Title: Mermaids (A Gallery Girls Collection Series, Volume 2) Author: SQP Publisher: S.Q. Productions Publish Date: 2003 Pages: 64 Genres:: Erotic Art, Compilation, Fantasy Reviewer: Jerome D'Angelo

Rating:

Tempting. Mysterious. Exotic. Beautiful. Deadly. Mermaids have always captured the imagination with stories of both their heroism and misdeeds. Mermaids: Volume 2 from the Gallery Girls Collection is a splendorous assortment of black-and-white artwork featuring ladies of the deep in all their erotic glory. Twenty-two artists in all depict the scaled creatures with supple breasts, flowing hair and shimmering scales.

Mermaids have long been the subject of ancient myth and legend. First depicted in Hellenic literature, they are the ornately scaled women of the deepest oceans, rescuing ill-fated sailors in some tales and luring them to their demises in others. The Roman poet Ovid wrote they were born out of the burning Trojan galleys transformed into the “green daughters of the sea.” Irish folklore tells of mermaids being pagan women banished from the Emerald Isle by St. Patrick. In Livonian lore, mermaids are the children of Pharaohs who drowned in the Red Sea. In Mermaids, the savior/siren dichotomy is conveyed flawlessly.

A mermaid lifts a drowning man towards the surface in one picture, her hair going in all directions like a beta fish’s fins. Her face shows a look of care and desire as he lays limp in her arms. Two mermaids pull a man in a business suit from his submerged car in another, their sense of urgency off-set by their slender features.

Still in others the mermaids are not so friendly, including a drawing of some mermaid warriors holding a woman with legs prisoner, her neck in a shackle. Another shows a mermaid with an attractive figure but clawed fingers and a blank set of eyes surrounded by menacing fish with large teeth. One of the best drawings in the book, by Javier, is of a human female, wearing only a thin line of shells around her waist and shell earrings, ankle deep in still water. Her hair wild and her eyes sensuously narrowed, she has the body of a goddess. It is almost enough to distract the viewer from the shadowy image of a kraken’s bulbous head looming ominously in the background, its tentacles emerging from the pool around her.  

Some drawings find mermaids escaping eminent danger, such as the back cover of the book, a full color painting by James Ryman of three mermaids wearing Egyptian jewelry seeking refuge in a cave to flee a towering, unmistakably masculine merman-like monster. A drawing by artist Maraschi shows a stunned mermaid, her tail slightly resembling that of a lionfish and her breasts certainly resembling that of a pair of honeydews, having been spotted by an equally stunned human male inside a mini-sub. It is unclear whether the brawny explorer is more shocked at seeing the mermaid or her unbelievable bust.

Yet much to the book’s credit, most of the pictures are of mermaids that are simply dazzling and voluptuous. A mermaid with tattoos of coy fish and dragons covering her back makes for one of the better pictures. Brian LeBlanc gives us a scene of a nude woman being fondled and kissed underwater by a group of mermaids. LeBlanc is also credited with a drawing of a well-endowed mermaid having her nipples licked by another mermaid, while yet another looks on from a dark corner. Oscar Capristo draws a pirate on a dinghy looking down into the water at a mermaid with stripes on her tail like a tiger shark and breasts the size of watermelons.

Rather disappointingly though, Mermaids: Volume 2 does not have a clear index of the artists featured, making it difficult to determine which artwork belongs to whom. Mermaids would have earned a higher rating on this page if it had provided more detailed information. Still, that is a reflection only on the publishers and SQP, not on the artwork itself which is fantastic, or on the artists themselves who appear to be very talented. Mermaids: Volume 2 contains some extraordinary pencil art and will please fans of erotica and of fantasy alike.