Fantastic Art: An Interview with Vincent Chong

I first became aware of the work of British fantasy artist Vincent Chong a few years ago, during the time when I was running the website and looking after the marketing side of things for PS Publishing and I've been a huge fan ever since.

The first piece of his work I encountered was the absolutely gorgeous wrap-around covers for Joe Hill's long sold-out and much sought-after debut collection Twentieth Century Ghosts (see below for front panel artwork) and ever since then, PS head honcho Pete Crowther has asked Vincent to supply a steady stream of cover images for his titles.

He's not the only publisher to have taken note, either, as Vincent's work now graces an ever-growing range of book covers from various UK and US independents, including Subterranean Press, Pendragon Press and Screaming Dreams.

For the past two years Vincent has won the British Fantasy Award for Best Artist - in the process ending a five-year run of wins by one of my other very favourite artists, Les Edwards - a clear indication of his growing stature and popularity among the UK's genre fiction fans.

The aspect of Vincent's work that has always most impressed me is his incredible use of texture and tone to create a disquieting, almost menacing mood in his pieces. As a result his work tends to be imbued with a genuinely haunting, unsettling, atmosphere that always suits the books he works with perfectly.

Take a look at these examples of his art and design work and then visit the galleries at www.vincentchong-art.co.uk for many more examples:

20th Century Ghosts (c) Vincent Chong, cover art for the Joe Hill collection, published by PS Publishing.

20th Century Ghosts, variant #1

20th Century Ghosts, variant #2

Fool Moon

The Boys

The Steel Remains

I dropped Vincent a line and put a few questions to him about his work and this is what he told me:

DT: You've developed a wonderful signature style full of muted, swirling colours, shadow and darkness, that clearly draws inspiration from a wide range of sources. Who, or what, are your major influences? Who are your favourite artists, authors, film directors?

Vincent Chong: When I was younger I was really into the Amercian superhero style of comic art and Fantasy artists such as Boris Vallejo and Luis Royo, which I've now moved away from a bit. These days I'm more inspired by comic artists like Ashley Wood and Ben Templesmith, and recently I've been drawn to Mike Mignola's more graphic style. I also really loved HR Giger's nightmarish imagery and the surreal compositions of Salvador Dali. A major influence is the work of Dave McKean, whose mixed-media approach played a big part in inspiring my own style.

Aside from various artists I also draw inspiration from photography, album packaging design, music videos, movie posters, and movies themselves. The photography and music videos of Floria Sigismondi (who did some early Marilyn Manson videos) were an influence early on. My favourite film director is Jean Pierre Jeunet, the French director of Amelie and Delicatessen and I also love the work of Tim Burton and Guillermo Del Toro. All three have a very strong visual style and create fantastical worlds in their films that suck you in.

DT: What sort of production techniques do you employ? Do you have a preference for digital or analog methods? Or do you find that a blend of the two produces the most effective results?

Vincent Chong: I put together all my final artwork digitally, but typically, in the process of creating a piece of art, I employ various other methods of working as well. I use a lot of photography , but also combine it with drawn and painted elements and scanned-in found objects and created textures. Sometimes I also make sculptural elements that I then photograph and incorporate into an image.

So it's not so much having a preference for either digital or analog methods, but using a mixture of both to achieve the result I want. For me, the advantages of putting together the final image digitally, is that it gives me greater scope to experiment, as a lot of the time it's easier and quicker to change things around digitally.

DT: You've already illustrated book covers for some of the biggest names in genre fiction. But are there any authors whose work you haven't been asked to interpret yet that you'd particularly like to illustrate in the future?

Vincent Chong: I've been very fortunate that I've had the chance to illustrate the works of some great authors. I was a big fan of Stephen King's books when I was growing up and never thought that one day I'd actually be illustrating his work. But now, I think I'm more keen to have the opportunity to one day illustrate something that I've written myself. I've enjoyed interpreting the work of various authors, but I would like to be able to illustrate something entirely of my own creation. I've had the beginnings of ideas in the past, but haven't ever written anything properly, so I don't even know if this is something I could do, but I'd like to give it a try one day...

