Darrell K. Sweet - Beyond Fantasy

Year: 1997
Publisher: Friedlander
ISBN: 188756912X
Content: 128 pages with colour illustrations

Quite a long time ago (in a galaxy far, far... no, wait, that was something else...) a few people thought, it could be a great idea to print science fiction, fantasy and comicbook artwork on tiiiiny little cards, and sell them to a lot of other people, who even might be interested in trading them. Just like sports cards, only with better pictures :)

Whatever your opinion on the trading card business might be - I am quite gratefull for it because it gave me a few nice little keepsake collections (kind of mini portfolios) and above all, artbooks I would have surely missed otherwise, like the ones from Ken Kelly, or, you´ve guessed it, Darrell K. Sweet. I first saw some of his paintings in the exquisite, fantastic art collection by Ian Summers, "Tomorrow and Beyond" and very much liked his art, his almost fairytale-like approach to typical fantasy and science fiction subjects.

This art collection brings together for the first time the best of his body of work in the field. Foreword is by Piers Anthony, since his Shannara-books has been illustrated through basically decades by Sweet.

Sadly, Darrell left us in 2011, but his images live on. You can see more of his art (not only SF/Fantasy, but also his quite famous Western art) on this webpage.

Chesley Bonestell - The Art of Chesley Bonestell

Year: 2001
Publisher: Paper Tiger
ISBN: 1855858843
Content: 256 pages with colour illustrations

I was very surprised to learn just the other day that this book goes for about 300 Dollars on Amazon despite being published just a few years ago. But then again, I am not THAT surprised.

Chesley Bonestell is the pioneer of space art, and above all, he is damn good at it! If you look at the images he created just out of his sheer imagination from the surface of basically every single rock in our solar system (and sometimes not only there), you wonder whether this guy have had a personal spaceship to bring him for short painting trips to the moon or anywhere else. His images are unbelievably vivid, and I more than once preferred these visions over the pale images shot by some distant probes sent along the way a long time ago by NASA. If you take a look at the title image of this huge art collection, you literally "get the picture"...

There are other books by him, dating back to the Fifties, mostly popular astronomy books or magazines, for the young (at hearts)... Yet this is the first and up til now only edition with the biggest available showcase of his body of work, profoundly connotated by Ron Miller, a space artist himself.

If you want one book on Space Art, this is IT! See more of Chesley´s art on this page.

Chris Achilleos - The Beauty and the Beast

Year: 1978
Publisher: Paper Tiger
ISBN: 0905895126
Content: 92 pages with colour illustrations

When it comes to this title, first I always recall a sentence from my favourite movie, BladeRunner: "talking ´bout beauty and the beast - she´s both." Then there was Disney of course... oh and that odd cheesy TV series in the 80s... And then there is Chris Achilleos.

This must have been one of the first Paper Tiger books I got my hands on, probably around 1985 or 86 back in Budapest. I remember browsing through the pages, and I think this was the first book where I noticed the effort put in layout. Every picture has a border, nice typesetting - overall, somebody clearly took his/her time to DESIGN an artbook.

Inside there are amazons, and dragons, some scifi stuff also, but mainly things you would expect from somebody who actually draws like the Heavy Metal movie poster... ;)  There will be more from this quite famous artist to follow, so I will give you some actual links later.

Rowena Morrill - The Art of Rowena

Year: 2000
Publisher: Paper Tiger
ISBN: 1855857782
Content: 112 pages with colour illustrations

Following up her first artbook from 1983, Rowena Morrill returned with this collection into the focus of fantasy art lovers. In this most comprehensive, up-to-date artbook she reveals through some of the most beautiful paintings, why she is considered the grand master of fantasy art, amongst Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, Julie Bell and Ken Kelly. This list is no co-incidence: there are many similarities in style, themes and subjects regarding these artists, yet each and every one preserved something unique and unmistakable in her/his own body of work.

I would call Rowena´s style the most "renaissance-like". Golden, oily colors everywhere, classic settings and style. Being a self-taught artist, it seems to be quite a stretch to point out similarities with Rubens or Rembrandt, yet, the fine art qualities are undeniably there within these pages. Even Saddam Hussein had some of her paintings hanging around in his master bedroom...

