News
2006

Why do I illustrate? Recently Tom Ligotti asked me this question. I explained that I primarily define myself as a reader, not as an illustrator. I’m very responsive to the literature of Fantasy, Horror and Science-Fiction. Illustration, for me, is an obscure form of homage and adoration.

In ongoing conversations with Tom Canty, John Jude Palencar, Alan Clark, Donato Giancola, John Picacio, and J. K. Potter, there is a recurring lament: how the artist’s craving for imaginative release is frustrated. Market executives don’t “collaborate” with an author: an author wouldn’t stand for such presumption. Authors, certainly, contend with editorial involvement. But there is a sense that an author operates on a loftier sphere than a lowly illustrator, who remains answerable to marketing considerations as defined by publishers, art directors, marketing executives . . . and ad hoc “focus groups” comprised of neighbors, fruit vendors, and elderly relatives. Artists at the level of Palencar, Potter and Giancola are not subordinates. They are not technicians hired to realize a publisher’s vision. Nor are they hirelings contracted to render a marketing concept. Publishers who encourage creative freedom are a rarity.

The literature of Fantasy, Horror and Science-Fiction seems to have a visionary quality . . . which prompts this meditation: In this context, what exactly is a visionary? I believe this refers to the outsider perspective. By definition, “outsiders” are alienated—they are at odds with orthodoxy. For this exact reason an outsider author resists stock characters, resists predictable devices of plot, resists conventional presentations of storytelling. In this context, a visionary author or artist draws on singular inner resources. A visionary author or artist delves deeply to access a unique inner landscape. This underworld is rich and idiosyncratic; it slopes ever downward. The deepest imaginings of the visionary are a drug consumed by the citizens of daylight.

My talented friend Keith Minnion honored me by publishing and illustrating a booklet of the only short story I wrote for Weird Tales. This is the first work published by White Noise Press. THE HELL BOOK is a beautifully produced 16-page soft cover chapbook, with special Japanese Tissue endpapers (and a printed envelope). This numbered and signed edition is limited to 125 copies. (Contact WhiteNoise Press at www.kminnion.com/whitenoise.html)

On the horizon are batches of limited-edition prints; hell stamps; a cover for the venerable Weird Tales; a series of dustjackets for THE COLLECTED FICTION OF CLARK ASHTON SMITH and THE COLLECTED STORIES OF GERALD KERSH.