DT: You're best known as a cover artist and that's clearly keeping you very busy. But are there any other avenues that you're keen to explore? Any other media that you'd be interested in working in down the line?

Vincent Chong: I'd love to do more artwork and design for album packaging and maybe do some work for the film industry – either with movie posters or concept art. I've done a few projects creating artwork for websites - for online games and book trailers and such - which were quite interesting to do, as the artwork had to be animated which provided different challenges from doing the usual print stuff, so I wouldn't mind exploring the multimedia avenue more. I'd also like to explore photography further. I use a lot of photography in my illustration work now anyway, but I'd like to try doing some more straight-forward photography without as much digital manipulation.

I always thought it'd be cool to do get the chance to be a film-maker, but I think it's one of those ideas that sounds great in my head, but in practice I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy it, and it's not an area that I have much knowledge in at the moment, so it's not something I'm particularly focusing on right now, but in the future, who knows?

DT: How has winning the British Fantasy Award for Best Artist for the last two years affected your profile? Have any commissions come about as a direct result?

Vincent Chong: It's hard to know if any commissions have come about directly as a result of the awards wins, but I think it's definitely helped to raise my profile around the world and bring attention to my work to those who had never heard of me before. I've noticed a steady increase in the traffic to my website over the last couple of years, and I've been getting more enquiries and commissions, so it seems that there's been a growing awareness of my work, and I think the awards wins helps to establish my reputation a bit more.

DT: What do you think are going to be the major challenges facing fantasy artists in the next 5 or 10 years? And what do you think are the major opportunities?

Vincent Chong: With the current economic situation around the world, I think there's always going to be some worry about whether artists will be able to find work, especially as I think it's quite easy for publishers to turn more to cheaper alternatives, such as creating artwork in-house or using stock photography.

However, with the web and new technologies I think there are more and more opportunities for artists to exploit these days. It's getting easier for artists to get their work out there and seen by a large worldwide audience with faster internet speeds and the increasing ways to showcase work online – through blogs, online gallery and community art sites, as well as the various social networking sites. And with ever improving print-on-demand services as well, it opens up the opportunity for artists to self-publish as another avenue to get their work out there.

I also think new artists are adapting to the new technology and software available to them and it's no longer the case that, for example, an illustrator would just be creating material for print, but they may also cross over into other areas as well, such as providing content for websites or other media.

Many thanks indeed to Vincent for taking the time away from his creative work to answer those questions and for his permission to borrow some of the images from his gallery, all of which remain copyright (c) Vincent Chong, of course.

Do be sure to visit www.vincentchong-art.co.uk and check out Vincent's portfolio.

March 27, 2009 | Filed Under Fantastic Art | 1 Comment

Neil Jordan to write & direct the Heart-Shaped Box movie

My good buddy Joe Gordon has just emailed to point me at an articles posted on Empire Online yesterday, which reports that Irish director Neil Jordan has signed up to sort out the movie version of Heart-Shaped Box (Joe's blogged it on the FP Blog already, naturally).

Anyway, the director is question has a track record (of sorts) in the horror genre at least, being the man behind The Company of Wolves. And hey, he can't really be blamed for Interview With the Vampire; with Tom 'least convincing vampire ever' Cruise in the lead role it was pretty much doomed to ignominious failure from the word 'go', despite anyone else's best efforts to rescue it.

And at least Mr Jordan needn't worry too much about the casting for HSB, seeing as we've already got that covered. But if he wants to drop me a line and talk through the finer points of the selection process, then I'd be happy to help out, naturally... :)

April 4, 2007 | Filed Under Miscellania | 4 Comments

New Arrivals - late March '07

Another month, another batch of great new books that I really, really wish I had time to read...

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

I realised the other day - when this paperback edition of Gaiman's second (third) short fiction collection arrived - that I'm shockingly far behind with my Gaiman reading - I still haven't set aside time for American Gods, and I haven't even bought a copy of The Wolves in the Walls yet, nor much of his recent graphic novel output.

