It sounded like a small bomb exploded outside, so I ran to the door. When I opened it, nothing was there but a large cardboard box. The mailman was sprinting back to his truck down the street. The above photo shows you what shook the house. Not the Jess Nevins extravaganza to the left, but Centipede Press‘ jaw-dropping magnum opus, A LOVECRAFT RETROSPECTIVE: ARTISTS INSPIRED BY H.P.L., edited by Jerad Walters. Nevins’ FANTASTIC VICTORIANA is there for visual reference — so you can see how bone-crushingly massive the Lovecraftian masterpiece is. I’ve heard the hype. I’ve heard the giant pricetags. And quite frankly, I was reserving judgement until I saw the book for myself. But now that I’ve experienced my comp copy, I’m still numb 24 hours later. Two things to say:

1. When I first heard this book would have three editions and the least-expensive would be $395, I asked myself, “Who’s gonna buy this thing?!?” However, now that I’ve witnessed the gorgeous printing, the who’s-who list of artists (Michael Whelan, Bob Eggleton, H.R. Giger, Bernie Wrightson, J.K. Potter, etc., etc.), the humongous size and heft….my revised question is “who can resist this thing?” Granted — most of us don’t have $400 to drop on a book like this, but for anyone who has a personal library and love of Lovecraft and Cthulhu stories and art…here’s the skinny: this book is now an essential Holy Grail that has just made your library incomplete unless you have it. Seriously….it’s that traffic-stoppingly luscious.

2. For the past several years, I diligently fill out my World Fantasy Awards ballot and try to make intelligent nomination choices in each category. In 2009, this book, A LOVECRAFT RETROSPECTIVE, will be eligible for the World Fantasy Awards, and I’m already looking forward to including it amongst my selections for the category “Special Award/Non-Professional”. I won’t be voting for it because I’m in it, but because I can’t imagine an achievement that could top it in the year 2008. It’s that good, and that worthy.

Last item: I noticed the following on the back end flap when I was showing the book to my wife late last night. “Following early Weird Tales art by Lee Brown Coye and Virgil Finlay, Lovecraft’s personal favorite, to classic examples of 21st century renderings by modern masters like J.K. Potter and John Picacio, this volume’s more than 400 pages comprise the best artwork inspired by the Rhode Island icon of horror.” Too cool! 🙂
Above: my spread in the book
Above: a double gatefold spread of a Michael Whelan classic that literally is so big, it falls off the table

Here’s the final cover art for the forthcoming Pyr anthology FAST FORWARD 2, edited by Hugo Award finalist Lou Anders. Art’s best when it speaks for itself, but if you want behind the scenes trivia, here’s a little. This cover had a few inspirations, not the least of which is the mental tennis between me and Lou. It’s not so much Lou saying, “I want the cover to look like this” as much him firing short phrases of things he’s seeing in science fiction, and then I respond with what I see, and at some point, I take off and run with the ball. Hard to explain if you’re not there, but it’s just the way we’ve always worked. The best of times. Back to inspirations:

1. This image has been in my head lately….an illustration by Theophile Alexandre Steinlen featured on the cover of a late-1800’s French magazine called Le Petit Sou. The symbolism is so resonant. I don’t think that this image was created with the USA in mind, but it reminds me of the ideals that founded this country, and also what it will probably take if the US intends to be great again. I love this image, and it not only spawned the FF2 cover, but at least two more illustrations that I’ll be doing for myself (or maybe even for future covers?).

2. Something unexpected and out-of-the-blue….the death of Dave Stevens, the creator of THE ROCKETEER. I’ve never seen a drawing of his that wasn’t full of love and hope. My personal tastes in art have shifted a lot since all those years ago when I treasured his comics, but his recent death still jolted me. In some small way, the cover of FF2 is my way of saying, “RIP, Dave….thanks for the memories.”

