Apologies. It’s been a while since I stopped by to update here. Good news: on August 6th, I was awarded a Chesley Award for Best Magazine Cover Illustration for my cover art for the September 2009 issue of ASIMOV’S (pictured here). The awards were announced by ASFA in Raleigh, NC at the North American Science Fiction Convention. Unfortunately, things have been so hectic here that I was unable to attend the ceremony. Jim Minz, senior editor at Baen Books, accepted on my behalf and was kind enough to ship my award to me. I’m grateful and honored to be a Chesley Award winner and it means a lot to me as these awards are voted on by artist peers and art fans. Congrats to all fellow nominees and winners.

Here’s what this year’s trophy looks like, next to last year’s. Note that the marble base on this year’s award seems to be on steroids. The award weighs in at a bone-crushing 16.4 lbs.

And here’s a better shot where you can see how amazing that Milky Way center is. ASFA redesigned the award a few years back, and wow, these things are spectacular-looking. Again, very honored and grateful to receive this. Thanks very much! 🙂

(clockwise from top left: Michael Sheen & me; the art of Dave Seeley; my booth at #4600 of SDCC) This was my first time ever as a booth exhibitor at a San Diego Comic-Con. I expected it to be grueling. I hoped it would be a learning experience, as well as successful. It was all of that. I’ve attended several SDCCs as a pro attendee, and I’ve exhibited in Artists Alley before, but this year I shared a booth with artist Dave Seeley. He was a great teammate. I’ve always admired him and his work, but now maybe even moreso after going through this experience together, and spending time with his family. Patrick Heffernan of Mysterious Galaxy and artist Erik Gist were invaluable, assisting me and Dave in making this booth happen. Couldn’t have done it without them.

Dave and I purchased the construction materials for our booth the morning of Preview Night from a Home Depot run. Erik was there the whole way and was a real friend throughout. We built the booth with wood, aluminum studs, and MDF. We hung a 52″ HDTV from it and ran slideshows of our portfolios all weekend long. Dave sketched out the design for the booth and I thought it worked out brilliantly. Great job by Steve Brand of SSA Graphics who printed the banners I designed for my booth. I can see things I would do again when exhibiting at SDCC and things I would modify the next time. It was a huge learning experience.

I sold out all of my copies of COVER STORY: THE ART OF JOHN PICACIO. I sold out of most of my 11×14 prints. Old friends visited, and new ones were made. The booth did well enough that I’m considering doing it again.

(clockwise from top left: Jamil Moledina, Stephan Martiniere & Lou Anders; two fans with very cool Justice League costumes; Diana Gill & Richard Kadrey at the Eos Party)

Aside from the experience of boothing with Dave, a few highlights of the show for me included:

* Rooming with old friends Lou Anders, Paul Cornell and Caroline Symcox.

* Late-night drinks & chat with China Mieville, Lev Grossman, Annalee Newitz, Charlie Jane Anders and Lou Anders

* Fun lunch with EA’s Jamil Moledina and Lou Anders. I’ll be working on cover art for Jamil’s debut novel in the coming days.

* Meeting Matt Gagnon of Boom! for the first time. He’s a dynamo.

* Podcast interview with Shaun Farrell of Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing

* Quickie interviews with the Kollin Bros. & Joe McCabe

* HarperCollins/Eos Happy Hour: Eos editor Diana Gill threw a great event as ever. (Her 2004 Worldcon party at the Boston Aquarium is still my fave.) Met Richard Kadrey, Merrie Destefano, Jocelynn Drake, and Rachel Marks. Fun visiting with Mario Acevedo, Craig Engler, Ann Vandermeer, and Scott Edelman.

* Meals and good talk with friends including Dave Seeley, Linda Seeley and son Griffin; Erik Gist; Lucas Graciano; Lou Anders; (thanks to Jeremy Cranford); big thanks and big ups to one of my favorite people, Jim Minz, as always; Stephan Martiniere; Madelynn Martiniere; Jeremy Lassen; Amelia Beamer; David and Sharon Weber; Matt Gagnon of Boom!; great breakfast with Paul Cornell & Caroline Symcox; dinner with Dave Palumbo, Anthony Palumbo; Lana Crooks and Winona Nelson.

* Visiting with friends new and old including Claire Howlett; Joe McCabe & Sophia Quach; Chris Roberson & Allison Baker; Dave Justus; Marjorie Liu; Bryce Carlson; Karen Jones; Jen Heddle; Morgan Burns; Mark Finn; Brandon Sanderson; Lauren Panepinto; Jaime Levine; Maryelizabeth Hart; Jeff Mariotte; Jon Schindehette; Diana Rowland; Kat Richardson; Alex Irvine; Arnie & Cathy Fenner; Arlo Burnett; Donato Giancola; Todd Lockwood; Allen Williams; Jimmy Simpson; Kristina Carroll; Daren Bader; Mike Mignola; Charlie Athanas; Greg Spalenka; Sean Williams; and I’m sure I’m forgetting a ton of people…

* Bill Willingham’s Empty Pen Party on Sunday night — I was exhausted, but that was good times. Thanks, Bill. (Shoutout to Brad Thomte.)