So, given my love of Gaiman's short fiction, and my (increasingly rash-seeming) vow to read more short fiction this year, I might have to bump this one up the list...

The Execution Channel by Ken MacLeod

This is one I definitely want to read sooner rather than later, not least because my good friend Joe Gordon had some very good things to say about it when we were chatting by email a couple of weeks ago. I also want to read it while it's still topically speculative, instead of historically retrospective... well, hopefully things won't get quite so bad as Ken is forecasting in Execution Channel but then you just never know. After all, George Orwell's prediction of a Big Brother-obsessed mindless drone-society was only 20 or so years out... Mind you, I've never watched the TV series, so I don't know how faithful an adaptation it is...

Have also received hardback copies of The Intruders by Michael Marshall Smith, and Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box - both of which I've read and thoroughly enjoyed already - as well as John Meaney's Bone Song, which is right up there on the to-be-read list (which I really need to update sometime).

April 2, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 2 Comments

Fantasy casting: Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box

Let's face it, it's only a matter of time before Joe Hill's rather superb debut novel, Heart-Shaped Box, is made into the multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbuster it deserves to be.

So to help speed things along, a couple of weeks back Jo and I sat down and - after a few beers - sorted out the casting of the principle characters. No, no, don't thank us now, Hollywood. Just invite us to the L.A. Premiere or something. All expenses paid would be nice, it's a heck of a flight from Manchester.

Judas Coyne = Billy Bob Thornton - We both think he'd be prefect for the grizzled ex-rocker, especially if the photo on Jude's MySpace page is anything to go by.

Craddock = Gary Oldman. Who else could convey that sense of manic menace so well?

Georgia = Reese Witherspoon. We've seen her in Walk the Line, so we know she can do the accent, and I bet she'd goth up pretty durn good. Or Jo suggested Selma Blair, who wouldn't need to dye her hair or nuthin'.

Florida = Pick a random blonde. Heck, she'd only be on-screen for a few flashbacks and a cameo or two... there must be enough blondes in Hollywood to choose from, no? Suggest your own, if you feel strongly enough.

Comment away if you have better candidates in mind. No plot spoilers though, if you please!

March 16, 2007 | Filed Under Miscellania | 11 Comments

Horror fiction: the next big thing?

A recent article by Danuta Kean in the Independent Online's Enjoyment section forecasts healthy growth for the horror genre in 2007, following a good decade or so in the publishing doldrums.

The piece is very well researched and includes quotes from some of the biggest names from the publishing end of the UK horror field: Gollancz editor Jo Fletcher, Orbit editor Darren Nash, Waterstone's head buyer Michael Rowley and legendary horror afficionado Stephen Jones.

The article also thoroughly outs Joe Hill as the son of Stephen King (if you hadn't heard that one already) and highlights a number of forthcoming titles to watch out for.

It's a very good piece, well worth reading if you're at all interested in the future of the genre in the UK. Heads-up via Mark Chadbourn's Jack of Ravens blog.

February 8, 2007 | Filed Under Writing | Leave a Comment

Highly Recommended Reading - Joe Abercrombie and Joe Hill

I've read two books so far this year* and they've both been quite wonderfully enjoyable, in quite distinct and different ways. Here are a couple of mini-reviews** to whet your appetite.

Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie

This is the sequel to my fantasy read of 2006, The Blade Itself [Amazon], and what a bloody marvellous sequel it is too. There's a rather unfortunate phenomenon that can strike a new author - something like 'second book syndrome' - whereby said author spends years honing their debut novel, a publisher buys it, then the publisher points out that the sequel really ought to be churned out in months rather than years, the eager-to-please new author complies, standards plummet as a result and the second book iend up a bit of a dog compared to the first.

But I'm delighted to report that there's not so much as a whiff of it in evidence here as Abercrombie successfully builds on the firm foundation of his debut to deliver a second installment that's equally entertaining, if not even more so. In the process he treats us to the same levels of superbly rich prose, desert-dry wit, excellent characterisation and effortless dialogue, all topped off with lashings of action, adventure, drama, conflict, politics, intrigue, love, laughter... you name it.

