Xmas Greetings from Rocket Santa

I always know it's getting close to Xmas when a card arrives from one of my very favourite fantasy artists: Les Edwards. Or in this case, his alter-ego, Edward Miller.

Rocket Santa awaaaaayyy!

December 12, 2008 | Filed Under Fantastic Art | 4 Comments

Happy Cthulumas!

My guaranteed-best-of-the-year seasonal greetings card arrived early this year, and it's another corker from Les Edwards (in his Edward Miller guise), which manages to skillfully combine his love of Lovecraftian horror with the seasonal tradition of pantomine...

All together now: "It's behiiiind yoooouuuu!"

Cthulu Christmas copyright Les Edwards, 2007

December 14, 2007 | Filed Under Miscellania | 3 Comments

Client website updates: Les Edwards & Edward Miller

Spent most of last week with my head down, working hard on the July update for the two sites I run on behalf of Les Edwards and his artistic alter-ego, Edward Miller.

Les is a truly terrific artist; I've been a fan of his work since I was a teenager and our house is decorated with prints of some of mine and Jo's favourite pieces: 'The Darkest Part of the Woods' and 'Atkinson Revenant' in the dining room, 'The Croglin Vampire' here in the office, 'Cities' and 'Blood Follows' in our living room (actually, 'Blood Follows' is the original artwork, but we don't like to show off...) and we've just acquired a print of 'This is Now' for the bedroom. We would have bought the original artwork of that one as well, but we were reliably informed that a certain author (whose mini story collection it graces) beat us to it...

Anyhow, there are about 50 new images across the various galleries on the two sites. Generally, the first few images in each gallery are the new ones (although I'm working on ideas for the best way to make that a bit more user-friendly and obvious). Here are some of my favourites from the new batch:

The afore-mentioned 'This is Now', which was used on a Subterranean Press chapbook of three Michael Marshall Smith short stories given to attendees of the 2007 World Horror Convention in Canada:

Edward Miller artwork for 'This is Now' by Michael Marshall Smith

The quite lovely artwork for the Subterranean Press edition of Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora (note to Gollancz with regards to their original UK cover: this is how it should've been done, folks...)

Edward Miller artwork for 'The Lies of Locke Lamora' by Scott Lynch, Subterranean Press edition

And here's the artwork for the Gollancz UK (just to show they're back on the ball...) edition of Chris Wooding's forthcoming novel The Fade:

Edward Miller artwork for 'The Fade' by Chris Wooding

They're all 'Edward Miller' rather than 'Les Edwards' pieces, I know, but that's because there's just something in the use of colour, form and texture in the Miller work that really appeals to me.

I also sent Les a few questions for an interview piece, which I posted yesterday evening over on www.uksfbooknews.net. He has some interesting things to say about the use of fantasy art in book design, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

And I shouldn't leave without mentioning that Les is having a summer sale between now and the end of September. Buy any of the fine art prints available on either website (the vast majority of the images are available as prints, apart from the pencil sketch prelims and anything where the copyright of the work is no longer owned by Les) and you'll enjoy a 20% discount on the usual prices.

July 3, 2007 | Filed Under Freelance Work | Leave a Comment

Art History: The Croglin Vampire

This is one of my all-time favourite fantasy art images:

The Croglin Vampire, copyright © Les Edwards

The title of the picture is 'The Croglin Vampire', the artist is Les Edwards (whose website I've become intimately re-acquainted with over the past few weeks), and I first saw this picture in a copy of White Dwarf magazine, years and years ago, when I was but a scrawny, spotty, wargaming teenage geek.

It was part of a double-page spread of assorted fantasy art, and it stood out from the rest of the artwork on display by a mile. Atmospherically I think it's a rather excellent piece; the vampire positively oozes menace, and the portrayal is a far cry from the traditional starched-collar and evening dress of the classic-but-tired Bela Lugosi look. Incidentally, on Les' website he explains that the image isn't meant as a tribute to Nosferatu, but is based on a 'true story'... chilling.

The first time I met Les in person was at one of the first Fantasycons I attended, I think it was in Birmingham about ten or twelve years ago. I think I recognised him from a panel he'd been on the day before, and determined to say hello, I screwed up my fan-boy courage, and crossed over to the table where he was sitting.

"Um, hi." I said. "I'm a big fan of your work."

"Oh. Thanks." said Les.

Okay... different tack, perhaps?

"I, er, I particularly like The Croglin Vampire. Saw it in White Dwarf years ago..." I stammered.

"Oh. Thanks." said Les.

And that was pretty much that.

Of course, that was just my first stab at conversation, and once I'd started running Les's website (and that of his artistic alter-ego, Edward Miller) I quickly discovered that both Les and his lovely wife Val are both incredibly warm and friendly people. That slightly subdued public exterior hides a sharp and biting wit - as you can probably tell from some of Les's images, particularly his Xmas cards - and sitting next to the two of them at the Fantasycon banquet is definitely to be recommended for entertainment value, if you can somehow wangle an invite to the appropriate PS Publishing table...

Did I mention that Les and Val are rather wonderfully generous as well? When Jo and I announced (prematurely, foolishly) that we'd almost finished the house extension (this was back in January; how we laughed at our naivité when we started in on the decorating in February...) Val and Les told us to pick out a set of art prints to brighten up our bare walls. Of course, one of the ones I insisted on picking was The Croglin Vampire. It's going to hang on the wall on my office / study, and will serve as a constant reminder of the wisdom of occasionally saying 'hello' to strangers at conventions. Even if it does make you sound like a fan-boy...

Anyway, that whole long-winded preamble is my way of announcing that I've finished the re-vamps of both www.lesedwards.com and www.edwardmiller.co.uk. Design-work by Les himself - so naturally it looks fantastic - programming and html by me. Well, except for some of the trickier bits of PHP, which I had to sub-contract to my mate Andy, who's been doing this sort of thing in his sleep for years. Unlike me. I started learning the lingo in November...

The official go-live date is tomorrow, but both sites are actually live now, so you can get yourself a sneaky preview if, like me, you're actually online at 9.30 p.m. on New Year's Eve.

(What? You are? Bugger off an have a beer, you fool!)