The first time I´ve visited Amsterdam, back in 1992 I guess, I took my chance looking up an old comic store somewhere between the grachtens. And there I found it: my very own copy not only of Rowena´s artbook, but also a rare portfolio of hers. It was, trust me, more invigorating and satisfying, than any visit to the famous redlight-district could have been... And again, consider this: I was a healthy, 22 year old guy, for the first time in Amsterdam :)

So if you are curious now about Rowena, check out this Paper Tiger book, or her personal webpage over here.

Sanjulian - Ilustradores Contemporaneos

Year: 1984
Publisher: Norma
ISBN: 8485475607
Content: 178 pages with mostly colour illustrations

Manuel Sanjulian (Manuel Perez Clemente) is the doyen of European fantasy and horror cover art, and much like Frank Frazetta, considered a legend amongst cover enthusiasts, sometimes even without them knowing his name... The reason for this is the sheer amount of art produced by Sanjulian for cheap magazine-like novel publications so typical for German and French publishers over the last decades, as well as comic book covers in the 70´s, most notably Vampirella. His images might look quick and easily rendered, but the vivid colors and countless beasts (and barenaked ladies) catapulted him into the sky of cover artists.

This quite rare and huge artbook from the Spanish editor Norma consist of numerous illustrations from 1970-84 for a huge variety of publishers and subjects. Mostly fantasy material of course, but a lot for western, thriller and other genre novels. In the 70´s, Sanjulian was hired by Warren Publishing, so go, figure it... ;)

There was an unchanged French edition of this book by Glénat in 1985, followed by only a sketchbook from SQP in the 90´s and than the Conan-inspired artbook by Underwood books (called "Sword´s Edge") in 2010, so if you can get a copy of this book somewhere, go for it, it will be one of the jewels of your collection! Sanjulian´s official website can be found here, and you should also check out a blog over here with examples of his work.

Brothers Hildebrandt - The Art of The Brothers Hildebrandt

Year: 1979
Publisher: Ballantine
ISBN: 0345273966
Content: 112 pages with colour illustrations

In the 90´s I served for a short period of time as a humble agent for some Hungarian artists in the SF&F field. One thing I mentioned now and then, if being asked for advice how to burst into the European and especially US market was to find a special subject everybody knows and prepare some outstanding paintings for it. My examples were Lord of the Rings and The Foundation by Tolkien and Asimov - those are probably still the most recognisable image resources for a new talent in the field to attract attention with. (If you don´t count overmerchandised categories such as Star Trek and Star Wars, which you might want to get permission first before you do some work for...)

Anyway, I am only mentioning this now because it was their J.R.R. Tolkien Calendars in three consecutive years The Brothers Hildebrandt (Greg and Tim) became instantly famous and renown for. Even though they made some beautiful, fairytale-like illustrations for the Shannara books by Terry Brooks, it is their renderings from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings which not only made this early bestselling artbook possible, but also inspired lots of Tolkien-illustrators and illustrations in the decades to follow, up to certain sceneries from the Peter Jackson movies which were evidently based on the viewpoint and renderings of the Brothers Hildebrandt.

This was also the first volume - of my knowledge - which meticulously showed us preparations and polaroid shots used by fantasy artists during and for their work (something which later Boris Vallejo revealed in some of his artbooks as well). The artbook also contained some more private works about family members as well as record covers and some other material and illustrations. Tim and Greg continued later with their own respective career and published a lot of personal material and artbooks before reuniting first for some trading cards and comic book projects, then an artbook containing all their illustrations for Lucasfilm, and later with an artbook full of tolkienesque paintings celebrating the arrival of the movie trilogy. Tim Hildebrandt died in 2006 very untimely, while as of last, Greg still produces some covers, mainly in connection with the Star Wars universe and comic books. You can see more of their works and related material on their authorized website.