Admittedly, it won't be to absolutely everyone's taste; those who insist on the cut-and-dried, pre-meditated plotting of a bog-standard kiddie quest or lacklustre dragon-taming saga will be sorely disappointed... which is reason enough for celebration of its own accord, if you ask me. Instead, Abercrombie seems to take great delight in subverting some of the most seemingly-sacred of fantasy tropes and twisting our expectations wherever feasible. And I'll tell you for nowt, there's nothing I like more than a story that can take me by surprise.

Worth reading for one particular scene alone (I won't say which one exactly, but suffice to say it involves Jezal dan Luthar in the role of distinctly embarassed eaves-dropper), the whole book is a refreshingly delightful antidote to the painfully trite, staid and predictable fare that the bulk of the fantasy genre is so often guilty of delivering (and there be any greater crime in fantasy writing than predictability?)

So anyway, if you're a fan of any sort of fantasy fiction - but especially the sort of dark, gritty, character-driven fantasy fiction written by the likes of George R.R. Martin, Steven Erikson, David Gemmell, Paul Kearney, Glen Cook, Grey Keyes and co. - then you should definitely be reading this series. Pick up The Blade Itself first, or you'll miss out on a whole lot of essential story development, but go on... treat yourself.

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

This is one of the most enjoyable novels - never mind most enjoyable horror novels - that I've read in a very long time. It's about an ageing rock star by the name of Judas Coyne and a girl Georgia - the latest in his string of young goth-girlfriends - and what happens to them when Judas decides he's going to buy a dead man's suit on eBay... which comes complete (unbeknown to him) with the dead man's vengeful spirit, and a whole truckload of trouble.

As plot foundations go, it isn't a blindingly original one, but then it doesn't particularly need to be; because on top of this simple but effective premise, Hill builds a novel of superb characterisation and rising tension that builds to a denouement of highly cathartic power. Judas Coyne is haunted and his story will end up haunting you; it's packed full of imagery that's so rich, so vividly cinematic that it'll be almost impossible to shift from your head... as much as you might actually want to in some instances, because let's not forget that this is a horror novel, and bad things do happen to the people in it. Not one for the squeamishly faint-hearted.

Something else I genuinely enjoyed and appreciated was that Heart-Shaped Box is a straight-up, out-and-out supernatural horror story. Not one of those tales in which the ghost might be real, but then again might just be a figment of the protagonist's deranged imagination and hey, you decide, dear reader.

No, Joe Hill makes it damn clear that what's haunting Judas Coyne is not merely the psychotic summation of his past mistakes, internalised guilt and existential fear of losing his hair; it's a fucking ghost. A spectre, a spook, the immortal essence of a dead man; one that's now hell-bent on seeking revenge for... well, I'll not say, for fear of giving away too much too soon. But suffice to say, the bad thing in this story is something that's come back from beyond the veil of death, and it isn't going to go be sent packing with some sprinkled holy water and a few mumbled homilies.

In a comment on an earlier post John Berlyne said that he thinks this book is "...the best candidate in a long time to reinvigorate the novel length horror market". I do hope he's right and that the book's future success - I predict awards by the shelf-load - doesn't just spawn the usual raft of pale imitators, the same sort of schmaltz that dragged the same horror market down and almost knocked it right out in the mid-'90s.

And I just hope that when the movie version inevitably appears they do full justice to a story that's just crying out to be put right up there on the big screen. One of the worst things I've ever seen on television was a guy who looked like '80s TV comedian Russ Abbot playing the supposedly anti-Christ-like Flagg in Stephen King's The Stand. If some numpty studio exec signs the likes of Tom "the nutter" Cruise or Keanu "the plank" Reeves up to play Judas Coyne, I think I might have to top myself and then sell them my suit on eBay...

.
*Yeah, I know, but I get far less leisure reading time now than when I had to make a 40-min each way commute to and from work...