3. From Paul McAuley…Lou quoted this in FF2’s intro….”(Science fiction) not only shows us what could happen if things carry on the way they are, but it pushes what’s going on to the extremes of absurdity. That’s not its job: that’s its nature. And what’s happened to science fiction lately, it isn’t natural. It’s pale and lank and kind of out of focus. It needs to straighten up and fly right. It needs to reconnect with the world’s weather, and get medieval on reality’s ass.”

While I was at Apollocon, I missed this. Jeff Vandermeer posted a solid rundown about Centipede Press‘ massive artbook extravaganza, THE ART OF LOVECRAFT: ARTISTS INSPIRED BY LOVECRAFT. Several of the book’s artists are quoted in the article, including yours truly. If you haven’t heard about this book, it’s a doozy. 400 pages of Lovecraft-inspired art, most in full-color, for a price tag of $395, for the clothbound, slipcased version. And if you’re looking for a less-expensive alternative, you’re outta luck. That IS the least expensive. The even snazzier editions retail for $495 (cloth, traycase, extra prints) and $2,495 (leather-bound edition, signed, extra prints). Oof…I’m still waiting to get my comp copy, but when I do, I’ll bet it’s gonna be amazing.

Here you go — my final cover art for Random House/Del Rey‘s forthcoming trade paperback, ELRIC: THE SLEEPING SORCERESS by Michael Moorcock. If you’re keeping score at home, this will be Book Three in Del Rey’s six-volume Elric series and it’ll be a December release. Here’s a few pertinent details for the first three books:

ELRIC: THE STEALER OF SOULS by Michael Moorcock (Book One) — cover art and interiors by yours truly; available now.

ELRIC: TO RESCUE TANELORN (Book Two) by Michael Moorcock — cover art and interiors by Michael Kaluta; available late July ’08.

ELRIC: THE SLEEPING SORCERESS (Book Three) by Michael Moorcock — cover art seen here, by yours truly; interiors by Steve Ellis; available early December ’08.

If you’re curious and haven’t seen this yet, here are my pencils that I previewed last month. So now that this cover’s finished, I move on to do the cover and interiors for Book Six in this series, which is a real honor since I’ll get to bookend the run. This stuff is so much fun….

Zoom….already halfway through the month of June….just realized I have a copy of Delos Books‘ 2008 calendar here in my studio and look what just happens to be the featured art for the month of “Giugno”. Of course, this illustration of mine first debuted here in the US as the wraparound cover for Lou Anders‘ 2003 breakout anthology LIVE WITHOUT A NET. Last year, Delos Books bought the Italian rights to use it for the cover of their venerable sf mag ROBOT, as well as this Italian calendar appearance. Very cool….hard to read the fine print on my low-res jpeg, but here are a few sf notables: June 2 — Lester Del Rey’s b-day back in 1915 (I’ll be doing a big Lester Del Rey cover project later this summer) / June 9 — Joe Haldeman’s b-day / June 25 — the debut of one of my all-time favorite films BLADE RUNNER, back in ’82 / June 29 — b-day of the great Michael Whelan.

Tag from John Denardo at SF Signal who clearly must have plenty of free time on his hands (and clearly thinks I have the same). 😉

So the latest meme going around has the following instructions: “To participate, you grab any book, go to page 123, find the fifth sentence, and blog it. Then tag five people.” Here’s mine….from L.E. Modesitt, Jr.’s new release VIEWPOINTS CRITICAL, now available from Tor, cover illustration by yours truly….this is from the story, “Black Ordermage”, page 123, sentence 5:

“Two of them looked at me the way Mamaw might have looked at a plump chicken.”

