Dark Planet is designed and edited by Lucy A. Snyder. If you spot any errors, or if you have any comments, please contact her at lusnyde@indiana.edu. All materials copyright 1996-1997 by their respective creators. No stories, articles, poems or images from this webzine may be posted or published without the written consent of their creators.

Luz, the Art of Ciruelo By Ciruelo Cabral Bast Editorial, Barcelona, Spain (Diamond Comics in USA). 128 pages. Reviewed by Lucy A. Snyder If you enjoy lavish illustrations of square-jawed heroes battling monsters and wooing buxom lasses in various states of distress (and undress), then you're going to love Luz, the Art of Ciruelo. This is the third compilation of the art of Ciruelo Cabral, a young Argentinean-born artist who lives near Barcelona, Spain. As one might expect, Luz contains mainly book cover illustrations for clients such as Tor, Ballantine and TSR. But it also features CD covers, tattoo art, previously-unpublished sketches, and a striking section on his petropictos, a sculpture/painting hybrid in which the artist airbrushes directly onto partially-shaped stones. Most of Ciruelo's work is fantasy art, mainly images of derring-do and sorcery set against backgrounds of craggy cliffs and lush landscapes. His dragons are especially fetching; I was quite taken with one painting of a black wyrm glowering atop a rock. His SF images are far fewer in number but equally well-done. In short, I enjoyed this collection, and if you have any appreciation for the aesthetics of high fantasy, you will, too. But as I leafed through the book, a little ditty penned by a female SF novelist (to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands") kept running through my head: There's a bimbo on the cover of my book. There's a bimbo on the cover of my book. She is blond and she is sexy, She is nowhere in the text, she Is the bimbo on the cover of my book! Don't get me wrong; this collection is far less sexist than, say, typical Frank Frazetta. And, obviously, fantasy art is expected to portray people who are beautiful and heroically proportioned. All good and well. But it would be nice if it didn't seem to always pander to the fantasies of teenage boys. We twentysomething women like fantasy, too, and buy it in spite of the bimbo covers. But chances are, more of us would buy more of it if we saw our fantasies being portrayed. For instance, one of Ciruelo's paintings portrays a blond, virtually naked nymph hiding from a hunting party. She's also ankle-deep in snow. Brr! Wondering if men really think about this sort of thing, I consulted an older friend, a professed Sensitive Guy who actually owns a copy of Sleepless in Seattle. He looked at the picture and nodded gravely, admitting that yes, while cross-country skiing he'd had similar fantasies of finding naked women in the snowy woods. Conversely, I have never once daydreamed about freezing my tits off in a snowbank while waiting for a wandering barbarian to find me. Issues of temperature and clothing aside, most of us women have at one time or another dreamed of being seduced. But we also dream of seducing, and of kicking butt. There is a serious lack of feminine butt-kicking in Luz. Some of Ciruelo's ladies are armed, yes, but they're never actually doing any fighting. They're just decorative. And I think publishers should share the criticism for this. Ciruelo is a commercial artist, and market forces temper his creative vision. He paints what publishers think we want to buy. If we think this vision is limited, it's up to us, writers and readers alike, to expand the definition of the genre. THE END