** Making them the first I've written in, oooh, must be eighteen months... about time I got back in that particular saddle, I reckon.

January 25, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 10 Comments

Reading List - Mid Jan '07

I've just finished Joe Abercrombie's Before They Are Hanged - which was wonderful by the way, more on that later - and so it's decision-time again.

I've already decided on Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box as my next read - I love his short fiction and I'm just too intrigued to see what he can do when he's got the larger canvas of a novel to play with to put it off for too long - but after that I'll be open to suggestions again.

So, here are my next twelve most likely 'to-be-read' items. Please feel free to shout out if you've read something on the list and would like to add your vote of confidence: no plot spoilers, please, but do feel free to suggest other authors and / or titles it reminded you of, that sort of thing.

Evil For Evil by K.J. Parker [Amazon] (most likely candidate at the moment)
The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction ed. by George Mann [Amazon]
The Summoner by Gail Martin [Amazon]
The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes [Amazon]
The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt [Amazon]
Nocturnes (short fiction collection) by John Connolly [Amazon]
Unbecoming: And Other Tales of Horror by Mike O'Driscoll [Amazon]
Coalescent by Stephen Baxter [Amazon]
Stamping Butterflies by Jon Courtenay Grimwood [Amazon]
The Memory of Whiteness by Kim Stanley Robinson [Amazon]
Indigo by Graham Joyce [Amazon]
No Dominion by Charlie Huston [Amazon]

Of course, the final decision will rest on my mood at the point of finishing Heart-Shaped Box... but please feel free leave whatever comments you feel are appropriate...

January 15, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 7 Comments

New Arrivals - end Dec '06, early Jan '07

Three new items came in recently that have particularly caught my eye. All proof copies of forthcoming UK titles:

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

I'm going to have to fight Jo for first-reading rights to this one. We both loved Joe Hill's debut short fiction collection, Twentieth Century Ghosts and have been looking forward to getting our hands on his debut novel ever since it was announced.

Heart-Shaped Box promises to be "...the best debut horror novel since Clive Barker's Damnation Game twenty years ago... A genuinely scary novel filled with people you care about; the kind of book that still stays in your mind when you turn over the final page." And those are Neil Gaiman's words, not mine.

Published by Gollancz in the UK in March, folks. More information on Amazon.co.uk.

The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt

Mr Hunt is the webmeister of the long-running and highly popular genre 'zine SF Crow's Nest, and The Court of the Air is not his first novel to be published. His debut was For the Crown and the Dragon, which won the WH Smith New Talent Prize way back in 1994 (I'll be dropping Mr Hunt a few interview questions for UKSFBN a bit closer to publication date, so I'll see if we can find out about the hiatus).

The Court of the Air looks to be as a quasi-Victorian adventure / melodrama - so it should appeal to fans of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell et. al. - starring Molly Templar and Oliver Brooks; two orphaned children who must flee from ruthless enemies in the company of outlaws, thieves and spies.

It sounds like a rollicking adventure yarn and a thoroughly good read; the only thing that's making me slightly wary is the rather hefty page-count (582 in the proof), although the page margins and font-size are both generous. One for the list and see if the mood takes me, I reckon...

Ink by Hal Duncan

This is the follow-up to Hal Duncan's much talked-about 2005 debut, Vellum [Amazon]. I have to confess that I was one of the weak-willed, lilly-livered, namby-pamby types who gave up halfway through the first volume, so it's unlikely that Ink will be troubling my 'must read' list anytime soon, not until I've had the chance to gird my loins and re-tackle Vellum with renewed determination.

But I did read enough first time around to recognise that Hal Duncan is an intelligent and intriguing writer with the potential to produce a great deal of very fine work in the future. I'll be keeping an eye on the reaction to this second volume; I'm interested to see what folks make of it, now they think they might have an idea what to expect (although somehow I doubt that it will turn out to be quite what anyone expects...)

There's a good interview with the author over at Fantasybookspot in which he talks about the relationship between the two books, which might give you a couple of clues.

January 10, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 2 Comments