Book Review: The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion

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This is a hardcover book with no dust jacket. It's thick and the paper stock is good.

Included are many stories on the production process, Will Eisner's comic panels, behind the scenes photography on set, film stills and movie storyboards. The pages are well laid out and literally soaked with high resolution photos.

Mark Cotta Vaz has provided an in-depth writeup into the production process. The book starts all with a little history of Will Eisner and The Spirit, and goes on to talk about the process of making the movie. There are many interesting things to read, like how the studios negotiated the contract with Will Eisner, the casting of characters, shooting in front of the green screen, shooting different parts of the movies, death and rebirth of The Spirit on the movie and more.

While I'm reading this now, the movie has yet to be released. But looking at the images from the book, I've no doubt it's going to be amazing. The Sin City shooting style influence is strong, the great compositions, strong silhouettes and a limited colour palette. Oh, and add a strong cast — Samuel L Jackson, Eva Mendes, Scarlet Johansson etc — too.

This book is more of a production diary or a making-of book, well written and researched by Mark Cotta Vaz. It's highly recommended for fans of The Spirit, movie or comic.

Pictures and flipping-page video of book available on my blog.