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Art of the Genre: Leiber, Mignola, and Graphic Novels

Art of the Genre: Leiber, Mignola, and Graphic Novels

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Mignola... when doves fly...
Mignola... when doves fly...
In 1991 I wasn’t a fan of the Mike Mignola. To be frank, I actually couldn’t stand his artwork, but again I was twenty and my taste in art leaned much toward the polished standard and less toward the truly talented.

At that time I also wasn’t much of a reader. Sure, I read almost every day, taking in as much fantasy as I could, but for the most part it was also commercially driven stuff that in the final call of ‘what matters in fantasy’ it would almost all be found woefully lacking.

So it was with great interest that I discovered Epic Comics rendition of Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser on my comic shop’s shelves. It was noteworthy because it featured art by Mike Mignola, was adapted by Howard Chaykin, and had a kind of darkness to it that was antithesis to the flare of most superhero books coming out of the early stages of the comic boom.

For me this series created a kind of enigma, that being that I loved fantasy but had only associated with Fritz Leiber in the TSR gaming supplement Lankhmar: City of Adventure. [Note: At the time I role-played in TSR’s Lankhmar, the song ‘One Night in Bangkok’ was on the radio and to this day I can’t say the world Lankhmar without setting it to a British vocal intonation accompanied by the words ‘City of Adventure’, just as Murry Head would began his song with ‘Bangkok, Oriental Setting’. BTW, it has to be the only Top 10 song in history that makes Chess seem downright cool.]

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Art of the Genre: The Critical Hit Update

Art of the Genre: The Critical Hit Update

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tank_the_dragon_-_text_beneath_box-300Well now, I’m making this special appearance because I promised Zachary, who I haven’t seen in some time actually, that I’d post up news on The Critical Hit. News, you see, has finally happened, although it all seems very mixed at the moment.

A few months back, after posting several comics here in Black Gate, Jeff Laubenstein and I sold our comic, The Critical Hit, to Wizards of the Coast for a new website comic launch they were going with this summer. It was a kind of veneration to the old Dragonmirth comics found in the back of Dragon Magazines, so I thought The Critical Hit fit very nicely with that concept. So did Jon Schindehette the Creative Director at Wizards, and so Black Gate’s loss was to be Wizards gain.

Today, Friday the 8th, the test of The Critical Hit went live over at the Wizards D&D website so I hope that all of you who enjoyed the few comics I posted here will journey on over and take a look at it here. We’ve been getting beaten up a bit in the comments section, so if you do like the piece and would like to see it continue, please sign in and comment yourself. Otherwise, I guess I won’t see you in the funny papers!

Art of the Genre: Art of Anthologies

Art of the Genre: Art of Anthologies

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Stephen Hickman brings the Man-Kzin Wars to life as a beautiful anthology produced by Larry Niven
Stephen Hickman brings the Man-Kzin Wars to life as a beautiful anthology produced by Larry Niven

I’m not really sure if this can be classified at ‘art’, but certainly there is an art to the creation of anthologies. I mean, for all intents and purpose, Black Gate is an anthology, the scope and size of these new issues making it more a book than a magazine.

John O’Neill, our venerable editor, has done a fantastic job of giving his readers both the feel of an anthology while also being committed enough to each story as to provide wonderful art with it. That artistic contribution, in my opinion, is something that helps define what Black Gate is trying to do, and although the art direction in each issue’s very essence isn’t held to a single vision, the coherence of the product is still maintained in the highest quality.

Black Gate also weaves a thick quilt of characters within its pages, the repeated inclusion of certain authors allowing stories and characters to build, grow, and foster a relationship with a reader that many contemporary anthologies can’t produce. I’ve seen reviewers try to knock this, but in the end several have come around to indicate that John’s repeated choices are one of their favorite pieces of the magazine.

The art of the short story in its very nature is a simple entertainment, a microcosm of imagination that I fear is too often read like a teaser trailer found before your main attraction at the local Cineplex. In them we are often required to be told rather than shown a story, and I’m reminded of the musky depth of Don Lafontaine’s voice when I’m provided back story inside stories of already limited words… his signature opening ever echoing in my brain… ‘In a world where…’

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Art of the Genre: The Black Company

Art of the Genre: The Black Company

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Kerdark grabs a chance at the original Black Company cover
Kerdark grabs a chance at the original Black Company cover

In 1984 author Glen Cook published The Black Company. In 1990, my freshman year in college, this book was passed to me by a person on my dorm and I spent the next decade following the exploits of the last of the Free Companies of Khatovar.

