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Pendragon(From the book "Heroes & Villains")By : Deborah Susan Jones : Editor This image was
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Berkley Books in New York for a
paperback book cover and it made an instant hit. You are
really the iconic Hero in this image, sword at the
ready: it definitely reminds me of some of the film
projects we did which influenced Peter. You are fighting
a skeletal Villain intent on making you yet another of
the skeletons piled high in the crevasses between the
brick bridge and tall pillars. These pillars have
fantastical shapes carved into them, perhaps denoting
some pagan code. Skeletal heads surmount three of them.
Note that you, as the Hero, (for this time Lone Wolf’s
face is partially hidden) are always dressed in
green, a colour which was a sales no-no at the time
because publishers considered it had negative
connotations. But Peter made it acceptable through his
green alien representation of Larry Niven’s character
‘Phssthpok the Pak’ (a version of which appears in
Peter’s Solar Wind anthology), a classic volte-face
stance taken during his long career of amending (or
breaking!) the rules.Painted in Oil on
masonite panel this painting typifies the later period
of role-play games art in which an extended area on the
right was added, which, although it did not appear on
the bookcover due to different format, was originally
conceived as an extra facility for publishers to use
when releasing promotional posters to promote a
published book or series, and this probably became the
unconscious root of the Artist's later self-published
pursuits, most especially limited edition prints and
multimedia paintings."After over a half century of placing
the composed centre of attention always on the right
hand side of pictures my creative soul needed to evolve,
so I began offering a "free" service to publishers by
creating an extra space they could use for promotional
purposes while at the same time it freed me to expand
creatively and did, in fact, influence the way I
composed the front cover area, even though the right
hand side was "'off-screen". My time in TV producing
film pans probably also influenced that change in
format. Little did I know then that the format would be
ideal for later rural landscapes of mine, which at this
time were nowhere in my consciousness, and it also came
to suit some of my Crux Millennium works, so I guess
that's the way my creativity works, I kind of slip from
one thing into another via some unconscious creative
flow".I say it was because
the covers in the USA differ from other territories due
to copyright considerations: Berkley wanted to buy
rights in the British covers but an
exclusivity/copyright clash would have occurred as North
American book cover rights overlapped into the UK and
Commonwealth rights territories in Canada. So Peter
suggested he should paint a second version exclusively
for the North American market, and this subsequently
proved to be the case in three other instancesPeter had, by this
time, made the ‘Lone Wolf’ images his own worldwide. I
think it was because becoming completely immersed in the
roleplay market, remaining detached and influenced by
outside sources. He is someone who is very particular
and detective-like in character, interested in any
number of things (and people) so able to evoke an
interest in almost anything he takes an interest in,
particularly creating a character. Peter enjoyed doing
the ‘Lone Wolf’ covers and sold many of the originals to
collectors around the world. I really enjoy
re-establishing relationships with them and now realise
that so many fans around the world have wonderful
memories of their youth spent reading the books with
Peter’s cover art on them. I hope they bring pleasure
here too.Deborah Susan Jones
