ARTISTS INSPIRED BY H.P. LOVECRAFT

Two of my cover illustrations are featured in the forthcoming Millipede Press art book showcase, ARTISTS INSPIRED BY H.P. LOVECRAFT. This thing is gonna be massive...400 pages worth of Lovecraftian illustration from a who's who of fantasy and horror art greats. H.R. Giger, Michael Whelan, Mike Mignola, Virgil Finlay, Bob Eggleton, J.K. Potter, and many, many more. Intro by Harlan Ellison; afterword by Thomas Ligotti. Wow, I can't wait to see it. If you're a Lovecraft fan, check this out.

World Fantasy Con Schedule

The World Fantasy Con schedule has been posted. Here's where I'll be:

Thursday, Nov. 1 at 9pm: International Horror Guild Awards / City Center C -- I'm not only a nominee for this year's awards, but I'm the Master of Ceremonies for the second year in a row. Glad to see the IHGgys liked me enough last year to invite me to MC this year, but I had one condition this time -- that I not have to present the Artist category, which is the one I'm nominated. Thankfully, that won't be a problem.

Friday, Nov. 2 at 2pm: How A Cover Is Chosen / City Center A -- (Panelists: Irene Gallo (m) / Jacob Weisman / Lou Anders / Tom Kidd / John Picacio)

Friday, Nov. 2 at 8pm: Mass Autographing -- I don't think I'll be there for all 3 hours of it, but I'll be there for a while.

Saturday, Nov. 3 at 9pm: Artist Reception -- self-explanatory

Sunday, Nov. 4 at 1pm: World Fantasy Awards Banquet -- I'm a nominee for this year's World Fantasy Award in the Artist category, along with Shaun Tan, Jon Foster, Jill Thompson, and Edward Miller. Should be a blast.

If we don't cross paths at these, you'll very likely find me in the Art Show, where I'll have plenty of work on display, or at the Saratoga Hotel bar. Don't be a stranger.

Now You've Arrived

That's what my pal Sean Lackey jokingly said in an email this morning. He alerted me to the fact that I now have my own Wikipedia page. How cool! Many thanks to VJD for creating it.

Metatemporally Speaking...

Here's a look at the full wraparound jacket for Michael Moorcock's forthcoming THE METATEMPORAL DETECTIVE from Pyr. Front cover illustration and design by me, as well as spine art, and the overall jacket design is by Nicole Lecht. Pyr's latest newsletter features a few words from me about the book. It's available to anyone who registers at their site. However, here's a brief excerpt: "I originally wanted to paint [Seaton Begg's companion] Taffy Sinclair on the cover too, but I designed the cover type as well, and I realized there was a balance between the picture and the words, and Taffy was upsetting that. I was refining the illustration and designing the type simultaneously, and I realized that Taffy was gonna get lost in the type so regretfully, he had to go. Even better, Mike was at my wedding in March and he was with me in the green room about ten minutes before I was gonna be married. So we're talking about the progress rough of the cover, and he said that he really dug it, but wished it had a female presence somewhere. It sure seemed like a sensible request since Rose Von Bek appears, but I couldn't figure out how to work her in without destroying the composition. I think Lou Anders was the one that said, 'What if she shows up on the spine?' So that sparked my solution for the spine and that separate piece of art wraps around partially to the back cover. So Rose is staring at the audience when the book sits spine-out on the shelf, which I think is very nice. If you're a fan of Moorcock and the Multiverse, you're gonna love this. Can't wait until Halloween when this hits the shelves."

The 20-Year Reunion

I generally try to keep non-professional stuff to a minimum over here, but this crosses over somewhat. So I attended my 20-Year High School Reunion this past weekend (for the record, Oliver Wendell Holmes High School in San Antonio). I didn't want to go, but my longtime friend Tom Kustelski talked me into it. Very surreal, but it was great to hang out with him and his wife Ann, and I'm glad Traci and I were there. Looking back twenty years, I definitely wasn't amongst the most popular folks in high school, and I definitely wasn't amongst the sexiest. My friends tended to be the geeks and the nerds and I suspect I got labeled the same, for better or worse. Finishing with the 3rd best GPA in a class of 600 probably didn't help. They were good years, but I don't feel too many Uncle Rico moments where I wax nostalgically about them. So back to the reunion, about 200-250 people showed up, and it was good to hear how many folks went on to success. Kevin Jackson has a PHD and is proffing at the University of Illinois; more folks than I can count have large, prosperous families; and of course, my buddy Tom is doing well enough that he's already thinking about retiring to Colorado in a few years. Lawyers, doctors, designers, CEOs....you name it...the whole gamut. So toward the end of the evening, they announced the "Class Favorites," including "Most Successful." When they got to that one....whoda thunk it....but they called my name and I had to walk up to the stage, more than a bit stunned. The tradeoff is I had to wear a sash that said "Most Successful" and I was bestowed with a lovely bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill wine. Too funny. As my wife wisely said that night, "Success is measured a lot of different ways." I wish I would've known that twenty years ago.

CANTICLE in Czechoslovakia

That's what Walter M. Miller Jr's classic A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ looks like in Czechoslovakia, courtesy of Laser Books. I'm not sure when this edition was released, but it was sometime within the last several months. Pleased to see my cover artwork (which first appeared on the USA/Eos trade paperback edition) also make it into the Czech Republic. In addition, Laser bought the one-time right to re-use another of my cover illos for a short story collection by Dan Simmons, which, according to their website, has also been published. I'd love to see what both of these look like in real life, but I haven't received any comp copies yet from the good folks at Laser. I'm sure they're on their way (ahem).

Nice company

Thanks to Diana Gill of the mighty Eos, for this heads-up.
New York Times best-selling author Douglas Clegg interviewed by Shelf Awareness:

Q: Books you've bought for the cover:
A: Any books with covers by John Jude Palencar, Caniglia or John Picacio. In fantasy and horror fiction, the cover artists are superb.

Thanks, Doug. :)

SON OF MAN / Rough Sketch

Here's the just-completed rough sketch (8.5" x 11", pencil on bond) for the wraparound cover for Pyr's forthcoming edition of Robert Silverberg's classic SON OF MAN. It seems a little strange to publicly display in-progress work while I'm still working out that job for a client. I doubt I'll make a habit of this in future, but I've been having fun chats with Pyr's editorial director Lou Anders about this cover, and we thought it might be fun to share this and see where the final art ends up. So with his consent, voila.

Liner note: I have no idea why, but I've been listening to Led Zeppelin's first album while working on this. "How Many More Times" has been playing a lot while I'm drawing.

Pyr will release the brand-new trade paperback edition of SON OF MAN in 2008.