Book Review: Marvel Studios: The Art of Ryan Meinerding

December 29th 2024

For those new to Marvel artbooks or unaware of who Ryan is, it wouldn’t be an understatement to say he is huge part of the success of the biggest franchise in cinema. I discovered Ryan through his work on God of War II for PS2. He, along with others on that series, are the reason I collect and enjoy these books today. Marvel Studios: The Art of Ryan Meinerding is a showcase of his art working for Marvel, from Iron Man 1, through to Wakanda Forever and his role from concept artist to Head of Visual Development. The book comes from Abrams and has over 300 pages of artwork.

Marvel Studios: The Art of Ryan Meinerding book review

This is not intended to be an art review, you can decide if you like it yourself in the previews or check out Ryan’s work online, this is a review of the book and presentation of the art. The thing that’s important to note in terms of the art though and the reason this book is dedicated to one artist, is the importance of it. What this book shows is art that shaped the visuals of the MCU. Ryan, along with others like Adi Granov and Phil Saunders, helped do this early on with Iron Man, then continued to guide that beyond the first Avengers movie. Artists come and go, but Ryan has worked on the MCU for over 15 years. I’m personally a big fan and if you enjoy Marvel and the movies, good chance you are too, or will soon be.

With that, lets jump into the book! I break each review into 5 points, build quality, content, credits, use of space and value.

You can also check out a video review of this from YouTube at the bottom of this page.

Build Quality

This is a thick hardcover book and in a portrait format, which is unusual for a Marvel Studios artbook. The paper is of high quality too. But, and this is unfortunate, there is potential for a binding issue here. While my copy might be a one off issue & had taken a knock before being sent to me, larger books can suffer from this problem seen below.

Marvel Studios: The Art of Ryan Meinerding review

I’m not a book binder, so I’ll explain this as best I can. When you have a lot of pages, it can with some books, create a lot of flex in the backing the page signatures are attached to. We all know this is to help with opening the pages and book. But, when you have thicker, heavy pages, it can, as it has with this copy, create a page separation when the signatures reach the top of this flex. If you’ve had this happen before, you know that it can be a downward spiral for the book. I never open my books flat to avoid this. Even in videos, each side of the books are slightly raised to protect the binding and spine. I would advise to do the same to any buyers, just to be safe.

But, good news and a spoiler for the end of the review, it’s all uphill from here!

Content

Onto content now then and you get a nice mix of goodies. Concept art, sketches, marketing art, storyboards and key art can be found here. You get a snippets from each part of the process from Ryan.

If you collect all of the movie artbooks, and well done if you have, it’s quite the achievement, you’ll have seen some of this art before. But, there is a lot of new stuff here too. Even some of the repeat images are worth seeing again as they can have more room to breathe.

You get final designs, development concepts and ideas that didn’t make it into the movies. I’m always a fan of the 'what could have been' concepts, so I’m happy they are here, not that I expected the not to be.

The books goes in the order of time, first his history and then it works its way through the movies starting with Iron Man. Some movie sections have more art than others, of course depending on his involvement, with some not appearing at all. It does have a surprise couple of pages for the Daredevil Netflix show, it was due its own book many years ago before being cancelled, so this was great to have included. It also has the first printed works for the She-Hulk show. It ends with Wakanda Forever, work on theme parks and comic covers, totalling 29 projects. The print quality is very good, nothing is too dark and the bright colour images pop off the page.

The text covers Ryan's history from his early life, to joining Marvel and the people he worked with. It also highlights an interesting look at how some designs came together with others, decisions he made, as well as what was asked of him too. It’s a look at not just Ryan, but the studio and the movies. The art is definitely the focus here, but I appreciate the writing and Ryan’s comments, as it delivers lots of information without it becoming text heavy.

Credits

I would talk about artist credits, but there isn’t much to say, it's slapped on the cover of the book after all! There are though a few instances of comic images being used and a handful of pieces that were a collaboration, these are credited on the page as needed.

Use of Space

As you can see in the previews, pages are filled, text is well placed and there is a mix of image sizes. It does nothing fancy, but it doesn’t need to and it works. There’s a benefit to the portrait orientation because most character art is too, which allows for larger prints of some of them. This can’t be achieved in the individual movie artbooks as they are landscape. It made sense for a books of Ryan’s art to be done this way as he is a character artist. They aren’t all portrait images, but it greatly benefits the majority that are.

Value

Looking at price, I picked this up for £35 at release, in the US it was $50. This is a very good, because for reference, the artbook for The Marvels, released around the same time, is also the same price, but comes with 100 pages less and I was happy with that book. It’s also half the price of the future movie artbook releases like Deadpool & Wolverine and Brave New World, which are frankly disgracefully priced at $100, again with 100 pages less. I use Amazon as a reference for consistency, but you may find better deals elsewhere.

Verdict

While I experienced a binding issue as previously noted and got a replacement copy, I still think this book is a must for MCU fans. The art is from one of the best, it’s presented well and gives you a visual and written history of the franchise from the perspective of Ryan.

Not only is this book worthwhile if you’re a fan of the art, but the price point is a real win for the book. In a world where for many of us things are becoming increasingly unaffordable, many artbooks remain at a reasonable price and this is certainly one of them.

I own the movie artbooks and am very happy with as another edition to the collection. If you are interested in the movie artbooks, have a handful, or find that you aren’t in a position to get them all due to finances or space, this is the perfect alternative. Just keep in mind that Ryan is a character artist, so this is the focus of the book. I hope this book does well and becomes the start of a series, I’d love to see more from other artists!

Buy Here (UK)

Buy Here (US)