Spectrum 12 - The Best In Contemporary Fantastic Art
(2005 - Underwood)

(Edited by Cathy & Arnie Fenner) A bit above the thickness/weight of my ideal size, but that's because there are so many images. After broadly calling for submissions and selecting the best through selection by a hand-picked jury, this series, year-after-year, is laser-focused on just having pages & pages of art. Each of the images is captioned with the artist, title, original size, medium and client/art-director information. Most of the text section is an overview of that year's (2004) fantastic-art happenings. Other than the paintings & drawings, there is also a section of fantasy figure sculptures. Roughly half of the pages are devoted to full-page presentations of art-pieces (or nearly so, as I'm also including pages that present long/horizontal pieces, even though they then share the left-over space with other material). Only twice is a piece allowed to spread over the book's gutter, but even one of these instances is handled deftly, for an impressive result. Featured in a well-presented manner is: Christian Alzmann, Pat Andrea, Simon Bartram, Linda Bergkvist, Edward Binkley (2), David Bowers (3), Paul Bonner (3), Brom (3), Dennis Brown, Matt Cavotta, Greg Couch (4), Gordon Crabb, Kinuko Y. Craft, David Christiana, Brian Despain, Joe DeVito, Dave DeVries (2), Leo & Diane Dillon, Daniel DosSantos, Jesper Ejsing, Cory & Catska Ench, Joseph Daniel Fiedler (2), Scott Fischer, Thomas L. Fluharty, Eric Fortune, Gary L. Freeman, Matt Gaser (2), Marc Gabbana, Jeremy Geddes (2), Donato Giancola, Gary Gianni, H. R. Giger, Cheryl Griesbach & Stanley Martucci, James Gurney, Scott Gustafson, August Hall, Richard Hescox**, Carlos Huante, Brad Holland, John Howe, Carlos Huante, Mike Huddleston, Eric Joyner, Joe Jusko, Michael Wm. Kaluta (2), Charles Keegan, Michael Komarck, Anita Kunz, Lewis Lavoie, Todd Lockwood (4), Travis A. Louie, Gregory Manchess, Manchu (2), Stephan Martiniere (2), Aaron McBride, Dave McKean (2), Daniel López Munoz, Vince Natale, John Jude Palencar, John Picacio, Stephen Player, Eric Powell, Ragnar, Omar Rayyan, Alex Ross, Luis Royo (2), João P. A. Ruas, Robh Ruppel, Greg Ruth, Dan Seagrave, Eric Siador, Douglas Smith, Greg Spelanka, Greg Staples, William Stout, Philip Straub, Arthur Suydam, Raymond Swanland (2), Justin Sweet (4), Sym-7, Shaun Tan, Ray Toh, Francis Tsai, Christophe Vacher, Cyril VanderHaegen, Charles Vess*, Raoul Vitale, David VonBassewitz, Anthony S. Waters, Michael Whelan (2)**, Eric Wilkerson, Kent Williams, Oleg Zatler, Shawn Ye Zhongyi,and Mark Zug. Plus another 70 pages of smaller images from the same or other artists.