The Art of Arantza

There are scores of artists working in the field of erotic fantasy but Arantza (a woman by the way) stands head and shoulders above most of the hacks by infusing her drawings of beautiful women with life. Here is an artist that knows how to draw and knows what a woman actually looks like. This may seem like a redundant statement, but believe me, it's not. Most artists working today have little or no sense of proportion, anatomy or composition. I will not name names, but they know who they are. By using pencil tones and a brilliant use of light/dark these drawings come off almost as paintings since these are not just a collection of sketches but fully realised works. Normally I don't include images from the interior artwork of a book, but here I'll make an exception so you can see what I mean.
The Illustrations lean heavily towards the dark erotic fantasy with many drawings of nude or scantily clad vampires, witches and gothic locales.
To me, Arantza follows in the same tradition as other Spanish artists like José González, Sanjulián, Esteban Maroto, Fernando Fernandez and Enrich, all of whom were true masters of the medium. Get this one while it's still in print!

Mark Schultz: Various Drawings Vol. 1

I first became aware of Mark Schultz with a couple of Cadillacs and Dinosaurs graphic novels I bought in the 90's and was immediatly impressed with his old-school style reminiscent of Frazetta and Alex Raymond, especially in the inks. Schultz often uses an inking technique called dry brush which really lift the drawings to another level by giving them more depth and tonal variety. Included are many character sketches from Cadillacs and Dinosaurs as well as some Conan pieces and various other works. It's all in black and white but believe me, it's much better this way since one can better appreciate Schultz' skill and beautiful fluid inking. Great stuff!

The Star Wars poster book

If you're a Star Wars fan, a student of film history or just a lover of great art, this book will appeal to you. With an oversized coffe-table hardcover format, the posters are reproduced large enough to really appreciate the detail and artistry of the pieces. A very informative text accompanies the pictures and gives a detailed overview of the evolution of the movie poster as a promotional tool for the movies. However, not just movie posters are included, from both the original trilogy and prequels, also those made to promote the various tie-ins like toys, snacks and other merchandise as well as those made for special events like the Star Wars Celebration. I remember that I owned a copy of the famous Hildebrandt poster (with Leia showing a lot of leg) for Star Wars, episode IV, and thinking it was the coolest poster ever!