The Gallery Girls Mermaids collection continues with this second volume of outstanding, sea-frolicking art from SQP. As with the other volumes in the Gallery Girls series, Sal Quartuccio has assembled another extraordinary group of talented artists to give their renditions of the most mythical and beautiful creatures of the sea.
The great Pelaez starts things out with a fantastic cover painting and follows this up with a number of terrific interior drawings, one featuring a gorgeous topless mermaid who looks like she's just been taken by surprise, and another showing a stern mermaid giving a spanking to a younger, naughtier one.
Arantza is one of my favorite artists in the world and she also has several great pieces in this volume. One depicts a hot, blonde bombshell, lying on a beach as a hermit crab idles by; another shows a mermaid cheerfully swimming amidst several nearby stingrays.
Colucci, another favorite, delivers a dark, evil, vampiric Mermaid, surrounded by a school of razor-fanged piranha. A terrifying and sad piece by Colucci shows a mermaid embracing the skeletal remains of another...perhaps a lover?
The honor for the most erotic piece in the collection goes to Brian LeBlanc with an undersea orgy involving for mermaids and a captive woman. A piece by Pedro Cuevas shows two spear gun-totting divers hunting a mermaid, or perhaps she is actually leading them to their doom. Emiliano Urdinola has perhaps the most horrific illustration in the book as a mermaid is attacked by a bestial half-woman and half-Octopus like creature.
Among the other artists featured in the book are Mitch Byrd, Tomas Giorello, Maraschi, Meriggi, Gracia, J.L. Roger, and Enric. The book ends on a high note with a great back cover painting as three mermaids hide in a cave from a giant sea monster. Thanks to the great pieces by Pelaez and Arantza, I enjoyed the second volume even more than the first. I'd also like to point out that many of the original pieces in this collection can be purchased from the SQP website. It's definitely worth checking out.
Reviewed by Tim Janson