Review by Woodrow Phoenix

The Chris Samnee’s Black Widow Artist’s Edition is a 36 x 51 cm book consisting of the first six issues of the Black Widow series written by Mark Waid and co-written and drawn by Chris Samnee. Every page of Samnee’s original art has been photographically scanned in colour at very high resolution and reproduced actual size, on heavyweight paper. This process produces the sensation of looking at original drawings exactly as created by the artists with all the pencil marks, corrections, different pens and inks, production notes, and other artefacts visible. However, as Samnee pencils and inks all his pages himself the art is very clean, with very few corrections and there aren’t any extra elements around the edges of the panels except for dates on the completed pages and issue numbers.

As with the Chris Samnee Daredevil Artist Edition all the art pages are wordless, except for the sound effects which Samnee draws himself as an integral part of his pages. They are noticeably less flamboyant here than in the previous collection. Lettering was added digitally when the art was completed and without balloons or captions there is an added emphasis to the choreography of the action sequences, which are exceptionally well-staged though the six parts of the story shown here.

At the back of the book are the extras: seven pages of pencilled cover layouts, arranged four to each page; 35 pages of pencilled layouts for all six issues; three pages of costume designs for the Black Widow’s outfits, some pencilled and some inked; and six pages of pencilled designs for promo pieces to advertise the new series. Waid contributes a two-page introduction including an excerpt from the pitch he wrote to have the series commissioned, and revealing how he co-plotted with Samnee. A one-page bio of the artist completes this stellar Artist’s Edition.