This thread, inspired by the Judging a book by its cover thread, is for all us low-brows who don’t know art, but know what we like.
As I mentioned in the other thread, Michael Whelan is my favorite cover artist. Love his stuff.
I’m also very fond of Brian Froud. Many know him as the artistic visionary behind The Dark Crystal, and he’s also done the popular Fairies and Good Fairies, Bad Fairies books. I first encountered him, though, in one of my favorite children’s books, Ultraviolet Catastrophe. The “ultraviolet catastrophe” is a paradox in thermodynamics that was solved by the invention of quantum theory, but this book is just a story about a girl (I’m not a little girl; I’m a tree pirate) who visits her Great Uncle Magnus and has great adventures with him. Sadly, like so many cool kid’s books, it’s totally out of print, but possible to find if you search the used-book circuit for about three years. So I suppose you guys probably will never get to see it.
Another favorite illustrator of mine is Gahan Wilson. If you haven’t read A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny, then for heaven’s sake, go find a copy, before Halloween, if you can.
Remember “Dynamite” magazine? Back in the late 70s in school you would get a Scholastic Book Order form from which to order various children’s books, plus…DYNAMITE MAGAZINE!!
Anyhoo there was this illustrator named Jared Lee who did the “Bummers” section (“Don’t you hate it when a bug flys up your nose!”). His drawings were hilarious and were pretty much the biggest reason for reading Dynamite. Feeling nostalgic? Follow this:
Michael Hague. He’s gotten rather cheesy and repetitive of late, but oh, are his illustrations beautiful! My favorites are those in East of the Sun and West of the Moon, The Velveteen Rabbit*, and Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales. Wonderful stuff.
I love Sienkiewicz. Back in the day, I had color copies made of the first four Stray Toasters covers, which I mounted on foam core, attached to a piece of mat board, and hung in my office at the ad agency I worked for. Started a few conversations. Dave Stevens too.
My favorite illustrator, for all the wonderful work he’s done on Tolkien’s world, is Ted Nasmith. Almost as good is John Howe, who is now working on the movie of The Lord of the Rings.
One of my particular favorite Whelan paintings is The Golden Dream. I like it especially because it brilliantly avoids the curse and plague of cover art: imbalance. Far too many cover paintings push all the good stuff onto the right side of the picture, so it will be on the front cover, and leave the left side dull and drab. This one has been carefully constructed with a stunning image on the left and a stunning image on the right, so both front and back cover are attractive and it still works as a single painting.
(Royo could use to learn from Whelan; I love Royo’s magazine illustrations, but many of his covers are awful because of this imbalance).
There’s a card game based on it called “The Works.” Same mechanics as the XXXenophile card game, but non-collectible, and no naughty bits (so’s you don’t have to ask the game store guy to get it out from behind the counter. )
No, I used to play Magic: The Gathering. That was my introduction into the world of fantasy art. Some of them were quite good. At one point my friend and I were so familiar with the way the artist’s drew, we could practically name all the artists in the pack without looking at the by-line.
I attended a Science Fiction Society meeting a few weeks ago and the guest speaker was a local representative to fantasy artists. Some of the works she showed were quite good. Unfortunately, I’m blanking on just about every name, including hers. I’ll try to find out.
Alan Lee is by far my favorite Tolkien illustrator.
Michael Whelan is another favorite.
I am now googling my brains out to find this one illustrator I really like, but I can’t remember what books I’ve seen him on, and I’m having little luck He/she makes book covers like I’ve never seen…
I like Alan Lee generally, but I don’t like his hobbits. He draws them well enough from the waist up, but then he gives them spindly little toothpick legs and I don’t think that’s right.