The Highs and Lows of Artbooks in 2025
- The Artbook Collector
- 1 day ago
- 8 min read
January 7th 2026
2025 was a fantastic year for artbooks that brought many incredible releases to fill shelves and empty wallets. Not everything is perfect either though, as expected with any space within books or entertainment. I wanted to to look back at some of the highs and lows of 2025, with some personal thoughts on where the artbook space is as we begin a new year!
High - Too Many Great Books
This is the obvious one and what it's all about, the books themselves! I added 44 new releases to the collection here in 2025 and more than a few were not only great, but new favourites too. I won't list them all, but many artbooks were not good at just one thing, but ticked all the boxes of what I hope to see; well-made, a fantastic mix of content, excellent page design, good value for money, and of course, stunning artwork.
When picking a favourite for the year there can be a few standouts, but 2025 provided a larger selection from multiple publishers, which is fantastic for fans and collectors. The Art of Star Wars Outlaws ultimately got my top pick in The Artbook Collector 2025 Awards, but there were many that are highly recommended. Check out reviews for some here and visit the Reviews page for more;
Low - Endless Delays
As you will have noticed if you're a regular visitor, delays are very common and at times I'm reporting more delays than announcements. It's an unfortunate situation in which I write about a new book reveal with a release date, but I simply don't believe it will stick. This is across multiple publishers too, indicating a problem within the book industry. It has been explained to me that there are a huge list of reasons why a book can be delayed, but when it's happening to the vast majority of them, it's hard to feel that's acceptable when it's not improving. Games and movies are hit with outrage after a delay, but they don't happen anywhere near as often as the artbooks based on them and as it's done almost always in silence, people often don't notice.
My hope is that delays will happen less frequently, but there's no indication that will be the case. Artbooks are simply announced too soon and given a date 4-8 months out, but often within just a month or two, they are already pushed back further. Without insider knowledge, I can only speculate they are revealed early to start getting pre-orders in early and need a specific date to be listed on sites like Amazon. Smaller publishers sometimes give a month or quarter instead of a date, avoiding the issue, but these can be missed at times too.
Half of the 2025 books reviewed on this site arrived in the last few months of the year as a result of many delays, with multiple books from the same publisher even coming out on the same day. It's certainly a low point of not just 2025, but the artbook world in general.
High - Improved Binding
While there are still books that have arrived that didn't quite nail this, there was a noticeable step-up in 2025 for the binding of books across multiple publishers, most specifically for reducing image loss in the centre fold.
A huge problem for many books that are otherwise excellent, having the pages not lay flat without having to be held down is always frustrating to see. A piece of art can be ruined when some of it isn't visible due to the tight binding swallowing it up in the fold. However, 2025 saw not only an improvement for many releases, but in some cases avoiding the problem entirely. Books like The Art of Borderlands, Creating Worlds: The Cinematic Art of Dylan Cole (previewed above), The Art of Assassin's Creed Shadows, and more, allowed their art to shine across full spreads without issue, and I was very happy to see it!
Low - Marvel Studios' Still Can't Figure it Out
There's a future essay to be written about the rise and fall of the Marvel Studios' artbooks, because the handling of the long running series has been poor for some time now and that had an impact on 2025.
The same few problems raised their ugly heads again; delays, dark print quality, and pricing. The publisher has now delayed 27 books in a row, that's every artbook in the Multiverse Saga. She-Hulk: Attorney at Law - The Art of the Series arrived in 2025 after 6 delays that pushed it over a year past its original date, coming two and an half years after the show hit Disney+. The books don't do as well as the should on Amazon rankings and these time gaps are undoubtedly contributing to that.
Some of the books suffered from the dark print quality again, making darker costumes on similarly coloured background murky and hard to make out, which highlights that Marvel are still accepting of this lower quality.
I've written about pricing here many times, especially with Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps – The Art of the Movie having an unjustifiable RRP of $150. Charging an additional $50 for 32 extra pages and a 32-page booklet is frankly a joke, it's the same amount of money you can buy an entire higher quality book from Dark Horse/ Titan Books/ Abrams Books for. This was on top of an already high $100, which was already too much. You can read more about this in my review of the First Steps book here - Book Review.
Ultimately, the reason this is a low is because Marvel was once the gold standard of movie artbooks, with no page cap, fair pricing, and reliable release windows. The art itself is still exceptional and comes from some of the best in the industry, and some releases are still worth buying, such as 2025's Marvel Studios' Loki: Season Two - The Art of the Series. However, they need to re-evaluate their decision making that lets down their stronger aspects, and I'm hoping 2026 has them return to form.
