip K, Nixon, and Philip Marlowe, who was a private one, and if ever a book deserved some lunatic to sit down EVERY DAY for a year and a half and NO TIME OFF and do a picture based on a random quote for each and every page, then it's bold Moby. Ahab said to Starbuck Moby Dick was a great white whale (non-traditional folk song)
When that whale is caught and canned
Would you make me a double-tall-decaf-skinny
In your little old latte stand
And a low down dirty rat
You ate up all my shipmates
And my John B. Stetson hat
- you-call-that-art
620 reviews 194 followers
I have yet to decide if this book is a masterpiece or a complete nonsense.. Right from the start you know this book is not what it comes to mind when someone hears Moby-Dick! The greatest characteristic this book carries for me it's how the artist moved by a certain quote from every page acts impulsively and recreates his imagination inside the book! That was downright amazing.. Edgy, raw, magnetizing, it will catch your eye from the beggining to the end.. You will turn the pages anxiously for what you'll find next.. THOUGHTS ABOUT THE BOOK
Its grandiose style and the very well formed relationship between the book itself and the drawings are two contradictory elements that make it unique yet at points very disturbing..
That is both good and bad..
Yes it's from a totally new perspective but the disadvantage is caused by the actual fact that maybe it's too much!
Shocking in an alternative way and appealing to people with different aesthetics.. Very pleasing yet pompous..
An incredible coffee table book!
- Very well thought..
- Preferable on paperback because the kindley doesn't do justice to the art..
- The colors and techniques are variable and all nicely done and prominent..
- One of a kind book..
66 reviews 57 followers
It must have taken some Ahab-grade obsession to see this ambitious project all the way through to completion. Fortunately, like Ishmael, Matt Kish narrowly escapes annihilation to bring back his labor of love intact. Every drawing accompanies a quote pulled from each page of Moby Dick, visually re-imagining it. At 552 drawings completed roughly one a day without a break, one might expect to encounter waning inspiration if not sheer exhaustion at some point. Amazingly, a high-level of creativity is sustained throughout. The majority of drawings are put down over an assortment of found paper, adding and revealing layers of depth. However, the most striking pieces to me are the black and white line drawings done on top of watercolor paper or Bristol board. Though, there's not a stinker in the bunch as Matt Kish's passion shines through on every page. Not only is this a wonderful tribute to Herman Melville's masterpiece, it is a worthy supplement to the original that any fan will not want to miss.
493 reviews
Made an impulse buy, based on what excerpts I encountered on-line. It's a superb picture-book for my coffee-table (if I had a coffee-table). Also purchased one for a friend in the hospital. Anyway, great for flipping through--the thing is THICK! And handsomely printed, large-dimension. Supple 'matte'-finished pages for the fingertips. Graphic-art delight. And anyway, since this tome has no actual reading to be done (just quotations on each page) and since one simply browses it at random, I am simply going to mark it as 'read' and increase my book-tally for the year. Yes, I can do that.
- american-lit-classic art-and-nature
Author 11 books 230 followers
I learned of this book shortly before I began Moby Dick and was intrigued, but figured such a huge book would cost me a heap of postage. Thank you amazon.de for making this purchase possible and less painful than expected. This is a beautiful companion to Moby Dick, full of inpired drawings and graphic work, one based on every page of the book. It's the kind of thing only someone who really loved the book could do, and that's what makes it all the more beautiful, the ekphrastic homage! It was touching in that way, where you see how Moby Dick really lives within this artist. When I was younger and had not yet begun writing poetry, I used to copy out poems I loved by hand as a way of internalizing them and, honestly, showing my devotion to them in the only way that seemed possible. How I felt doing that is similar to the vibe I got going through this book - the artist making Moby Dick part of himself, wanting in a way to interact wÃth it. Very impressed. I totally recommend this to anyone who likes Moby Dick, or any art lover afraid to embark on the reading alone.
- animals art read-in-2012
1,072 reviews 44 followers
Read
Edited December 31, 2011Whoa! I clicked on this goodreads-giveaway book in the spirit of I-wonder-what-that-would-be-like. I won a copy! Now, I'm not sure what to make of it. I'm not sure if it is right to say I "read" Moby-Dick in Pictures since I still can't decide how many stars it is worth. It is not like any book I seen. It only has bits of the text of Moby-Dick so is not really a graphic-novel. The style(s) of the art work is not at all what I would have guessed. What would Melville have thought of this? You could spend a very long time with each page, figuring out the layers and the connection to the page it represents. Is it a masterpiece worth the time or not? I can't tell yet.
- art first-reads
213 reviews 9 followers
Moby-Dick In Pictures by Matt Kish is one of the the best books I read this year, and one that I refer to often for inspiration. 552 remarkable, beautiful, ingenious illustrations, one for every page of the classic novel, Moby Dick. It's a great bargain too. $28 ... that's, like, two cents a pound. (It's a BIG book.)
- faves-no-particular-order read-in-2017
117 reviews
This is an outstanding book and that is an understatement! It is a must have for any English or Art Teacher! Process and commitment is an endeavor and this book brings joy, energy and excitement to the undertaking. I love the concept and the work. BRAVO!
