The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Well, we have a nice treat to start the working week with for you this fine summer Monday morn – award-winning artist John Picacio has kindly taken some time to talk to us about his new art book, Cover Story: the art of John Picacio. Some of you will recognise John’s name (he is shortlised for the Hugo award for Professional Artist) while those of you who may not know his name will find you almost certainly have come across his artwork, since John has (among other works) provided covers for some of the finest SF&F writers around, including Bob Silverberg, Robert Heinlein, Fred Pohl, Harlan Ellison, Jeff Ford and the great Michael Moorcock, who also proves an introduction. Over to John:

Cover Story: the Art of John Picacio was released in late May from MonkeyBrain Books and it’s been gratifying to hear the early raves. It’s a 200-page hardcover collection of book covers and editorial work that I’ve created over the last ten years for books by authors like Harlan Ellison, Michael Moorcock, David Gemmell, Graham Joyce, Justina Robson, Kim Newman, Frederik Pohl, and many more. I wanted to give folks something more than just a book of pretty pictures. A lot of art books are terrific about talking about technique, but they often don’t talk about process very much, especially the notion of where ideas for illustrations come from, and how an idea evolves. Process is something that everyone can relate to, whether they’re actively creative or not.

In Cover Story, I wrote short spiels with each illustration where I briefly illuminated a nugget or two about the inspiration for each piece, or a key moment in its evolution. None of the text is intended to explain an illustration, but it’s there for folks who are intrigued by creative process.

As if that weren’t hands-on enough, I also designed the entire book myself, down to the last period. Over the course of my career, I’ve designed a lot of the covers that I’ve illustrated and it was important to me to design my own art book. I’m grateful to my publisher MonkeyBrain Books for their complete support of this, and I think it made for the best possible result.

There’s a 20-page interview in the back of the book, and Joe McCabe did an outstanding job of interviewing me. Joe is a veteran pop journalist, and the author of the critically-acclaimed collection Hanging Out With the Dream King: Interviews With Neil Gaiman and His Collaborators (Fantagraphics). He asked me questions I had never been asked before, and at certain moments, he offered insights that I hadn’t seen in my own processes, which was very enlightening.

I was also very fortunate that Michael Moorcock wrote the introduction for the book. The first book cover I ever illustrated was the 30^th Anniversary Edition of Behold the Man by Mike, and I’ve treasured his friendship since then. It felt a bit like something had come full-circle when Mike wrote this introduction. I like to think of this book as the culmination of some of my early growing pains, and I look forward to evolving from here.

For a sneak peek at the book, the fine folks at Interzone have a nice interview with me and some illustrations contained in the book in issue #204 (always a good journal to pick up – Joe). Otherwise, feel free to stop by my website for more info. Hearty thanks to Joe and FPI for offering me a chance to say a few words, and thanks in advance to all who purchase the book from FPI. Please let me know what you think of it!

John Picacio has illustrated covers for books by Harlan Ellison, Michael Moorcock, Robert Silverberg, Jeffrey Ford, Stephen Jones, Robert Heinlein, Chris Roberson, and many, many more. He is currently one of the six finalists for the prestigious Hugo Award in the Best Professional Artist category (his second consecutive nomination), and he has won the International Horror Guild Award, the Chesley Award, and the much-coveted World Fantasy Award.