A Far Out Fantastic Site

Credit: Wikimedia Commons When you think about it, the art to a book’s cover is the story in visual form. It either symbolically or literally shows the story that waits in between the covers (or, in the case of e-books, beyond the cover page). The book cover art that does this symbolically does so more efficiently and easily. That’s because a lot more about the story can be said that way than when only depicting a single scene like a lot of pulp fiction books did in the early half of the previous century (as much as I love the art work of those covers). With my own book cover art, I try to balance out symbolism with literal depiction, especially today when many books’ digital photographically realistic cover illustrations seem to sell more. However, I want my covers to both preview and tell the books’ stories without giving away any spoilers. That’s what I’ve been trying to do with the cover illustration for “Circa Sixty Years Dead” which, speaking of realism, I am presently...

Of course, this is not my own book cover reveal for “Circa Sixty Years”  that I’ve been promising you! Did you expect me to be that prompt with it after having put it off for the last two months? But it is coming along, so you don’t have to worry about that. I’m not as much an illustrator as I am a writer, so that part of my book takes a little longer than I often anticipate. I’d say I’m about half way there. Maybe that’s wishful thinking on my part, maybe not. But until my book cover art is ready to go, here’s a fellow author’s cover reveal for her upcoming novel (which will probably be out before my little short story single). It’s a very funny story that takes place around Independence Day and is planned for release just in time for the 4th of July holiday. So you can celebrate your freedom to read with this one. The details are below. The Details Credit: L.G. Keltner and Jamon Walker Title: Self-Help 101 or: How to Survive a Bombardment With Minimal Injury ...

When I found out about Gawker Media filing for bankruptcy, I was scared that that would be the end of io9.com which Gawker owns. But that won’t necessarily be the case. That is if whoever buys Gawker Media, which so far is Ziff Davis, mother company of PC Mag and other tech websites, decides to keep io9. I’d like to believe io9’s sister company’s, Gizmodo’s, declaration that io9 and itself aren’t going anywhere . But that could be wishful thinking on their part. Hopefully it’s self-determined faith or confidence instead. Much of what I’ve read at io9 is reliable journalism. However, while Gawker Media claims to produce authentic journalism , one of its other outlets, Gawker.com, specialises in gossip news. So it shouldn’t expect to be taken seriously. Specialising in gossip cannot only endanger celebrities’ reputations but also the jobs of the media company’s employees. Gawker.com admits that it specializes in gossip media . Gossip is pretty much what got not only it but all of Gawke...

Credit: Pixabay.com I continued working on my book cover illustration for “Circa Sixty Years Dead” all last week. I’ve been colouring it with coloured pencil and so was about to fill in the background sky. Then it occurred to me that I would probably have to replace that part with digital paint when it’s time to upload it to Amazon. I want the sky to have the realistic effect of a smooth, blue-black colour. Not only would that take too long to colour in with pencil but it would also require too much lead; I’m drawing this on 18-inch-by-24-inch paper. So, that will be the only digitally produced part of the illustration when the book is published. I try to stick to the original artistic experience as much as possible when publishing my art and books. In this case, that experience comes from paper, ink and coloured pencil. As hand-produced art stays closer to the artist’s creational act than does digitally produced art, print copies of books stay closer to the original copy than d...