Newsletter January 2024

The Monstrous Child – superb etchings

The year has started with a bang. Olivia Lomenech Gill appeared with a carload of beautiful etchings and paintings for sale. So far, I've digested the work she produced for Faber when she illustrated Francesca Simon's book, The Monstrous Child.

Olivia is a hugely-talented printmaker with many different skills in her field. She's also fascinated by Norse mythology so this gave her the chance to revisit some of those favourite characters and locations. She produced eight etchings and we have a complete set for sale. They can also be bought singly. You'll find them here.

Ian Miller, new prints, new books

This is just a detail from one of Ian Miller's recent Sorcery pieces and they keep on coming. You can find 'Upperworld' and 'Underworld' in the prints section.

In his introduction to The Art of Ian Miller, Brian Sibley describes Ian as 'an artist and illustrator of unique vision and striking originality, who sees with the alien eye of the misfit and the outsider. He possesses an unnerving talent for disturbing our mundane surroundings with haunting glimpses of weird and wondrous places and beings from somewhere just beyond the edges of our fragile human comprehension.'

This comprehensive and beautifully-produced book is now back in print and you can remind yourself of Ian's work here. It should be available on Amazon and the Titan website.

The Art of Ian Miller

Ian's own novel, 'The Broken Diary' is also now available in a new edition. Reading it to yourself is just like listening to him telling the story. Pure magic.

The Broken Diary

It seems like a missed opportunity that the cards produced from Ian's work are so small. Much better to have a beautiful print like this. And more and more people are beginning to get that idea.

Dark Shepherd by Fred Gambino

We are thrilled that Fred Gambino's first novel will be published by Newcon Press in May and can now be pre-ordered. It will also be available as a special edition (sorry! now sold out) with amazing signed prints and extra drawings. There's another novel in the pipeline and these are going to be quite collectable.

These characters first appeared in the large format book of Fred's art published by Titan, including the limited edition, so if you'd like to see more of them, and more of Fred's paintings, you can find them here.

Fred was interviewed by Ian Skye on BBC Radio Derby this week so here's a chance to hear more about his life and work. The consistently reticent Fred has an unusual past and now continues to move quietly through the labyrinth of today's illustration and movie worlds with huge expertise and great skill. And now he's a writer too.

Fred Gambino on BBC Radio Derby The interview starts at 1:11:29

Jim Burns interview

Jim was interviewed recently too, by Shaun Mclure. He spoke about his career, particularly in the movie industry, but also in the context of illustration for covers and of course private commissions. I recommend it for when you have a good coffee to hand and you want to sit back and listen to something entertaining.

Jim will be at the Glasgow worldcon in August and we hope to meet many friends from the US as we haven't made it to Illuxcon recently. The hotels are now taking bookings but they get snapped up quickly. The artist GoH is Chris Baker, the hugely talented illustrator of the Redwall covers which began his rich and varied career first as an illustrator but then led to work as an artist with a close working relationship with Stanley Kubrick and Stephen Spielberg.

And finally

A few years ago, when we were still working as 'Young Artists', we represented an artist called Bob Fowke. He was good fun, and he contributed to some of our big projects at the time, including his work for 'Hothouse' in the Alien Landscapes book but somehow we moved on in different directions.

Since then Bob has been busy writing and illustrating a host of books, including non-fiction for children, and I'm pleased to say that he's put his illustration work into an exhibition at the Bishop's Castle Arts Festival on the Welsh borders, from 16-18 February 2024. This work may well be of interest to collectors of book cover art so if that's you, I suggest that you look at his website. He has both originals and prints for sale.

Read about Bob here.