An impressive survey course for the era

Look at the prices. Even a used a copy of this book is expensive today (2007), five years after it was current. Flash has moved on from version 5 to 6 (MX) and 7 (MX 2004) and now 8, but these tutorials are still relevant and instructive. Most of the ActionScript used in the examples is still current (not outdated or deprecated), and you can easily open the .fla files on the CD and modify them for your needs.

I had a couple of personal peeves about this book. 1) Its manufacture and illustrations are unattractive. The cover is easily dogeared and the perfect binding does not look long-lived. I really hate the drawing style used for the main animation examples (a duck called Weber, drawn in a style that makes me think of the cruder strips in Viz), though these examples are very useful and do the job. 2) There is almost no Richard Beazley work in the book, and no Beazley working files on the CD. Beazley, a veteran animator who draws in a Ronald Searle-derived style, is featured on the cover. A few .swf files from his 'Edwin Carp' cartoon are included on the CD, and they are nice-looking but not worth the price of the book. I felt that inclusion of Beazley among the authors, with his Edwin Carp character on the cover, was a unfortunate instance of bait-and-switch.

That's enough whining. The book does the job.

Other Reviews

• An impressive survey course for the era
• Beginning and intermediate users may want to pass...
• Not too shabby
• Another Techie Book
• Very impressive