Keith Parkinson - Knightsbridge

Year: 1997
Publisher: Friedlander
ISBN: 1887569138
Content: 126 pages with mostly colour illustrations

Back in the early 90´s I made my first orders with Bud Plant, and over the years (and before the internet boom) it became my primary source for artbooks. I don´t know, if they had any other customers over here, probably they did, but for sure I spent a few Thousand Dollars on books throughout that decade. Sometimes it was on their bargain stuff, most notably the portfolios :)

Not being a rich man, it seemed for me most of the time some sort of luxury buying portfolios. But when it came to SQP products, those hugely oversized colour (and b/w) sets with an initial price range of 8-25 Bucks for at least 6 images, well... that was already bargain. And now imagine my happiness with a sale of 50-80% off... :D

It was through these portfolios, that I first became aware of Keith Parkinson. Together with Larry Elmore and some other folks starting from the TSR role playing community (Dungeons and Dragons) they made the biggest impression on me. Parkinson´s dragon´s were always extremely convincing, his - mostly female - characters beautifully crafted and the backgrounds became over the years more and more detailed and rich. When I later saw the first wraparound covers on Tor hardcovers I thought to myself: wow, Keith Parkinson is the new Michael Whelan, regarding quality standards in fantasy illustrations...

Soon he became more and more popular with book publishers, a few artbooks came out, he kept travelling and painting, and then... in 2005, I read with great sorrow the obituary in Locus. He died of leukemia :( Again, somebody left this planet much too early - he was only 47.

If you want to explore his rich, tremendous heritage, Knightsbridge is a good start. You can find the book over at Amazon or Abebooks, and if you like, pay Keith an honouring visit at his homepage.

Ian Miller - Secret Art

Year: 1980
Publisher: Dragon´s Dream / Putnam
ISBN: 9063326211 (UK) / 0825695511 (US)
Content: 96 pages with colour and b/w paintings

Long before Ian Miller became one of the most sought-after illustrators for Games Workshop, he already made himself a name in the field of illustration with his unique style. Illustrating mostly darkish tales from the likes of Mervyn Peake, Edgar Allen Poe, Stephen King or James Herbert, he invented an almost meticulous drawing style, inking his way with billions of tiny lines through the etching deep, dark shadows of horror and fantasy. To my mind there´s only one other well-known illustrator with similar approaches, Brad Holland from the USA.
(Well, and Bosch and Albrecht Dürer, of course :) But despite the subject, I guess I´ll stay with the living here...)

I first saw Ian´s work in the collective "Realms of Fantasy" where he was assigned to illustrate Titus Groan, I believe. He stood out from the other illustrators, his art was so unique and visually challenging, that I put his artbooks inmediately on the top of my "most wanted" list :)

Among Green Dog Trumpet, this book collected the best of the first part of his career. A very rare volume, one of the last books ever being published by Dragon´s Dream. You might still find a copy on the net, especially since there has been an US edition by Putnam too. Oh, and don´t forget to check out Ian Miller´s website :)

Ken Kelly - The Art of Ken Kelly

Year: 1990
Publisher: Friedlander
ISBN: 0962715409 (Softcover)
ISBN: 0962715425 (Limited edition)
Content: 96 pages with colour paintings
Limitation: 2000 (Silver leather hardcover, signed)

The first time I had this book in my hands, I was like "wow, Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo married and got a boy named Ken"... :)

But it didn´t take much time to realise, that although Frazetta was a bit of an inspiration and mentor in Ken Kelly´s early career, this artist has mastered his own voice and style. In fact, the analogy of my joke stands firmly: where Frazetta tends to paint rough colours as a symbolized background and Vallejo goes the same but much more softer, Ken has a mix of those techniques, with more eye for the detail. His barbarians (and girls) are not so "shadedly muscular" as Frazettas, yet also lack the oily, shiny "fitness studio" kinda surface of the Vallejo heroes and heroines. And the beasts are more natural and frightening, too ;)

So here he is, the superb fantasy artist with his own style, a painter of numerous rock band (KISS, etc.) album covers, book illustrations and covers, with all those beautifully crafted fantasy paintings. Friedlander released the artbook in connection with Kelly´s trading cards - there has even been a "colossal card" set published; large, shiny portfolio-like cards with all the best images, a true feast for the eye.

You can still find the book around, don´t get too much hopes for the limited, leatherbound edition though ;)
And while you´re at it, why don´t you pay Ken a visit at his homepage?

