The Art of Black Panther — Revisit a fantasy world like no other

Review by C.J. Bunce

Eight years before his movie Sinners would sweep the Oscar nominations, the creator of the surprise Rocky follow-up Creed would bring audiences a world moviegoing audiences had never seen before. The setting was Wakanda and the movie was Black Panther, winner of three Oscars and the first to star the Marvel Comics character on the big screen. Tomorrow Titan Books releases The Art of Marvel Studios’ Black Panther (available at bookstores and here at Amazon), the next look back at the creation of the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Infinity Saga. What stands out to you as the most memorable elements of the movie? Was it the late Chadwick Boseman’s new king T’Challa or Michael B. Jordan’s Erik Killmonger? Was it the remarkable futuristic sets, or Ruth Carter’s stunning costume creations? Whatever elements of the film lit up your imagination, you can revisit it all in a new hardcover edition as part of Titan Books’ library of MCU movies. Take a look inside the book below, and take a look back at the movie’s story, characters, ships, and sets.

Featuring a foreword by director Ryan Coogler, writer Eleni Roussos’s exploration of the production shines a spotlight on the film’s concept artwork, revealing the ways the hidden country of Wakanda might have looked, giving fans insight into the process taken by the production designers, set designers, and digital artists. The environmental designs for the hidden world of Wakanda, including several versions of concept art created for each set and location, make up roughly half of the book. The rest features multiple incarnations of costumes, jewelry and cultural props considered for both key cast and background characters.

The book consists mostly of digitally created art, but plenty of painted work and pencil studies are included, too. This is one of the MCU books that is primarily focused on visuals, and it’s loaded with fantasy world ideas.

Readers can see how production designer Hannah Beachler and her team of artists went beyond the source material for the inspired designs that became Marvel’s newest fantasy world, incorporating Jack Kirby and decades of his artistic progeny from the comic books. Each of the key characters you’d expect gets plenty of coverage. Readers will find hundreds of images of Ruth Carter’s costume designs for King T’Challa, Killmonger, Nakia, Okoye, Shuri, W’Kabi, Queen Ramonda, Zuri, T’Chaka, the Tribe Elders, and more.

Cosplayers of Wakanda characters will find plenty of ideas and reference material in The Art of Black Panther.

If you love Coogler’s incredible vision and the work of hundreds of artists that went into the production, this is for you. It’s a must for fantasy artists and fans of the film that want to see even more of the depth of cultural forms that became the Wakanda of the film. Don’t miss the 17th entry in the new re-issued, re-formatted Marvel movie library, The Art of Black Panther, out tomorrow from Titan Books and available here at Amazon.

Don’t miss our reviews of other books in the series: Iron Man: The Art of the Movie here, The Art of Marvel Studios’ Iron Man 2 here, Marvel Studios’ Thor: The Art of the Movie here, Captain America: The First Avenger–The Art of the Movie, here, The Art of Marvel Studios’ The Avengers here, The Art of Marvel Studios’ Iron Man 3 here, The Art of Marvel Studios’ Thor: The Dark World here, The Art of Captain America and the Winter Soldier here, The Art of Guardians of the Galaxy here, The Art of Avengers: Age of Ultron here, The Art of Ant Man here, Captain America: Civil War – The Art of the Movie here, The Art of Doctor Strange here, The Art of Guardians of the Galaxy 2 here, The Art of Spider-Man: Homecoming here, The Art of Thor: Ragnarok here, and The Art of Black Panther here.