Now, as a storyteller myself, the book resonated with its rather unique concept, that it was actually a tale written by the Company annalist as he continued the four hundred years of written tradition the company had laid down since its came out of the distant south.

This is a military book, although cast in a fantasy setting. To that point, there are wizards present, although all of them are seemingly either competent illusionists or powerful necromancers. You don’t see any fireballs or lightning bolts, and the craft of a medieval military is kept up in rather precise fashion as the Black Company moves from what I would perceive as northern Europe, through Africa, and finally ending up someplace in India.

It’s a fantastic tale, one so well crafted that I’m actually floored even today when I remember a three-book long twist that had me shaking my head and calling for Cook to be given a Hugo. If you haven’t read the series, I certainly suggest it, even if the first book is over twenty-five years old and what was acceptable for publication then is much different than today. I still think these books hold water and are well worth your time, but on to the reason I assume you’re here, the art.

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Art Evolution 2011: Russ Nicholson

Art Evolution 2011: Russ Nicholson

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nicholson-invite-254Yes indeed, there’s yet another addition to Art Evolution! Now you didn’t think I’d sit idly by after the success of my 2010 Art Evolution Project wrapped up did you? No, certainly not, and although I’d managed to hit twenty artists in that mighty collaboration, I wasn’t satisfied because I knew there were many more artists still out there who deserved spots in what my project finally materialized into.

Still, I must admit I was pretty burned out after the initial run, so I took a couple of months off, focused on Art of the Genre, and retooled as I let brew the countless images of other great RPG artists still on my now venerable list.

By February I was convinced that Art Evolution needed further contributions in the modern era of role-playing, and I also thought that at least one more 90s talent and an old-school contribution would best serve the spectrum of what was already in print. To do this, I decided I’d include only five artists this year, five stalwarts who, like all those before, defined and inspired with work that was a step above their contemporaries.

So, without further diatribes into the ‘why’, let me take you to the ‘who’, but first, we strap into the time machine bound for the dawn of the big 80s…

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Art of the Genre: Art Road Trip

Art of the Genre: Art Road Trip

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John O'Neill, Jeff Easley, and me before the waitress kicked us out.
John O'Neill, Jeff Easley, and me before the waitress kicked us out.

Ok, so here’s the deal, I like art. Yeah, I know, that’s hard to believe and all, but it’s true. This passion of all things visually marketed in oil, acrylic, water-color, and the like brought me to Art Evolution, and from that platform I’ve fostered many great relationships with artists.

In November I posted the Art Evolution piece on artist Jeff Easley, and when I asked him if he enjoyed it he responded, ‘Yeah, if I ever do an art book, you can do the intro.’

Ok, I’m going to give you a second to let that sink in…

As absolutely insane as it sounds, Jeff Easley, icon of TSR and modern fantasy art has never, ever, done an art book. Well, if you know me at all you know my response, which went something like this, ‘Uh… Do the intro? Heck, I’ll do the whole book!’

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Art of the Genre: An Interview with Michael Whelan

Art of the Genre: An Interview with Michael Whelan

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whelan-white-254
As L.A. does its best to cope with the overcast and chilly mornings of what we call ‘June Gloom’, I find myself drifting in and out of an office catnap, Ryan Harvey’s Writer’s of the Future acceptance speech echoing through the office for the hundredth time. Kandline, one of our aspiring actresses turned receptionists, pokes her head into the office and announces that another package has arrived for me from Chicago.

Now of course this means John O’Neill is again up to no good, our intrepid leader having found yet another way to get me Zeppelin riding for some reason. His note, attached to a rather daunting itinerary, indicates that I’m to head to the Connecticut via the Empire State for an interview with none other than artist Michael Whelan.

Well, if there is one thing that can get me moving out of L.A. in a hurry [other than Ryan’s WotF speech] it’s a chance to swap stories with a Hugo award winning artist. To that end, I packed my things and made the trip to the east coast.

Whelan lives in the pleasant little college town of Danbury Connecticut, but having had some experience in the area, I chose to meet him at Lucia Ristorante in New Milford for a nice lunch, no other place outside NYC having the kind of brilliant lunch fare found there.

