I posted my covers for the Angry Robot editions of Mike Shevdon’s Courts of the Feyre series last month. Last week Mike asked me to answer a few questions about the design process and related matters. The answers are now posted on his blog where I discuss art, book design, favourite reading and a couple of the things I plan to foist on the world in the near future.
Not mentioned there but due on the shelves later this year is The Graphic Canon, a collection of adaptations in comic strip and illustration form of literary works from the Epic of Gilgamesh on. Seven Stories Press is the publisher, Russ Kick is the editor, and my contribution is a condensation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. The first of the three volumes will be out in April. More about that later.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Courts of the Feyre
Great interview, John, very interesting. Another dollop of insight into the enigmatic Mr. Coulthart!
Its nice to hear of there being at least a discussion of potentially compiling the collected works of both Lord Horror and Reverbstorm together in a reprinted format. Artists’ work tends to evolve, at least with the talented ones for the most part, and while I certainly don’t believe your pen&ink work is any ‘better’ than your graphically enhanced and manipulated work, I ‘do’ regard it as being your most intense work, particularly what precious little I’ve seen of the two serials mentioned above. How I do hope that these aspirations come to fruition at some point.
Interesting the last bit, the one in regards to your collaboration on the novelty cola. Anyway I am glad to know you’re still in love with steampunk. How I’d love to see how you would approach such a realm in pen&ink, but this is just me wishing again.
Thanks, Wiley. Reverbstorm certainly is my most intense work which is one reason I don’t feel compelled to do a great deal more in that area: it was the culmination of nearly ten years’ work after a previous ten years of meticulous pen-and-ink rendering.
Aside from the basic thing of not wanting to repeat myself–or compete with my earlier self–there’s some basic things that make that kind of drawing more difficult at the moment, the main one being that I don’t have anywhere set up to draw. I used to draw and paint on a huge trestle table but that’s now packed away so the room would need to be rearranged to do any sustained work. I would like to do more painting, however, since that was something that got cut short when I started using the computer. There’s still the question of making the space for it but it’s something I keep in mind for the future.