Nice illustrated biography of the underappreciated artist and illustrator [a:Lee Brown Coye|2917002|Lee Brown Coye|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]. Other retrospectives have better artwork presentation but this is the most comprehensive actual biography by far. The text is awkward at times but the information and chronology is all there and Ortiz does manage to present the man behind the artwork. It also presents a good overview of his non-weird artwork which is often neglected by others. Lots of color plates as well as photographs.

The one negative, and it is only a slight one, is the layout. The text and artwork don't follow chronologically very well so you will find yourself paging back and forth to match up illustrations with the text. Bibliography, footnotes, and index are all handy. Gobs and gobs of illustrations, almost too many. It could have used more full-page graphics.

The book is printed on a heavy high gloss magazine type stock which I'm not sure I'm a big fan of. It gives it a bit of an amateur look. It has the sort of shiny slick cover I always associate with textbooks from my grammar school days.

I have always felt that Coye was much better than his contemporaries at capturing the truly uncanny in his book and pulp illustrations, much more so than the more heralded [a:Virgil Finlay|348643|Virgil Finlay|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1360990626p2/348643.jpg] or [a:Hannes Bok|205038|Hannes Bok|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1250179378p2/205038.jpg]. His illustrations had just the right touch of weird along with a gallows sort of humor to them. ( )

Loving and thorough work of investigation . ( )

http://www.sfsite.com/04b/lc222.htm ( )