Want more pics? Here’s a Flickr set of what SDCC 2010 looked like to me, complete with capsule comments.

Thanks to all who made it a great show. Thanks again to Dave for sharing a booth with me. It’s Thursday and I still haven’t unpacked my suitcase. That’s how fast things are moving here. Time to get to that….

I’ve got a brand-new art item debuting at Booth #4600 at San Diego Comic-Con this week. It’s called JOHN PICACIO / 2010 LIMITED EDITION and it’s a 5″x7″ set of archival prints featuring some of my recent works, printed on thick Hahnemuhle archival paper. Each set contains a unique 5″x7″ original drawing on heavy Strathmore illustration board. A custom-made, self-enclosed jacket houses the whole thing. Only 50 sets will be made for sale, so visit early. Each will sell for only $60.

In addition to these new items, I’ll have plenty of medium and large-size prints. Artist extraordinaire Dave Seeley will be sharing the booth with me. He’s created fan-favorite cover art for a number of STAR WARS novels and a who’s who of major clients including Tor Books, Random House, Del Rey, Midway Games, Wizards of the Coast, TSR, Hasbro, Fox Interactive and more. He’ll be stocking loads of eyecandy and giant-size prints. See you there!

Been a while since I logged in here. Sorry ’bout that. However, there’s plenty of good stuff to share over the course of this month.

First bit of good news: I’ll be exhibiting at this year’s San Diego Comic Con International. My booth is #4600 and artist extraordinaire Dave Seeley and I will be sharing the space. We’ll both have tons of signed prints for sale, and I’ll have a few remaining copies of COVER STORY: THE ART OF JOHN PICACIO for sale as well, along with promo cards.

If you have particular images you’d like me to bring as prints to the show, now’s the time to speak up. Lemme know and I’ll do my best to bring the most popular requests. See you there!

Today the good folks at Tor.com posted a free wallpaper of my cover art for Mark Chadbourn’s AGE OF MISRULE: WORLD’S END. They’ve got lots of formats to choose from, so go get it while it’s there. They’re doing a series of free wallpapers all week along from all five of the 2010 Hugo Award nominees for Best Professional Artist. Shaun Tan, Stephan Martiniere, and Dan Dos Santos have already been featured this week. Bob Eggleton is tomorrow. Thanks to Tor’s art director supreme Irene Gallo for coordinating this effort. Enjoy! 🙂

Yikes! Did not realize it’s been so long since I’ve updated here. Sorry ’bout that, folks. As usual, it’s nuts here. Been working on several deadlines as well as continuing my work on the 2012 George R. R. Martin Calendar for A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE.

Good news to share:

1. This blog and my website is currently being redesigned by Paul Vaughn and I’ll have a more organized cyber home this summer. Looking forward to that. Thanks for everyone’s patience.

2. I’m a Hugo Awards finalist for the sixth consecutive year! Could not be more grateful and I’m excited to be on such an amazing ballot. You can decide this year’s Hugo Awards winners by voting. It’s easy. Here’s how.

3. I’m a Locus Awards finalist this year in the Artist category — my fifth consecutive year as a top-5 finalist. I won the award in 2007. Very grateful to be amongst this year’s nominees!

4. Just announced this weekend — I won this year’s Asimov’s Readers Award in the Cover Artist category! My September 2009 cover art was the one that did it. Lisa Goldstein’s story “Away From Here” inspired the illustration (cover pictured here). It’s my second consecutive year as winner in the category (tied last year with Tomasz Maronski). Again, thanks to all of the Asimov’s readers for their kind consideration! Full list of winners here.

Thanks again to all voters who considered me for these recognitions. I’m extremely appreciative and will keep working hard to get better.

SPECTRUM 17: THE BEST IN CONTEMPORARY FANTASTIC ART last month announced its list of artists selected for inclusion in the forthcoming annual. SPECTRUM is a much-anticipated, juried volume compiling the finest works from the worlds of books, comics, advertising, editorial, 3D and concept art in the previous year. This weekend, I was notified that two of my 2009 works were selected. They are my cover illustration for Mark Chadbourn’s AGE OF MISRULE: BOOK 1 — WORLD’S END (pictured here), and my cover illustration for James Dashner’s THE 13TH REALITY: THE JOURNAL OF CURIOUS LETTERS.