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Art of the Genre: The Art of Gor

Art of the Genre: The Art of Gor

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Vallejo does Tarnsman of Gor in 1966, and the 'legend' begins...
Vallejo does Tarnsman of Gor in 1966, and the 'legend' begins...

Why the Art of Gor? Well, why not. I mean, I could title this piece ‘The Art of Boris Vallejo’, but that just isn’t as much fun. You could also go with ‘The Art of BDSM’ but I’m afraid of where Google would link me.

Anyway, The Art of Gor is apt because I’ve never read a book by John Norman, but as an avid reader and hardcore gamer, I can hum a few bars of what Gor is about, as anyone could if you’d ever seen one of these book’s covers.

The more famed covers of the first seven novels [in the original DelRey/Ballantine editions] were done by Boris Vallejo. Vallejo, in most circles considered the greatest of the Frazetta clones, hammered out resounding images of male dominance in a bleak world. These images rise out of the late 60s, and I see them as showing what I would consider the pinnacle of Vallejo’s raw talent before the artist’s mastery turns into something with less anima.

Each cover is so powerful, so primal, that as I look over them I’m moved to the world in which they take place. I feel the dread, the strength, and the dry heat of it all. That, for those of you scoring at home equates to Vallejo/FTW.

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Art of the Genre: Maps and World-Building

Art of the Genre: Maps and World-Building

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MERP made a map that started it all for me, and Tolkien only explored about a quarter of it!
MERP made a map that started it all for me, and Tolkien only explored about a quarter of it!

Way back in the day, I remember collecting I.C.E.’s Middle-Earth Role-Playing Game. If anyone ever bought those initial MERP supplements, they know that I.C.E. put a photo collection of what products were available on the back [much like TSR listed their products series on the backs of their early modules]. I was young, probably thirteen of fourteen at the time, and didn’t have much money, but I went out and collected everything represented on the back except three things, two of which were the campaign modules, Umbar Haven of the Corsairs and The Court of Ardor in Southern Middle Earth. Both were VERY early in the production line, probably out of print before I even started collecting, and the final piece was the MERP map set. Years later, I managed to purchase both Umbar and Ardor [actually my wife bought me Ardor after my first professional sale], but even though I’ve studied the image on that back cover a hundred times, and longed for the map beneath, I’ve never laid hands on a copy. The concept of that map laid the groundwork for my love of cartography and maps in general.

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Writers of the Future: I Got an Illustration . . . and an Interpretive Dance!

Writers of the Future: I Got an Illustration . . . and an Interpretive Dance!

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with-framed-acolyte-illustration1chelsea-as-hallett-1I have returned after a two-week hiatus from Black Gate. It was a — busy time.

To get this out of the way first: Yes, I gave a shout out to Black Gate in general, with John O’Neill, Howard Andrew Jones, and Bill Ward in particular, when I accepted my award at the Writers of the Future Ceremony on 15 May 2011 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. (Here is the video of my section of the event, starting with the dance.)

When I started to write with the aim of publication — I don’t remember the exact moment when my love of writing began to seem like a possible profession, but it occurred about fifteen years ago — I liked to imagine a time when a professional artist would make an illustration of one of my books or stories. However, I never imagined that professional acrobats and dancers would create an interpretive dance of one of my stories as well.

I received many great gifts from my time at the Writers and Illustrators of the Future Workshop in Hollywood last week. Some are the tangibles like publication in a major anthology, a gala awards ceremony, my first official book signing, and payment. Some gifts are social, like a new network with the other winners as well as with the many celebrated writers and illustrators who make up the judging panel and the workshop teachers. All of us at the workshop will carry away a lifetime’s worth of advice, on everything from story construction to the best way to avoid getting a cold while on a book-promotion tour, from people such as Tim Powers, Robert J. Sawyer, Gregory Benford, K. D. Wentworth, Eric Flint, Dr. Yoji Kondo, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Kevin J. Anderson, Dave Wolverton, Rebecca Moesta, and Mike Resnick.

There’s plenty for me to say about the experience of the workshop and getting published in Writers of the Future Vol. XXVII, and I will say more in future posts. But for this post, I am going to delve into the purely emotional and personal high points: the picture, and the dance. The first I knew was coming — and it was better than I could have imagined. The second I did not expect — and no surprise could have been more sublime.

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