Jeff Jones - Yesterday´s Lily

Year: 1980
Publisher: Dragon´s Dream
ISBN: 082569552X
Content: 80 pages with colour paintings

Ever since I got my hands on Roger Dean´s Magnetic Storm, I was after this artbook. Back in those late 80´s behind the Iron Curtain in Hungary, little was to be known about American comic culture, about the New York art community The Studio (about which another sought-after Dragon´s Dream artbook has been published almost simultaniously), and about Bernie Wrightson, Barry Windsor-Smith, Michael Kaluta and... Jeff Jones!

But in Magnetic Storm, Roger Dean collected most of the covers of his artbook publishing companies Dragon´s Dream, later Paper Tiger/Dragon´s World. And one of the covers jumped right through my eyes into my artoleptic brain and got stuck there forever: Jeff Jones with this beautiful, dreamy, classic aesthetica called Yesterday´s Lily.

The book was hard to find (and quite expensive), but worth every day of the 10 or so years of waiting and searching. Amazingly beautiful, classical art-like oil paintings of dreamy sceneries and its inhabitants; watercoloured orks and goblins, strange creatures, barbarians and even some "simple" landscapes - this book still amazes me, even after several other books by Jeffrey (now, after a gender transition, Catherine) Jones surfaced.

Frank Frazetta himself called Jones once the "greatest living artist"... and this softcover of paintings surely live up to these words. You can still find copies at Amazon for reasonable prices, although I also highly recommend Cathy and Arnie Fenners recollection from Underwood Books in 2002. Finally, some of Jeffrey Jones´ art can be found on the official homepage.

H. R. Giger - N.Y. City

Year: 1981
Publisher: Sphinx/Ugly
ISBN: Unknown
Content: 48 pages with colour (well, darkish) illustrations

Giger practically is THE Alien. I mean, he created the alien lifeform in Ridley Scott´s movie Alien, and he is going to be always mostly recognized because of this. Period.

But then again... Giger is an artist. He grew up in a disturbingly peaceful, in his own words, pissfull Swiss town, and his deranged mind started imagining things. Later on, as a grown child, he created a ghost train in the backyard just to amuse his friends (and scare away girls). Later he discovered the power of airbrush - and the mixture flesh and machine with dark colors, and mostly: shadows.

He already had a full body of exquisite, surrealistic art (and a friendship with Dali) on his dancecard, when Ridley Scott approached him. The rest is, as they say, history... and although Giger has since produced an impressive number of alien lifeforms for movies (he was involved in the ill-fated Jodorowsky-adaptation of Dune, just like Chris Foss and Moebius and Jim Burns, and created the alien for the Species movies, or some effects for the Poltergeist franchise) as well as artbooks (Necronomicon 1 & 2, Biomechanics, several film design books), but still it was this little softcover that had the biggest impression on me.

In N.Y. City, Giger explores the strange, deep gorges between the skyscrapers of New York, in his own, fleshly intense, dark form. From every page you can sense the devastation, agoraphobia and strangeness a disordered child must feel in his early life in barriers of a deadly calm civilization - or an alien, visiting and only partially "seeing", smelling our world.

The book is sometimes available through the usual sources (I even saw a French edition once), but unlike the other Giger volumes, it is a bit hard to find nowadays. Yet, it is in my opinion worth every Cent.

Checkout Giger´s website here or here.

Frank Kelly Freas - The Art of Science Fiction

Year: 1977
Publisher: Donning
ISBN: 091544237X
Content: 120 pages with mostly colour illustrations

Kelly Freas was the doyen of scifi illustration. He started his career back in the 50´s, illustrating stories in magazines or books, painting vividly coloured covers and basically giving a picture background for every legend of science fiction and fantasy. His work did not only appear on science fiction related stuff - he created the funny face of Alfred from MAD Magazine, painted the space art on NASA´s official publications, designed a QUEEN album cover or draw illustrations for astrology books.

Eleven time HUGO winner, Kelly remained faithful to his beloved art. In the 90´s he re-emerged and came up with stunning new images, some of them collected in an other (Paper Tiger) artbook. This volume however collected for the very first time the best examples of his career up to that date. Some of his art can be seen on his homepage (scroll down for the pictures).

The book itself has a splendid quality, the vivid colours hold up even 33 years after publication. You can still found this volume around at Amazon, starting under 10 Dollars, with of course higher prices for better quality. A limited (1000 copies) edition with signed bookplates by Kelly Freas has also been published, without dust cover but slipcased.