High - Re-releases and Reprints
It's not all bad on the Marvel front, as included in the reprints of older artbooks that came in 2025, theirs are amongst the best out there. Titan Books' Infinity Saga series has been reissuing the older Marvel Studios artbooks as a matching set, coming slightly smaller and without a slipcase, but at a great price point, with improved binding and a better print quality, making them well worth picking up. Check out a review for their latest one here - Book Review - The Infinity Saga - Thor: Ragnarok - The Art of the Movie
As well as this though, other books have hit shelves with more stock and upgrades, including from publisher Udon Entertainment. In 2025 they re-released Okami Official Complete Works as a hardcover and Marvel vs. Capcom: Ultimate Complete Works came with over 100 additional pages of artwork too. Continuing this in 2026, Shovel Knight: Ultimate Design Works will include over 100 new pages and an upgrade to a hardcover in May as well. More stock also arrived for their Dark Souls artbooks, which is great for fans that missed out.
Although the anticipated re-release of Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar didn't show its face after being expected last year, having others made available is never a bad thing and I hope this continues in the future.
Low - Shipping Costs
The economy of the world wasn't exactly great in 2025, nor is it any better now, and this affected collectors that were looking to import books. I can speak to this first hand as someone that had to pay painful shipping costs from France to the UK. Sadly, I also had to turn down ordering other books from places like Poland due to postage adding on over 50% to the overall price, as seen in the example above that almost doubled the total.
This mostly has an impact on smaller book publishers that sell through their own website, as importing from Amazon is significantly cheaper due to their infrastructure, in some cases it's even free. I missed out this year on books for Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Baldurs Gate 3, and Outer Wilds, because shipping made them too expensive. Others I have spoken to have had the same issue ordering books to their own country. It's not the fault of the publishers, but it's certainly one of the more disappointing issues that impacted last year.
High - Health of the Market
In 2025 there were a lot of releases from publishers large and small, including many successful Kickstarter campaigns along the way, a great sign that there is still a big interest from people for artbooks and that publishers can continue to grow. The year saw a big number of releases from companies like Dark Horse and Insight Editions, showing that sales are strong and partnering with studios and individuals continues to be well worth their time.
Meanwhile, other publishers aren't slowing down either, like Lost in Cult who have not just released multiple books in 2025, but filled their 2026 calendar with new announcements, such as Alan Wake: Design Works. Cook and Becker sold out of their book WORLD OF TANKS. Journey Through Art very quickly which was fantastic news for them, and Clover Press had an impressive run of Kickstarter funded titles.
Artbooks are being made and artbooks are being bought! It was good to see that the space remained as healthy as it could given the state of the economy, with books coming endlessly and people showing interest in news stories here. Fingers crossed it doesn't slow down!
Low - Artist Credits
This has been very hit and miss in 2025, even with releases from the same publisher. While some books have been very good at crediting each image on every page with the responsible artists, others either only provide a list and the start or end of the book, or don't mention them at all. It's a shame when this happens, as without the artists, you wouldn't have the game, movie, show, or animation, let alone the book.
Releases from Marvel Studios and Chronicle Books are consistent in getting this right, but others are more sporadic. It is again something I hope to see improved in 2026, especially with more artists leaving social media, making it easier to forget their hard work and contributions to the media we all love. They should be recognised somewhere, and these books is the perfect place for it.
High - The Future of Artbooks
2025 delivered in many ways that makes me hopeful for the future of the artbook space, specifically because of the continued interest in the books and the publisher's non-stop announcements. At a time where artists are struggling to find work and AI threatens to destroy the very foundation of the industry, there are still many that are holding firm against these changes and push for human creation. The combination of creatives doing incredible things and fans gravitating towards it shows there is no sign that artbooks are going anywhere at this current time.
Will the landscape change? Very likely. If studios do switch to AI, then I can see individual artists working outside of the industry in new ways, which would very likely include books. As seen with Ian McQue's narrative artbook Mileships that was funded on Kickstarter, there is a healthy appetite from people for unique art, so even if studio based 'Art of' books were to fade away, they would likely be replaced with other releases.
As it stands though, artbooks are not going anywhere and that won't change for a while. Even if there was a shift to something different, 2025 only highlighted that people love art and they want it on their shelves, so there will always be publishers that help them get filled!
That ends my list of notable highs and lows of 2025! I was very impressed with what arrived over the last 12 months and cannot wait to see what the new year brings. Many books have already been announced for 2026, so be sure to keep an eye out for what's coming on Upcoming page. Many of these books will be joining the collection and will be previewed and reviewed here. I'll keep the site as up to date as possible with the latest artbooks for games, movies, TV, animation, and more, allowing those that enjoy artbooks to grow their own collections along with me!
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