This is the complete Introduction to Joy To The World: The Fantasy Christmas Card Art of George Barr, a new volume of previously uncollected Barr artwork. Join the Kickstarter here.

Several years ago, my wife Deb and I took a cross-country drive to the West Coast (or at least as cross-country as you can get by starting in the Chicago suburbs). While in Oregon, we stopped by to visit some friends of ours, Dick and Bette Wald. At that point, Dick had been a prominent collector, as well as a dealer, of science fiction and fantasy books and original art for decades. Among the many artists we discussed with Dick and Bette was one that was a favorite of all of ours, George Barr.

Several Barr originals hung on their walls and I saw there for the first time many of the works that are reproduced in this book. By the mid-1970’s, Dick had been a fan of George’s art for many years, going back to George’s work on various fanzines in the early 1960’s.

[Click the images for bigger versions.]

In 1975, Dick got the idea of writing to George to see if he’d be willing to take a commission – creating a Christmas fantasy scene which Dick and Bette could use on their Christmas card that year.

It wasn’t until a few years later, at the 1977 World Fantasy Convention in Los Angeles, that Dick, Bette and George would meet in person and embark upon a friendship that lasts to this day.

George accepted the commission, and the Wald’s 1975 Christmas card was mailed out to their friends adorned with his art. That was the start of an annual tradition which, save for a few interruptions over the years due to health or other reasons, lasted until 2014.

As George noted in a 2009 letter to Dick and Bette accompanying his illustration for that year, Barr wrote, “It seems impossible that the first of these was dated 1975. That’s a life-time ago.”

Dick and Bette would write to George every autumn to commission him for a new Christmas card illustration, sending a few ideas, and George would go from there, creating some lovely Christmas fantasies.

George always looked forward to it, noting in a 1990 letter to Dick and Bette, “Thanks for asking me again this year to do your card. It has become – like Halloween and Thanksgiving – one of my traditional lead-ins to the Christmas season.”

Unfortunately, unless you were lucky enough to be on the Wald’s Christmas card list, this work remained unseen by most. Dick had always had the idea that at some point, a book featuring this art should be published but it had never come to fruition. Fortunately, when I mentioned the possibility to Bob Garcia of American Fantasy, he was quick to sign on to design and publish the book you’re now holding.

While the vast majority of the pieces reproduced in this book represent the art commissioned by Dick and Bette, George was doing Christmas card art for his own enjoyment long before that – the earliest piece reproduced here dates back to 1959.

Indeed, at the time George was contacted by Dick for the initial commission, he had just been commissioned by Sunrise Publications (a publisher of greeting cards located in Bloomington, Indiana) to do six full color Christmas card designs. So this book also includes a sampling of some of George’s other Christmas themed fantasy illustrations which he did for himself, as well as other commissions.

Christmas is a season of fantasy, and we hope that this book brings you some holiday cheer no matter the season.

Help bring this project to life! Check out the additional samples below, and see all the details at the Kickstarter page.

 

 

 

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Doug is a collector of pulps, as well as of pulp, science fiction and fantasy art. He co-founded and co-organizes the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention. For many years his Tattered Pages Press published the pulp fanzine Pulp Vault, as well as other books on the pulps. He was one of the authors of The Adventure House Guide to Pulps, and has edited several pulp anthologies, including the Best of Adventure series. His book, Uncovered: The Hidden Art Of The Girlie Pulps, an in-depth study of the spicy pulps and their art, was named ForeWord Magazine‘s 2003 Popular Culture Book of the Year. In 2013, Bob Weinberg, Bob Garcia and he collaborated on The Collectors’ Book of Virgil Finlay, a collection of Finlay’s gorgeous art. The Art of the Pulps, which he co-edited with Bob Weinberg and Ed Hulse, won the 2018 Locus Award for Best Art Book. At the Worldcon in 2022, Doug and his wife, Deb Fulton, were presented with the Sam Moskowitz Archive Award from First Fandom.

Doug’s last article for Black Gate was George Barr: A Fantasy Master.