Spectrum 15: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art

Spectrum #15

by Cathy Fenner (Editor), Arnie Fenner (Editor)

With art drawn from a wide variety of sources — books, graphic novels, video games, films, galleries, and advertising — Spectrum 15 reinforces both the importance and prevalence of fantasy art in today’s culture. Featuring over 300 exceptional works by artists from around the globe, this gorgeous full-color collection celebrates a cadre of creators working in every style and medium. Included are luminaries such as Brom, James Gurney, Marc Gabanna, Shaun Tan, and 2008’s Grand Master Award winner, John Jude Palencar.

Genres: Art, Fantasy, Science Fiction

264 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2008

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

i remember first coming across the Spectrum art books in my twenties, when i would buy books simply for their dust jackets and hope the story inside wasn't too awful... the art in these books is amazing, creative, imaginary, dreamlike, fascinating, and ultimately full of life and the love of wonder and wondrous things... i would own them all if i could... extremely highly recommended...

[Parka · Rating 5 out of 5]

(More pictures at parkablogs.com)

Spectrum is a an art annual that sends out invitations to artists for their work to be featured in the book. Only a selected few, the best, have their work chosen.

In Volume 15, the judges are Justin Sweet, Daren Bader, Frank Cho, Tim Bodendistel and Kelly Seda.

The list of winners are on www.spectrumfantasticart.com.

As for the art, they are gorgeous. The variety is incredible and are created with different mediums. They are grouped into different categories, namely Advertising, Book, Comics, Concept Art, Dimensional (sculptures and models), Editorial, Institutional and Unpublished.

Since these are published yearly, the illustrations featured are all recent. I'm an art book collector and I find myself going,"Oh, oh, I hope he/she's going to release an art book!" while going through the pages.

There are actually 264 pages instead of the 248 pages listed on Amazon. Nice.

This is perhaps the best valued art annual around.

[Little Timmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love fantasy and SiFi art of any type; paintings, drawings, sculpture, cartoons then this is the book for you. Fantastic selection of the years art. You can't help but find something you like inside. Highly recommended

[Zen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah... this one was so relaxing to peruse.

[Morbus Iff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked 14, but this one got old mighty fast.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whelan on the cover where he belongs. If you like Frazetta and Vallejo you'll love 15.