(Island #1, Cover image by Michael Whelan)
(-all images taken from the artists’ respective websites for use in promoting this book and their individual websites and artwork. Call for Entries image taken from Spectrum website)
Though I read this for the first time in 2008, I could not think of a better way to inaugurate the Friday Favorites posts for 2009 than to do a brief review of the best art book to come out last year, Spectrum 15: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, edited by Cathy and Arnie Fenner.
Year after year the Fenners pull together a panel of artists and people in the industry and they converge upon Kansas City to pick the entries for the latest volume of Spectrum. For 15 years now the Fenners have been putting together the most amazing collection of fantastic art illustration and though it seems like it would be impossible to do, they manage to top themselves every year.
Spectrum 15 is no exception. This large, high quality art book is filled with hundreds of pages containing hundreds upon hundreds of examples of amazing art from many different categories. It is a thrill every year when the latest issue of Spectrum comes out. For the past 3 years my friend Jeff and I have cracked into our copies together, pouring through it page by page and commenting on the various pieces. It is a real treat and one of the highlights of every year. By way of review, and to whet your appetite for future Friday Favorites, I am including a random sampling of images from Spectrum 15. These are all images that I like, but they do not even come close to representing the variety of images contained in this volume.
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