Lou Anders was the art director for the MISRULE illustration and I thank him for once again being a superlative collaborator, allowing the room to roam and find this image. Lisa Vega was the designer that commissioned THE 13TH REALITY illustration. I’m especially gratified the SPECTRUM jury selected this one. THE 13TH REALITY: THE JOURNAL OF CURIOUS LETTERS released last year in paperback, and the publisher rejected this image in favor of a much less potent, color version of the artwork for publication. I’ll be pleased when my preferred version debuts in SPECTRUM’s pages this November.

Here’s my final cover illustration for the forthcoming Pyr edition of Mark Chadbourn’s THE DARK AGE: BOOK 2 / THE QUEEN OF SINISTER. It’s the second book of the trilogy that follows Chadbourn’s AGE OF MISRULE. Folks with long memories will likely notice that this cover is radically improved and modified from the catalog version.

I believe the book releases in June. Pyr unveiled the cover yesterday via their blog, and I was encouraged to see so many instant comments across Twitter and social media. The world really is a smaller place these days. 🙂 And below, you can see how the finished cover will look when it hits US shelves later this summer.

Here’s my final cover illustration for the forthcoming Pyr edition of Mark Chadbourn’s THE DARK AGE: BOOK 1 / THE DEVIL IN GREEN. It’s the first book of the trilogy that follows Chadbourn’s AGE OF MISRULE. The nice thing about THE DARK AGE is that the trilogy can be read as a standalone and doesn’t require reading AGE OF MISRULE in order to follow the story. However, reading MISRULE certainly enhances the experience. 🙂 I’m glad I was able to improve the cover art from its initial catalog version. And below, you can see how the finished cover will look when it hits US shelves later this summer.

Boskone 47 — what can I say? As I said Saturday night to the NESFAns, Boskone is still the grande dame of regional sf/f literary-centric cons, and proved once again why it’s one of the measuring sticks (along with Armadillocon and a couple of others) by which similar cons are measured. It was an amazing weekend, and one of the best cons I’ve ever experienced. I was the Official Artist for the con. Alastair Reynolds was the Author Guest of Honor. Michael Whelan was the NESFA Press Guest along with Lois McMaster Bujold. Vernor Vinge, Tom Shippey and Mary Crowell completed the lineup of featured guests. That’s a helluva lineup! 🙂

I spent quality time with Michael, and got to visit with Al while we signed stacks of his new DEEP NAVIGATION story collection (cover art by me). As with most cons, it’s not the GoHs that do the heavy lifting; it’s the volunteers. And when you’re talking about Boskone, those volunteers are largely made up of members of the New England Science Fiction Association. I can’t possibly thank all of them by name, but I’ll single out a few of them as I run through a few personal Boskone 47 highlights.

* Valentine’s Meal: Traci and I arrived in Boston late afternoon, Thursday, Feb. 11. Valentine’s Day was Sunday, but we opted to celebrate Thursday night because we were certain Sunday was gonna be tough because of my GoH responsibilities. A great night — we did a three-course dinner tour in Boston’s North End. First stop: clam chowder and beer at Union Oyster House; next, a giant Giambotta pizza at Regina Pizzeria; and then the capper: Modern Pastry for chocolate rumcake and a miniature key lime pie. We were stuffed. We had lots of leftovers to take to our room and needless to say, we had a ball.

* Art Show: Boskone’s art shows have a reputation for annually being amongst the best in sf/f. This one was no different with a high-quality lineup that included Bob Eggleton, Rick Berry, Omar & Sheila Rayyan, Jean Pierre Normand, Gary Lippincott, Marianne Plumridge-Eggleton, Rick Sardinha, Kelly Kotulak, Marc Robinson, and Marc Scheff, amongst many others. Michael Whelan was NESFA’s Special Guest and he celebrated with a giant 40-year retrospective of works that included his original paintings for Michael Moorcock’s STORMBRINGER, Stephen King’s DARK TOWER and Joan Vinge’s THE SNOW QUEEN. Michael brought one painting for each of his 40 years in the business. It was an awesome display. So with all of that greatness in the room, and with me as the Official Artist, needless to say, I brought my best. Two items that really seemed to get a lot of audience attention — a giant backlit print of my cover illustration for Dan Simmons’ DROOD (see first image) and the final convention appearance (at least for a very long, long time) of my mixed-media shadowbox assemblage for Jeffrey Ford’s WELL-BUILT CITY trilogy (pictured directly above). I was amazed to walk in to the Art Show on Sunday morning and discover that the latter won “Best of Show”. With so much amazing art in the room, I kept staring at the ribbon to make sure it was real. Very appreciated!

