Black Gate

Lisa Findley at Aesthetically Speaking has interviewed Black Gate website editor C.S.E. Cooney on writing, art, blogging, the role of collaboration, her artistic influences — and the power of road trips to conventions.

Road trips — especially with other writer friends — to these sorts of things are where character, plot and story are all born.

There’s something about movement, the freedom of the road, really late nights in highway darkness, that get all the good weird stuff of the soul stirred up. There’s also a great deal of history moving outside your window. The good, the bad, the pretty and the ugly all buried in that landscape with the bones. Horizons you’ve never seen. Roads you’ve never traveled. Music on your friend’s iPod you’d never listen to on your own. Really vulgar jokes. Weird roadside pranks. All of it full of story.

There’s a reason there’s a whole genre of novels called “picaresque.”

Speaking as someone who’s roadtripped with her to a convention or two, I can confirm that all that is true — especially that bit about late nights, and weird stuff of the soul. Everyone should take a road trip with C.S.E. Cooney at least once in their life. And bring a notebook.

Check out the complete interview here.

Rich Anderson grew up in Montana, moved to Seattle in 2000, and went on to revolutionize the field of fantasy art by incorporating classic concepts with digital virtuosity. He’s been an illustrator for Wizards of the Coast, Guild Wars, Tor, Random House, and this year Orbit Books tapped him to do the cover for SEVEN PRINCES.

Praise for the book’s striking cover has been both loud and frequent. Rich’s “golden sunset” silhouette approach provides an iconic image that is perfect for the novel. I’ve also seen his advance sketch for the cover to SEVEN KINGS–it’s going to be another masterful vision. He will also be doing the cover for SEVEN SORCERERS, the Third Book of the Shaper.

Rich’s art is turning heads everywhere, so I thought I’d probe the mind of the Artist Himself in a brief yet enlightening interview. More of his work can be found at his web site and blog: http://www.flaptrapsart.com/

JRF: Who are your biggest artistic influences?

RA: I would have to say John Singer Sergent. Love the way you can almost see his decision-making in his paintings. Frank Frazetta is another one of course, so much style and knowledge. There really is so many.  I find so many people around me inspiring me probably the most [and] I’ve been very lucky to work with some amazingly talented people.

JRF: What is your typical day like? How often do you create pieces of art?

RA: I recently worked at The Moving Picture Company in London, doing concept work for visual effects and film work. In the beginning of January I’ll be starting at Framestore, working on pre-production concepts for film. Concept work is a lot different than my illustration work. It’s a lot more functional. My illustration work, like your cover, is where I get to play a lot more and just get into the “art mode” if you know what I mean. I love it.

JRF: Your art is such a terrific blend of classic fantasy imagery and modern digital style. How in the world do you achieve this unique and eye-popping blend of techniques? (Do you do part of the work by hand, or is every step done on the computer?)

RA: Ha! Thanks. Yeah, everything is drawn right in Photoshop. I love playing with textures and blending things and trying to get stuff closer to what I love seeing in traditional pieces.

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Swords Against Darkness.
Heroic Fantasy.
The Year’s Best Horror Stories.
Distant Worlds.
Alien Worlds.
Void.

What sword-slinging hero appeared in all of these anthologies and magazines (and more) before his adventures were collected into a single impressive volume? The answer is Sir Julian the Apostate, a knight fallen from grace, and as doomed a hero as you’ll find in the history of sword-and-sorcery fiction. For swashbuckling fantasy as dark and seductive as a vampiric lamia, look no further than the saga of Sir Julian, as chronicled in Darrell Schweitzer’s WE ARE ALL LEGENDS.

The twelve stories comprising the book were first published between 1976 to 1981, definitely a “golden age” for sword-and-sorcery novels, magazines, and comics. Yet unlike much of what was published during the S&S “boom” of the era, Schweitzer’s tales of Sir Julian and his weird fate are all timeless gems.

“It was in an old land that the battle had taken place; a country of empty halls and deserted castles where ruined walls stood protecting nothing from nothing, and roadways faded into the earth and led nowhere. For three days in this place the swords of the two armies sang their terrible song on shields and armor, and when the fighting was done and all was still, a deep fog covered the sodden ground.”
–WE ARE ALL LEGENDS

This cycle of related stories includes witches, demons, vampires, zombies, ghosts, and far stranger things. It blurs and then erases the line between fantasy and horror. The book’s main character enables Schweitzer to twist the whole “knight on a quest” idea into a deep strangeness all its own. …

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