大胆な構図と緻密な画筆を合わせ持つ絵師「寺田克也」。キャラクターデザインや自らの漫画作品のほか、多彩なイラストレーターとして、国内のみならず海外からの人気も高い。 本書はアメリカのダークホース・コミックス社が出版した『Dragon Girl and Monkey King: The Art of Katsuya Terada』の邦訳版ながら、日本版オリジナルとして、寺田氏が近年発表したイラストをページ追加と一部差し替えの上、収録している。 また寺田氏自らのコメントをさらに追加した作品紹介や、ほぼ全ページに渡るフルカラーの画稿など『寺田克也ココ10年展』を誌上再現したとでもいうべき最新の大判画集である。

出版社からのコメント

日本版オリジナルとして、寺田氏が近年発表したイラストをページ追加と一部差し替えの上、収録している。 また寺田氏自らのコメントをさらに追加した作品紹介や、ほぼ全ページに渡るフルカラーの画稿など『寺田克也ココ10年展』を誌上再現したとでもいうべき最新の大判画集である。

Katsuya Terada is probably best known in the US as the character-designer for the animated film Blood: The Last Vampire. He has also done work related to American comics, such as Iron Man and Hellboy . He also made additional contributions to issues of Nintendo Power, including a special edition Strategy Guide for Dragon Warrior. In Japan, he has done the promotional illustrations for Detective Saburo Jinguji mystery-adventure video game series.

He was in charge of the book cover and illustrations for the Kimaira series written by Baku Yumemakura, and was in charge of cover design and illustrations for Garouden, Shin Majugari, and Yamigarishi as well.

Terada has defined himself as a "rakugaki" artist, more of a philosophy than a style of drawing, in which one draws a little everywhere, all the time, without thinking too much, on notebooks etc. He is a very prolific artist; one of his collections of sketches numbers more than 1000 pages, appropriately called Rakuga King.

He has done very little group-drawn work (an exception being the manga Saiyukiden Daienou (Monkey King), his principal activities being illustration and character design.

His use of CG tools is integrated very well in his illustrations, giving his work a vivid and rich appearance. He has admitted various influences on his work, particularly European ones, like Jean Giraud (a.k.a. Moebius) and the magazine Métal Hurlant. The author lives in Tokyo, Japan.