- art-art-history-art education-teaching-7-12-grade-boys english-class-young-adult-literatur
1,129 reviews
"Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian." "Better it is to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee." "To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme."
- books-bibliotecas
213 reviews
This is more of what I would call a Coffee Table Book of artwork. Each page of Moby Dick is represented in art. The artist is completely self taught and used a variety of mediums for the art including some unconventional sounding things:
According to the blurb on Amazon he "used found pages torn from old, discarded books, as well as a variety of mediums, including ballpoint pen, marker, paint, crayon, ink, and watercolor. By layering images on top of existing words and images, Kish has crafted a visual masterpiece that echoes the layers of meaning in Melville's narrative."
He avoided the more technical types of art such as digital and computerized graphics.
I purchased this because Moby Dick is my favorite novel and I was very curious to reconnect with the novel without taking a month to reread it in it's entirety (I've read it three times and will do so again though and expect to find more that I missed the first three times).
Perusing this book (rather slowly as it has art for every page of the 552 page Signet edition of Moby Dick) was a way to reconnect with the story of Moby Dick in a more compressed way as it has a quote from the same page with each work of art.
As you can imagine it is fairly thick and heavy oversized trade paperback. Not something to carry to Starbucks to read while enjoying a Grande Latte. As mentioned it's more the type of book I would have on my desk or coffee table to flip through and read a few pages at a time.
I honestly did not like all of the art as I would have preferred some more conventional paintings to be represented as well but overall it was a pleasing book and a nice addition to my library. I would love to see the original art on a wall of a gallery.
Matt Kish, the author, also has given the same treatment to Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" another favorite of mine.
- art coffee-table-books
680 reviews 146 followers
What a wonderful tribute to a great novel. When I received Moby-Dick in Pictures I decided it was imperative I view the book simultaneously with Moby-Dick . With a full reading list and an uncertainty about Melville's classic work, it took a little too long to get around to it. Thumbing through these artistic interpretations, I appreciated the work, but viewing these as I believe the artist intended them to be viewed, alongside Moby Dick, made them immensely richer. There is so much that makes Moby-Dick in Pictures amazing: the sheer scope, the variety of styles and media, the progression of the artist. Kish worked on this project for over a year, making one picture on average for every day. Looking at these pictures, you get a sense of the day the artist was having, his relationship with the words on the page, his interpret ion of Melville. You see the growth of the art from a hobby to a passion. And knowing that Kish is not a trained artist makes his art all the more meaningful; here is an artist putting a face to his love of literature with no idea what he'll find; what I believe Kish may have found in the end was a reflection of himself in the waters of Herman Melville. Reading the introduction is a requirement to better understanding and appreciating this book. Even without this understanding, I believe the work is strong. I am eager to see what other works of art Kish produces in the future. *Received from Goodreads' First Reads program*
- first-reads
61 reviews 10 followers
An affinity for Moby Dick can be hard to explain. The book runs long, droning at times, yet still stands as a quintessentially American classic. The endless attempts to transform the book into other modalities -- textual, visual, theatrical, cinematic -- may too be an American cultural tradition. Kish has done a fine job for our generation. I'm impressed by the very feat of producing an original artwork, once per day, for every page of a nearly six-hundred page book. But Kish has done more than simply illustrate Moby Dick; he's made Melville accessible by a nation that feeds on mere impressions of narrative. Pictures really do speak thousands of words in Kish's art. 
11 reviews 2 followers
This book was INCREDIBLE!!!!! I wasn't to sure what to expect when I entered the giveaway....but was pleasantly surprised when I received my copy in the mail. I had a graphic novel in mind. I am not really an artsy kind of person but this might have changed my outlook a bit. I read Moby Dick when I was very young and did not remember as well as I would have liked, so I went to the library and picked it up. Matt Kish does an excellent job portraying the story through his art. I was very impressed with this book and spent quite a bit of time with it. 5 stars well earned. I won it through goodreads firstreads.
- first-reads
Author 9 books 76 followers
This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I didn't really care for this book. I love most of Kish's artwork that I've come across. I love Moby Dick. This seemed like it was made for people like me, yeah? While I like what he's doing in here and I like the idea behind the whole thing, his vision of Moby Dick is so vastly different than mine that I actually began to feel repelled by it. I don't know how to explain it better than that, but it kind of hurt me to look at these images at times, and not in a good way. So, yeah--I recommend checking it out, because it is a cool book, but it just ended up not being for me.
443 reviews
Want to Read
December 28, 2011This was a gift from my friend Anne. It is BEAUTIFUL! I got a little teary when I opened it.
511 reviews
In the ninth grade, my English teacher confided in our class that Moby Dick was the most boring book she'd ever read. This made an impression on me. If someone who was a Literature major was bored by it, why should I bother to read it? Since then, this seems to be the consensus when I hear others mention the book, so it surprised me to learn about Matt's early obsession with it and I thought this would be a good way to ease into the story. I did not find it boring. Granted, this is not the whole book. Each page represents a page of the book, so there is a quote or an excerpt and a corresponding drawing, painting, or collage to go with it. It's a cool idea. Will I read the original version any time soon? Most likely, no, but I won't rule it out at some point. For that, I thank Matt and his passion for the story and his creative idea. Mrs. B., if you're reading this, you may want to start here.
