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Paper Tiger Fantasy Art Gallery edited by Paul Barnett (book review).

Back when the publisher Paper Tiger was operational, editor Paul Barnett was asked to run their newsletter which became ‘The Paper Snarl’. As he explains in the introduction, he didn’t want it to be a purely promotional piece and spent time interviewing the various artists Paper Tiger were printing books of. This ‘Paper Tiger Fantasy Art Gallery’ is an accumulation of these 25 interviews with a selection of art from each. Printed in 2002, I was surprised how easy it was to pull a decent looking copy on the Net for a low price. I suspect that people might see his book as a promotional interview book when really there is more career chat and what motivates them.

In many respects, the interviews can now be seen as a time capsule of the various artists’ thoughts, ambitions and art techniques at the time. I suspect those of you who pick this book up will compare what they said then to what and where there are nearly two decades on.

There’s the occasional plug for other books and I found that some also included ones I’ve pulled and reviewed later. Like Paul Barnett, I was also finding artists I hadn’t heard of before and spent considerable time looking them up to see what they’ve been doing since these interviews were taken.

Of course, there is also a selection of paintings and, in one instance, sculptures making this book an excellent taster for such a wide selection of SF and fantasy artists that you might want to explore later. At the back of the book, there is a list of books that these artists have done up to 2002 so if you think you’ve missed anything, it’s useful.

Undoubtedly, I suspect many of you who collect genre art books will have this book in your collection. If you haven’t, then ensure you get a copy.

GF Willmetts

October 2018

(pub: Paper Tiger, 2002. 144 page illustrated softcover. Price: I pulled my copy for about £ 3.00 (UK) but currently it’s around £ 4.50 (UK) more or less. ISBN: 1-85585-957-2)

UncleGeoff

Geoff Willmetts has been editor at SFCrowsnest for some 21 plus years now, showing a versatility and knowledge in not only Science Fiction, but also the sciences and arts, all of which has been displayed here through editorials, reviews, articles and stories. With the latter, he has been running a short story series under the title of ‘Psi-Kicks’ If you want to contribute to SFCrowsnest, read the guidelines and show him what you can do. If it isn’t usable, he spends as much time telling you what the problems is as he would with material he accepts. This is largely how he got called an Uncle, as in Dutch Uncle. He’s not actually Dutch but hails from the west country in the UK.

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