Product Description

Rich Larson. Steve Fastner. Two men who certainly know how to treat a lady. Put her in an impossible situation filled with vile aliens and sulferous demons, armned with little more than a piece of sharpened steel and fierce determination. Oh, and make sure she's wearing as little as possible of course! It's with this sly sense of humor and wonderous attention to detail that these two warped geniuses have created hundreds of magnificicent fantasy illustrations, and thousands of die-hard fans. Kiss of Death is the latest collection of their work, and good girls never looked so naughty - or well-armed! KOD also contains a full color section that showcases their remarkable paintings.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1367674 in Books
• Published on: 2000-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 72 pages

About the Author
Steve Fastner and Rich Larson have been working in concert since 1976, and together they create one entity of staggering abilities. Rich will lay down the structure of an illustration in pencil form, and then Steve will attack it with army of airbrushes - and when the dust clears - a magnificient painting stands proudly. For over a quarter of a century, they've been able to do this, working for comics, book publishers, advertising agencies, movies and television, and now the web.

Customer Reviews

AN OLDER COLLECTION FROM THE DYNAMIC DUO
The word genius is thrown around awfully lightly these days so I won't use it here. Instead I'll use brilliant to describe the art of Fastner & Larson, still going strong after more than 25 years. It's hard to nail down just what it is about the pair that I like so much...I think it's the humor they inject, often uproarious, and often quite subtly into their work.

Kiss of Death is a collection of much of the duo's earlier works from the 1980's and early 1990's. It collects some magnificent pieces from many of their portfolios over the years such as "Daughters of the Disk" from 1988. You'll get a rare glimpse at a solo portfolio by Rich Larson called "Angels of Death" and it's interesting to see Larson's gorgeous pencils and inks without Fastner's trademark airbrush. "Petz" is a portfolio featuring sexy warrior women and their beasties, "Clan of the Claw" is a prehistoric set with scantily clad cave women battling Dinosaurs.

In the "Seven of Swords" portfolio, a fantastic collection of Swordswomen, SQ productions gives us a chance to see the illustrations take shape from rough, preliminary sketches, to the final, completed piece, and all the steps in between, less you think it just came easy to these guys.

While the bulk of the book is in (glorious) black & white, there is a color section in the middle including a dazzling, 1950's-style "B" movie alien menace painting with a woman running for her life from a blob-like creature. A holiday painting features a lovely swordswoman in Santa Miniskirt, hugging the literal North Pole, while razor-fanged reindeer battle to the death with pirate elves.

For you spanking fans there are the usual giddily humorous corporal punishment pieces that the pair is so well known (and worshipped) for. One interesting thing I learned about from Kiss of Death is that SQP took over the art direction for Fleetway Comcis/Quality Comics. This led to Rich doing a number of covers for the hugely popular British Scf-Fi character, Judge Dredd. Many of these unbelievable covers are reprinted in this collection.

Kiss of Death is a different collection than the more recent Little Black Book and other Fastner & Larson collections from SQP. It's more straight-up Sci-Fi and Fantasy than the more recent books which are more pin-up oriented. It's a great collection for their legions of fans who may be unfamiliar with their older work.

Reviewed by Tim Janson