John Berkey - The Art of John Berkey

Year: 2003
Publisher: Paper Tiger
ISBN: 1843401223
Content: 160 pages with mostly colour illustrations

John Berkey has came very late to my attention - he didn´t appear very often on European book covers. It was back in the early 90´s when Friedlander in the US started publishing Trading Cards from well and lesser known artists that he made his appearance on my shelf - because luckily Friedlander decided to publish some artbooks of their artists, one of them being John Berkey.

But not before Jane Frank´s effort in 2003 has he been picked up for a thorough overview on his career. Paper Tiger published a stunning hardcover on vast, spikey spaceships, beautiful renderings of cityscapes and landscapes as well as some unpublished personal work. His brushstrokes, always playing with light and structure, are so typical that he became one of the most recognized and admired artists of his field.

As the official homepage of John Berkey seems to deal only with licensing at the moment, I forward you to this page for some examples of his stunning art.

Michael Whelan - The Art of Michael Whelan

Year: 1993
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN: 0553074474
Content: 204 pages with over 100 colour illustrations

This is probably the most comprehensive collection of multi-time OscarHugo winner Michael Whelan up to this date.

Bantam started with a new line of artbooks back in 1993 and published this collection together with a retrospective on Robert McCall, but sales must have been bad enough (or production costs too high?) to finish the artbook-project off.
Nevertheless, this huge volume on Michael Whelan was a beautiful collection of both published and private/unpublished work by the US master of the scifi, fantasy and horror illustration.

Michael Whelan started working in the seventies and soon became equivalent with impressive cover art. His aliens were convincing, his landscapes beautiful, so it was no surprise that all the classics from the calibre of Asimov, King, Clarke, Heinlein, McCaffrey etc. wanted Whelan for their covers. This book illustrates profoundly, why he was given 16 Hugos, including the one for this volume as the best non-fiction book of that year.

The huge hardcover is still sometimes available through typical sources (Ebay, Amazon, Abebooks, Barnes&Noble) online, and before you mourn the price, remember, the original publication itself had a tag of 60 Dollars ;)

There has been a deluxe edition around, I saw it on Ebay some years ago for about 500 Dollars, which is quite cheap regarding the fact that even long print runs (of a few Hundred) of Michael´s Lithographs and Prints sold through his own webshop could easily cost more...

Jim Burns - Lightship

Year: 1985
Publisher: Paper Tiger/Dragon´s World
ISBN: 1850280118
Content: 124 pages with mostly colour illustrations

My collection of artbooks didn´t start with this one - but on the other hand, somehow it did. It was Mirage from Boris Vallejo, through which I first entered the realms of science fiction and fantasy illustrations (and the impressive backup catalogue of Paper Tiger) back in 1985 in the exclusive foreign language bookshop in Budapest, Hungary... But only a year later, maybe my fifth or tenth of these artbooks I became destined to collect over the following 25 years was this special gem, the collected Jim Burns in Lightship. The spaceships designs, the lifeforms were so intensively "alien", in terms of out of this world, and yet so beautifully crafted, with such impressive accurateness when it came to backgrounds, clouds, planets, that I was (and when I occasionally take this one off the shelf, still am) simply buffed, stunned, amazed. It opened the world of scifi illustration to a whole new dimension for me.

But enough of this, on to the facts :)
Jim Burns was by publication of this volume already a known label in artbooks history, he made his first appearance as cover and interior artist for the art collection Mechanismo by Pierrot. The very same publisher later took Harry Harrisons novelette and ordered the illustrated book Planet Story, with both of these books later being picked up and translated by Moewig in Germany.

Lightship was the first solo collection of covers done for Silverberg (Majipoor Chronicles), Harrison, Dick, Clarke and others, as well as unpublished or other rare materials. The book has been published both in hard- and softcover version, and throughout the 80´s also in German by Moewig and alpha. The English edition is available on ebay or amazon at very reasonable prices. It should be owned by every fan of science fiction and/or fantasy, whether or not interested in artbooks...

You can see a few page samples of the book and more from Jim at his webpage.