- 2017 inspiration
20 reviews 6 followers
Moby Dick is one of my favorite books and Matt Kish has created something excellent by way of his own obsession with it. Not only the drawings and character interpretations lend a wild magic to the story but selecting choice excerpts from the text illuminates how great Melville's writing truly is. When immersed in 500+ pages of the same stuff, one becomes in a way snow blind in the brilliance of of his beautifully writ revelations.
350 reviews 6 followers
some of the work is quiet inspired and worth checking out but a lot of filler to be found in this massive collection.
- art
It's wonderful to see this images while listening to Moby Dick by Melville. I love Kish's approach to illustrating one page of the entire novel.
- art-books
686 reviews
I love an obsessive artist!
7 reviews 1 follower
Wonderful artwork! This was a great inspiration to me. A treasure to own.
1,655 reviews 100 followers
Let me first confess that I have yet to read Moby-Dick. I tried once, and gave up right about the time I hit the word Circumambulate. Don't get me wrong, I love the word, but realized I was not in the right frame of mind to read the book at that time. Which brings me to this delightful book. The author has a fascination with Moby-Dick, and created an illustration a day, for each page of the 552 page paperback version of the story, on found papers using a variety of mediums. Each illustration is accompanied by a bit of the original story text, so I've now read a piecemeal/snapshot version of Moby-Dick, which has whetted my appetite for more. I'd recommend getting the fat, heavy, print version - an ebook will simply not do - surround yourself with colorful creativity, and see if you too get obsessed with whales.
- 2013
Although I read about this book in the NYT last year, I really didn't know what to expect when I bought it to accompany my reading of Moby Dick this summer. When I paged through it before starting my read, I was somewhat disappointed to find that the pictures were primarily somewhat abstract collages, not necessarily my favorite art form. But when I got down to the reading, 20 or so pages of Moby Dick followed by the matching pages of the artwork (each page is based on a quote of material from the book), I was very pleasantly surprised. I think the art would be hard to follow without a contemporaneous reading of the book, but together they are an excellent pairing. If you plan to read Moby Dick, by all means see the art alongside it!
86 reviews 6 followers
If the idea of flipping one by one through 500+ art prints depicting every single page of Moby Dick sounds at all appealing to you, then this is certainly the book for you. To me, that sounds incredible, and I'm so glad this book exists so I can do so. This is not at all the way I pictured Moby Dick, but it's the way Matt Kish does. And it was fascinating to get a glimpse into another interpretation. Not that many people have actually read Moby Dick, so it's not always easy to have a detailed conversation about it. Flipping through this art, noticing the lines of text he pulls off each page and the ones he skips, and studying his interpretation of each scene felt like a conversation (albeit one in which not a lot was expected from me). A fantastic work of art.
31 reviews 2 followers
This is a really cool book. The drawings capture the meaning of all the statements very well. I think using found paper and using it was a great idea because it adds another dimension that just being "flat" and "generic". I find myself looking at the drawing and then looking past it to see what is popping out and around it. I too worked in a bookstore and I was drawn to more the artsy book covers instead of the plain boring book covers. I guess that's probably due to going to school for art - its in my blood. Great job on the book and pushing yourself to create it!
- first-reads
558 reviews 44 followers
Gorgeous book. Matt Kish created an illustration (one-a-day) for each page in the Signet Classics paperback edition of Moby-Dick. Hopefully someone at Signet will be smart enough to produce a new edition of Moby-Dick with at least some of Kish's illustration. This is exactly the kind of wonderful project that works well as a web site, but then is also worth the price of a book to have and hold. I've posted a few of my favorite illustrations on my pinterest Art board: http://pinterest.com/jaldous/art/ but you can find the entire collection at Kish's site. http://www.spudd64.com/.
- books graphic-novel
35 reviews 12 followers
I could go on and on about how amazing this book is, but everyone else mostly has done that already. Instead, let me focus on why I gave this three stars instead of the five it deserves. It's simple: I read this on Kindle. This is a book that deserves to be on a shelf or a coffee table. This is not a book that you buy a digital copy of. The Kindle version is horrible. If they came out with a dedicated app instead, then it would be better. So me giving this 3 stars is because of the format I read it in, not the content of the book.
276 reviews 2 followers
Grateful to daughter Cara for hand delivering her library copy for me to borrow/enjoy~
I've never read the Moby Dick classic (& am still not very tempted to tackle it) but certainly appreciate this creative visual version. Having recently completed a modest 61 day art challenge using index cards, I have a bit of perspective on the commitment & depth of Matt Kish's 552 page journey. (Be sure to read the Forward in this book ~ either before or after (as I did) to better connect with the artist). Very unique & inspiring book!
Moby Dick In Pictures One Drawing For Every Page
Source: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/10859527
Posted by: clarklects1948.blogspot.com
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