Ultra Graphics 1999 – 20094 min read

Reading Time: 3 minutes

In celebration of Ultra Jump Magazine’s 10th anniversary, UJ released an art book collection of magazine covers called Ultra Graphics 1999 – 2009. The covers for the magazine are by everyone from Range Murata to Oh! Great. But the presentation for this collection leaves a lot to be desired.

Getting a book with this many famous artists in one place is exceptional. Ultra Graphics 1999 – 2009‘s organization is by year, with the oldest covers at the front.

The magazine began in late 1999 and with two issues published that year. The year 2000 section has 10 illustrations, out of which two of the illustrations are cover art works. It goes on this way for the rest of the book.

I don’t collect or read Ultra Jump magazine, so it was great seeing more illustrations from series like Gunnm (Battle Angel Alita) and art work from Betten Court. There are plenty of illustrations by Oh! Great, all from Tenjho Tenge.

Also surprising to see that Range Murata has done so much art work for the magazine. The 10th Anniversary issue of Ultra Jump has a new Range Murata illustration on the cover, so they’ve come full circle.

One of the downsides is that the book is B5 size, so it’s small. Most of the art work is on half a page, with very few full page illustrations.

Surprising to see art work from Hyung-tae Kim, too!

Miwa Shirow features heavily in the book, with cover arts from DOGS/Bullets & Carnage. There are also several illustrations by Yu Itoh, with his Imperial Guards (Koukoku no Shugosha) series.

This book is quite expensive for what it is. The book is 112 pages long, and 96 are in color. The black and white is just for the “Thank You” page and index.