So now I’m supposed to tag five people. I’m sure these people don’t have busy professional lives either….
* Lou Anders
* Chris Roberson
* Paul Cornell
* Cheryl Morgan
* David Louis Edelman

Just arrived in the mail today from the Czech Republic — comp copies of the Czech editions of A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ, as well as a Dan Simmons short story collection, both sporting cover illustrations by yours truly. Laser-Books is the publisher, and both printings look great. (Thanks, Martin!) The design for the Simmons collection is especially interesting….they did a little inset of my full illustration and combined it with a detail from the same illustration, along with another detail used as a muted background. Wow — I’ve never seen a cover design like that, but it works well. The printing is cool because the big detail of the face and the full inset illustration are both printed gloss, while the background is printed matte. I like it! I’ll now proudly shelve these along with my Hungarian edition of CANTICLE. 🙂

One last note — sharp-eyed folks might notice that the cover illustration for the Simmons collection originally appeared on the cover of the US edition of George Zebrowski’s MACROLIFE, published by Pyr. Laser really wanted to use this illustration, and even though I have the legal copyright to resell the illustration for other foreign usages, I’m really careful about reselling images for books that are in-print elsewhere. I was reluctant to sell the Czech rights for the illustration, but when I ran the notion by Pyr’s editorial director Lou Anders, he gave his blessing. So thanks, Lou….if you wouldn’t have given the green light, this wouldn’t have happened.

Congrats to all John W. Campbell Award Finalists (Jay, Lou, Ian….great to see your works in there, fellas). There are two awards in science fiction that are called “the Campbell Awards”, and this one is the juried award for Best SF Novel, presented at the Campbell Awards Conference in Lawrence, Kansas (not to be confused with the one for Best New Writer, presented at the Hugo Ceremony every year).

Amongst this year’s finalists, I’m especially pleased to see two books that I cover-illustrated — Rebecca Ore’s TIME’S CHILD and Sheri S. Tepper’s THE MARGARETS, both published by Eos. Awesome. 🙂 Big congrats to Diana Gill and Jennifer Brehl over there.

World Fantasy Award nomination ballots are due June 30 (voting info/ballots here, if you click “Nominations Ballot” in the sidebar). John Klima has a nice rundown of his choices, and he’s got some terrific ones in all categories, including Life Achievement. His post inspired me to type up a specific one about the Life Achievement category. When you take a look at this category’s history of recipients, there isn’t a name in there that isn’t absolutely worthy. It’s a terrific list, but there are very few illustrators represented (Frazetta, Cartier, Wilson, and Fabian, so far) in the award’s 32-year history. Several major fantasy illustrators are very deserving and I’ll be voting for two, and I offer the following for voters’ consideration this month. Each ballot may nominate up to two for Life Achievement.

Moebius/Jean Giraud — he was Guest of Honor last year at WFC and if you aren’t familiar with his body of work, I feel for you (see picture above). It’s hard to imagine a medium that hasn’t been influenced by his visions. He’s one of the founding fathers of METAL HURLANT (which became HEAVY METAL in the US), creator of BLUEBERRY and ARZACH, film designer, comics visionary….a giant whose work transcends country and translation. My favorite Moebius memory was back in ’97. I did a signing with him and Mike Moorcock when I was first starting out, and Moebius’ line of fans went on forever. When I was done signing (didn’t take long), I stood behind him and watched over his shoulder as he graciously did a little sketch in everyone’s book who approached him. The sketches were 15 to 30-second line drawings, but each was clear, crisp and absolutely unique….landscapes, vehicles, figures, portraits….he never repeated himself — not once. It seemed as if a projector was mounted to his forehead and he was tracing the pictures that came out. So graceful and so effortless.

Jeffrey Jones — Robert Weiner curated an awesome display of Jones paintings from his personal collection at last year’s WFC. If you saw it, it was truly a herculean effort on his part and I was glad to see so many people reminded of the fundamental power of Jones’ work at its best. Her body of work spans five decades and the piece depicted here was painted in the late ’90s, reminding us that Jones remains one of the most evocative fantasy painters ever.

Leo & Diane Dillon — Hugo Award-winning husband and wife team whose illustrated books have also won the prestigious Caldecott Medal (two consecutive, in fact)….their body of work spans six decades and include covers for seminal fantasy books by Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Joan Vinge, Garth Nix and countless others. The Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame and the Spectrum Grandmaster Award already include the Dillons amongst their immortals. They’re worthy of WF Life Achievement not only for their adult genre work, but for their body of work for childrens’ books. I’m surprised they haven’t already received this.

