Bruce Minney - The Man Who Painted Everything
(2012 - Thomas Ziegler) 
(by Thomas Ziegler (the artist's son-in-law)) This project was clearly a labor of love for Minney's family and it's amazing to see how much of the man's imagery they were able to identify and then preserve in this self-published volume. The book also stands-in as a 'museum' of the art of the "Men's Adventure Magazine" phenomenon, the coverage of which is not particularly voluminous yet. Through all the text, quite a story is told about the life of a work-a-day illustrator, what goes into his creations, what else has to be done to make ends meet and what happens after a particular art market dries up. Tons of anecdotes here and thumbnail portraits of all the interesting characters in the industry, certainly when it becomes clear what a solitary pursuit the painter's calling is. With that said, we cover art-books and this volume certainly qualifies. You will find 262 art pages here out of the total 320. About a third is full-page reproductions of the magazine covers, with thrown in the couple of handfuls of the original paintings that are still existent. Almost another third is page after page of double-combos of the longer interior illustrations, with the remainder being many of the paperback-book covers he executed and then the fine-art & ceramic crafts phase of the artist's life before retirement. I think the other artists in the audience will particularly enjoy his many side-comments about color, composition and the many other choices that have to get made in these endeavors. Note that in the making of this book, a production choice had to be made to go with uncoated white paper instead of glossy pages - with that process and the other limitations in place, not every reproduction can be termed a gem, but so much here is of an enjoyable quality, especially for products that were designed to be disposable . . .
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