Subject: The art of Benjamin
Publisher: Xiao Pan
Published: 2008
Origin: France
Language: French
ISBN: 978-2-940380-74-9
Pages: 162 (including cover)
Pages in color: 143
Dimensions: 24 x 32 cm (9.4 × 12.6 in)
Cover type: Paperback
Reading direction: Occidental

-> Gallery with HD photos on Flickr

Benjamin (whose real name is Zhang Bin) is a Chinese Manhua artist known for his (mostly) digital artwork. He has published a few comics and made covers and illustrations for Marvel like this one.

He has also published an artbook and that’s what we’re going to review today. The title is Flash and its cover features an illustration that clearly sets the tone of the book (in terms of style I mean).

The first part of the book, over about 50 pages, is dedicated to music, rock bands (he is or used to be part of a band). As you can see with the photo, his style is pretty realistic and every picture has its mood, that’s what I like about Benjamin’s art.

The book also contains some photos of the artist (see above).
Each part of the book is dedicated to one of his previous publications including “Basement”, “Where shall we go?”, “One Day”, “Remember”, “Orange” and “Savior”.
So the next part is about “Where shall we go?”:

Some of these pictures are commercial works for clothing brands or video games.
The next part is entitled “Fengyun”:

Then there are a few pages dedicated to his comic “Orange”. I have it in my collection and I must say, seeing a comic with this style is quite unusual and enjoyable (plus it reminds me of Mirror’s Edge - though the game came after the book!).

It’s followed by various other illustrations:

Then there’s a very cool 4-page folded illustration:

This is followed by about 15 pages of sketches and rough illustrations, mostly in black & white:

After that, four pages show a breakdwon of one of his images done in Adobe Photoshop:

And to conclude, a recap of everything contained in the book with info like the title, the date and the book featuring each picture.

Flash is a cool artbook because Benjamin’s style is so peculiar and beautiful and in this format, one can really appreciate the art. Of course, his comics are also beautiful and deserve to be read as well :)