Virgil Finlay — his b/w scratchboard illustrations are amongst the finest ever in fantasy. Finlay died in 1971, but his best work has a surreal tone that seems as potent today as when it was first published. Virtually every major pulp magazine sported work by him and he did some of his most timeless drawings for WEIRD TALES. He’s definitely one of the most influential b/w fantasy illustrators of the 20th century.

Alan Lee — it’s hard to think of Tolkien’s LORD OF THE RINGS books without thinking of Lee’s visuals at the same time. Along with John Howe, he’s well-known as a conceptual designer for Peter Jackson’s LOTR films, but even if he wasn’t associated with those films, his delicate pencil and watercolor work would still be the definitive imagery of the LOTR canon. That said, I also think John Howe would be a deserving Life Achievement candidate one of these years….what fantasy illustrator has done more to explore the mythic history of armor and combat than Howe?

Lastly, I’d be remiss if I didn’t include Michael Whelan. He’s the only individual to ever win three consecutive World Fantasy Awards in the Artist category and no one else will ever repeat that feat because they changed the rules thereafter to prohibit consecutive-repeat winners. He’s not only one of the greatest genre painters ever, but he’s one of the field’s most gracious ambassadors as well. He’s a shoo-in one for World Fantasy Life Achievement one of these years. However, despite his epic body of work, he may in fact still be too young for consideration. Ditto Bob Eggleton — still young and still kicking ass, even though his body of work could probably already be deserving. Just a matter of time for both of these guys….

My personal picks this year for Life Achievement — Moebius/Jean Giraud and Jeffrey Jones. I hope one or both of them are inducted this year, but I’d applaud any of the above.

Anyone have any other illustrator names that should be considered? Or non-illustrators for that matter?

First the Mind-Melding….(thus, the appropriate Spock cover by yours truly pictured left). SFSignal has posted the following Mind Meld question: What do you feel is the primary purpose of a book cover: To accurately reflect the story or to visually ‘sell’ the book? How do you balance these two ideas when creating a cover? Responses by Bob Eggleton, Bruce Jensen, Irene Gallo, Boris Vallejo, Dave Seeley, Todd Lockwood, Dan Dos Santos, Glen Orbik, and me. Check it out.

Now for the Strolling….Stu Segal is organizing what he hopes will be a yearly tradition at Worldcon: “Stroll with the Stars.” It’s Stu’s initiative to bring “a healthy attitude” to Worldcon. It’s a 9am, one-mile walk through the Worldcon city of Denver, and in a moment of temporary insanity, I accepted Stu’s invitation to join the list of lunatics…..err…luminaries, which includes Frank Wu, David Brin, Jay Lake, Ellen Datlow, Lou Anders, Paul Cornell, Scott Edelman, Mary Robinette Kowal and Stephen H. Segal. I’m not sure how healthy I’ll be spending every night of Worldcon in the hotel bar, but at least one of the mornings, I’ll be able to walk off the calories in style. So bring your sneaks, and your alarm clock, and join us! 🙂

Cool! Look what I just received — advance copies of Pyr‘s spiffy new edition of Robert Silverberg’s classic SON OF MAN! Wraparound cover illustration by me (see the full image here). Here’s the summary copy on the book’s back cover: “Clay is a man from the twentieth century who is somehow caught up in a time-flux and transported into a distant future. The Earth and the life on it have changed beyond recognition. Even the human race has evolved into many different forms now coexisting on the planet. The seemingly omnipotent Skimmers, the tyrannosaur-like Eaters, the sedentary Awaiters, the squid-like Breathers, the Interceders, the Destroyers — all are “Sons of Man.” Befriended and besexed by the Skimmers, Clay goes on a journey that takes him around the future Earth and into the depths of his own soul. He is human, but what does that mean?” If you like your science fiction trippy, transcendent, and mind-bending, you’re gonna like this one. Get yours starting this coming Tuesday from booksellers everywhere. 🙂