A few Art Show shoutouts: Gay Ellen Dennett — if you’re an artist and you ever see her name as the person running an art show, you’re in the best of hands. She ran a dynamite art show from beginning to end. Huge thanks, Gay Ellen. She had help from folks like Joni Dashoff, Ira Donewitz, Andrea Senchy, the Atwoods and others, but she ran the show and did a stellar job. Chip Hitchcock — thanks for being Superman when it was time to get that lightbox up and glowing — you’re clutch and appreciated; and Filthy Pierre — same to you. These two guys are examples of the kind of first-class people who are the heart of any great con, and my hat’s off to them.

* Michael Whelan / John Picacio Conversation: Thanks to the excellent work of Priscilla Olson and JoAnn Cox, the programming was amazing. All of my program items went off without a hitch, and from the overwhelming audience reaction afterward, it seems that the Whelan/Picacio conversation was an especially big homerun. It’s hard to tell from my side of the table, but I’m really glad this one connected with so many people. From where I was, it could have gone on for another hour because Michael and I were in a groove, exchanging back and forth unscripted. He’s not only one of the greatest artists ever in sf/f, but one of my favorite people in the field as well. We don’t cross paths often, but when we do, we seem to click for some reason. This was my favorite hour of the whole con. It went by too fast.

* Joe Siclari / Mark Olson: More programming highlights. Siclari and Olson are veteran NESFAns, as well as notable sf/f art historians and collectors. I really enjoyed their panels about the history of sf/f art (“Absent Artists” and “Who Painted That?”). The latter was especially cool. They put together slideshows of old-time sf/f imagery and Eggleton, Whelan, and me had to guess who illustrated the art. I love that stuff. Picked up a couple of names I didn’t know that I’ll research this week. I usually prefer programming panels that talk about the present state and future of sf/f art, but these guys really put together enjoyable programs about the venerable past, and I love that stuff too.

* NESFA Press Book Debuts — ROBOTS & MAGIC, the second volume of NESFA Press’ Lester Del Rey short story collections, debuted at the show along with DEEP NAVIGATION, a terrific collection of Alastair Reynolds’ short stories. Steven H. Silver edited ROBOTS & MAGIC and Ann Broomhead did the honors for the Reynolds. Both are terrific, and I provided the cover art for both volumes. Special shoutout to Alice N.S. Lewis who did the design for both books and most of the Boskone publication work for this year. She’s a gifted designer and I really dug her solutions.

* Friends Old and New — That’s why conventions are great. Too many people to name them all, but I had a blast with Irene Gallo, Dave Seeley, Audrey Price, Pablo Defendini, Marc Scheff, William Lexner and wife Maureen, Kelly Kotulak, Marc Robinson, Robert Weiner, Karl Schroeder, Stacy Hague-Hill and Sarah Beth Durst. The most unexpected new acquaintance I made at Boskone happened on Saturday night. Traci and I were seated for Boskone’s Saturday Night Awards Presentations and I just happened to be seated next to the legendary Jane Yolen. This was good enough by itself, but to find out that Jane knew who I was and knew my work caught me off-guard in the best of ways. She’s terrific and hilarious, and it was an honor to meet her.

* Rick Berry Studio Visit — I’ve long admired Rick’s work, and he was kind enough to invite a number of folks out to his studio on Sunday night. I learned a lot that night, and I suspect a couple of bits of that experience will affect how I work later this year. Irene had told me that it would be hugely inspiring to visit his studio, and she was right. Thanks to Rick and his wife Sheila, as well as Robert Weiner, for the food, drink, and good times.

Cons are often judged by their GoHs and guests, but I often judge them by the volunteers that run them. NESFA, you did an incredible job. Thanks to Jim Mann (this year’s Boskone chairman — take a bow), Laurie Mann, Ben Yalow, Tim Szczesuil (thanks for receiving my boxes, man!!), Ian Stockdale (new owner of the MUSE OF FIRE original underdrawing, and I’m honored to be in his collection), Mary Kay Kare (thanks for looking out), Tony & Suford Lewis, Ann Broomhead, Geri Sullivan, and Robert Luoma (thanks for the projection help…went off without a hitch). Great job, Boskone!

For more photos, see my Flickr set.

Hot off the press — three new promo postcards featuring my cover art for (l to r) Dan Simmons’ DROOD (Subterranean Press ltd. ed.); Mark Chadbourn’s AGE OF MISRULE: BOOK ONE — WORLD’S END (Pyr); and Dan Simmons’ MUSE OF FIRE (Subterranean Press). These postcards will be freebies for all who attend my Guest of Honor Slideshow at Boskone, February 13th (Sat.), at 11am. Spread the word. Sound off below if you’re attending the con. ‘Hope to see you there. 🙂

NESFA Press’ ROBOTS & MAGIC: SELECTED SHORT STORIES OF LESTER DEL REY, Vol. 2 will debut at Boskone next week, but it looks like it’s now available for purchase online. It’s got an intro by Terry Brooks and it’s edited by Steven H. Silver. Alice N.S. Lewis did the design. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished books next week. 🙂