FireThe re-branding of a fantasy author. . . . .
. .By : Deborah Susan Jones : EditorThat probably sounds strange if you are a
Marion Zimmer Bradley fan?Read on . . . . .The Artist's name for a picture created for
Arrow Books in the UK who re-published Sharra's Exile, a
fantasy novel written by Marion Zimmer Bradley and part
of the Darkover series of books. This was a unique
commission, in fact the whole series of cover pictures
created by the Artist for Arrow's re-release of the
Zimmer-Bradley books were, in that the design task was
NOT to illustrate a fantasy novel as if it were for the
Science Fiction and Fantasy market. In "fannish" terms, a wikki site states
"After the Age of Chaos had almost destroyed
civilization on the planet of the Bloody Sun, even the
Sharra had been exiled, but now the Sharra had returned,
embodied in the image of a chained woman wreathed in
flames, an image which could change the history of
Darkover forever . . . . . . . . ." which is the kind of
description that would get any Science Fiction and
fantasy Artist's creative juices flowing, but in Peter's
case, because he had gained a reputation with publishers
of increasing sales in books because his works had both
fan and genre-focused elements in his them but also
attributes that made them far more widely accepted, in
what publishers termed "the main market" and these days
would be described as "the mass market" he was
commissioned to expressly design pictures that aimed
their re-published series of books specifically at this
wider market.The brief stated that "these books don't sell
any more, beyond what they have already achieved, so we
want to get a second life out of them and we want to do
this via a new way of pitching the cover imagery."In short, in order to sell more Zimmer-Bradley fantasy books the art direction was to not make then look like "genre" books.
The novel itself and the second chapter of
book one Sharra's Exile was originally published as a a
short story titled "Blood Will Tell" which the Artist
originally considered titling his painting. In the final
outcome he decided he wanted to paint a series of images
based on this one and revolving around the idea of
the elements, fire, wind, air and water.Although the Artist paints many other
subjects, the roots of all of it, even his rural art and
in some small ways his aviation art, have their roots in
his Science Fiction works, for it is his vibrant
imagination that fuels it all.There are many Science Fiction writers who
enjoyed a second if not third lease of life in some of
their writings as a result of the Artist's willingness
to break conventions, challenge accepted views and find
what the paperback industry referred to as "cover
treatments" to extend sales and therefore awareness of
writer's works.Ironically, paradoxically, that sometimes meant flying in the face of fannish or genre-based views of how "a Science Fiction cover should look".
In case anyone thought these pictures "just
happened" with nothing other than a "what shall I paint
today" attitude you may be surprised to here that I once
had the (exhausting) experience of a five-hour design
meeting with the Art Director on another famous series
of covers by the same publisher ."Progress" was never an
ill-considered matter, no matter the outcome . . . . .Deborah Susan Jones : Editor