Jean-Claude Mézières: Les Extras de Mézières, Tome 1 & 2

Year: 1995
Publisher: Dargaud
ISBN: 2205044435
Content: 80 full colour pages

Year: 1998
Publisher: Dargaud
ISBN: 2205047515
Content: 80 full colour pages


Dargaud, French publisher of comics and comic related items honoured his long-term author of the immensely popular Valérian (et Laureline) scifi series with two volumes of covers, sketches and other related stuff by Jean-Claude Mézières.

His works are in fact so popular, that his visual creations served as blueprint for some movies as well, most notably Luc Besson´s The Fifth Element, starring the ever scifi-openminded Bruce Willis. And although many other artists and comic creators have before and since envisioned cityscapes with flying cars and trains, I think none of them set this imagery so profoundly in scene as Mézières. He was by the way mainly responsible for his hometown Lille winning the European Capital of Culture title by creating the famous star-way "Chemin des Ètoilers" with seven science fiction pillars on main street... :)

Both books are as of this writing still available from Amazon France for about 20 Euros.

Syd Mead: Kronolog

Year: 1992
Publisher: Oblagon
ISBN: 0929463072
Content: Artbook, Sketchbook and Video (LaserDisc or VHS)
Limitation: 3500

Kronolog is probably the most sophisticated set ever published on a single science fiction illustrator or, as Syd Mead, creator of movie sets for Blade Runner, 2010 Space Odyssey, Tron, Star Trek and others tend to call himself, a visual futurist.

Packed with the 144 colour pages thick Kronoteko with 130 fullsize illustrations, the 328 pages of Kronovecta with over 700 images in 4, 2 and 1 color as a compendium of sketches, ideas and storyboards, and accompanied by a special hour-long tutorial on laserdisc (remember that old format?) called Kronovid, on how Syd Mead creates his rendering art.

This huge set has been published in Japan and only a few surfaced in the USA or Europe. Currently I saw 2 sets being offered on the net for around 1700-2500 Dollars, so if you want this, start collecting your pennies and cents... ;)
But of course there are also other, more affordable books available from this genius of scifi imagination, check out for instance Sentinel 1 & 2 or Sentury.

And if you still insist on seeing more from the visual futurist, check out his page.

Bruce Pennington: Eschatus

Year: 1976
Publisher: Paper Tiger/Dragon´s World
ISBN: 0905895053
Content: 96 pages with around 40 colour illustrations

Bruce Pennington started illustrating classics from Robert Heinlein and Frank Herbert back in the sixties, and moved on to fantasy and horror covers for Lovecraft and others in the seventies. This led to the publication of his first artbook, Eschatus, illustrating passages from the (in)famous visions of Nostradamus...

The book itself has been published in various forms (hardcover, softcover, bookclub edition, at least one - german - translation) and is still from time to time available at the usual online marketplaces. Some images and an online review from the artist himself can be found on his page.

Bruce Pennington later published another collection with Paper Tiger (Ultraterranium) as well as an oversized Posterbook and an undersized Minibook.

I wonder, if Nostradamus had foreseen this...

Chris Foss: 21st Century Foss

Year: 1978
Publisher: Dragon´s Dream
ISBN: 0906196094
Content: 144 pages with around 150 colour and 35 b/w illustrations

This was the second collection of Chris Foss´ art, including some rare sketches for the upcoming Jodorowsky version of the movie Dune which has been later abandoned (due to financing issues and then picked up by David Lynch with known results...)

The art collection features some general illustrations (landscapes, tanks, airplanes, ww2, etc.) as well, but  focus is mostly on science fiction spaceships, a trademark Chris Foss has earned so well-deserved during the 70´s. Most of these illustrations appeared on covers from the likes of Asimov, Herbert, Dick or Brunner, and with those vast spaceships and huge aircrafts, battles and explosions Foss created a new standard for scifi illustrations hard to ignore later on by all the following artists like Peter Jones, Eddie Jones, Peter Elson, Chris Moore, Colin Hay or Angus McKie.

You can still find some of the editions of this artbook on Ebay, Amazon or Abebooks, with variable prices due to the fact that this was one of the most successful books of the "Dean publishing associates" (Pierrot, Dragon´s Dream, Paper Tiger/Dragon´s World) and lived through many reprints, book club and foreign language editions.

Chris Foss has his own webpage, here.