Skeletons pic in Holmes basic

Because it's mentioned in this post on Zenopus Archives.  Thanks, ZA for all your painstaking work reviewing the Holmes basic manuscript.

Artist: H.J. Ford

"'Yes, it must be that,' said the Troll"

I found an art book on the clearance cart at Half-Price Books that introduced me to an illustrator who seems to have had (directly or indirectly) a great influence on how we visualize the monsters of Dungeons & Dragons.

The book is Maidens, Monsters & Heroes: The Fantasy Illustrations of H.J. Ford.  The images and captions in this blog post are all from this volume.

"Grumedan's Lion Fetches in the Princess"

The artist Henry Justice Ford illustrated some dozen books of fairy tales published in England in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  These pictures would fit right in with those in the first edition AD&D Monster Manual.

"The Griffin"

In addition to the black & white work, Ford did a number of color paintings as well for some of the later volumes.  He illustrated all types of stories for the publisher, including fairy tales, Arabian nights, history, and (Fr Dave of Blood of Prokopius take note) stories about saints and heroes:

"How St. Anthony met a centaur and a satyr"

There's even a reference to one saint who inspired a major figure in the World of Greyhawk setting:

"The man on the white horse comes to heal St. Cuthbert"

Pretty good find for just three bucks.  These pictures intrigue me.  Now I need to track down some of the stories collected by Arthur Lang that inspired them.  Anyone know a rare book dealer?

Artist: John Harris

If you've looked through the science fiction section of your local bookstore anytime in the past few decades, you've probably seen at least one painting by British artist John Harris.  As noted in his biography, this illustrator has worked in advertising, taken a commission from NASA, and painted dozens of SF book covers.

Not only does Harris's art spur the imagination; it also conveys a sense of great size and distance.  This theme runs through many of his works, and lent the title to a series of paintings known as Mass. 

While this project never saw printed form, many of the paintings (as well as illustrations from his many other projects over the years) appeared in the art collection Mass: The Art of John Harris.  I was fortunate enough to stumble across several years ago; the paintings are even better on the printed page.  Unfortunately, the only print collection of his works is out of print.  As noted in the link above, however, Mass can be found used on Amazon.

For more on Harris, see this article on Astrona Space and Astronomical Art Journal.

Space Wars, Worlds & Weapons

Back before the Internet or even VCRs, it wasn't easy to summon fantasic images for your viewing pleasure.  We were limited to a static medium known as "print."  My parents, knowing of and indulging my sci-fi fanaticism, gave me a book one year for Christmas that captured my imagination.

 Space Wars Words & Weapons contains 96 pages of sci-fi paintings from various artists interspersed with author Steven Eisler's literary criticism of various genre works.  Although I read the text at the time, I didn't really get it.  Instead, my eyes were drawn to the illustrations by Vincent Di Fate, Frank Kelly Freas, Chris Moore, Boris Vallejo, and Michael Whelan.  The book contained chapters on space vehicles, interplanetary wars and weapons, fantastic creatures, fantasy, and other worlds.  Oh, and a foreward by some guy named Chris Foss.  Not only were there some fantasic pieces of art, but the captions for each illustration linked the various artists' works into a shared universe with shout-outs to cities on spindizzy drives, the sandworms of Dune, the dragons of Pern, and various galactic wars and empires. 

I lost track of that book once I moved out of my parents' house, but years later I was able to track it down thanks to eBay (helping geeks relive their childhood since 1999).  I'm  glad I did, as the art still rocks.  Don't believe me?  Check out this guy's blog post for examples of the art contained in the book and you'll see what I'm talking about.