> Kelly Freas, who was THE cover artist for Analog in those days.

I would have said John Schoenherr.




Mark

Schoenherr was one of the best known in the early 70's. I liked him. But he only lasted in the genre a few years, as most artists did (and still do). Freas had been doing SF art since the 40's and only really tapered off around 1980. Kelly Freas was also well known for covers on Mad magazine before Norman Mingo took over the mantle. One joke at the artist's expense broke me up as teen when I realized it was deliberate. It was an item on fictional "modern" diseases. Reaching too far into the freezer, falling in, and getting frost bite was "the Kelly Freeze".

>Schoenher... only lasted in the genre a few years

From the very late 1950s until 1980 or so.



Mark

And now I've just remembered: the story of your friend was illustrated by Schoenherr.




Mark

Robert Wilson, didn't he write "Bios" and "Darwinia"? I quite liked those years ago. I normaly don't read any science fiction exept the Strugatsky brothers', but I was bored on holidays with my parents and was quite suprised the books where actually good.
It was long before my time, but covers of sci-fi magazines and books where much better before everything was done with computer graphics. Great picture!

That's the guy. His most recent novel was Axis, a sequel to Spin. (There will be a third to complete the trilogy called Vortex -- in jest he calls it his "Spin Cycle".) Bob's just finishing up an unrelated novel called Julian though. It's something like 50 or 100 years from now, when all the envorinmental damage has been done, the oil has run out, economies shrunk to more sustainable levels, and the politics of the post-U.S. world completely different. It's loosely based on the life of the emperor Julian the Apostate, so that might give a hint to the story. (The novel is based on a short story in a small press book nobody is likely to hae read.)

Yeah, I tend to like older covers better too. Some of the modern stuff is quite nice when it isn't just giant letters spelling out the title or the author's name, but its usually too literal. Here's a picture of a sword-maiden and a starship in broad daylight, everything brand spanking new and shiney; no subtlety, no innuendo, no style.

Exactly. I just took a look at Wilson's new books at Amazon and all the covers just show some kind of colorfull explosion, planet or supernova, but I think the German versions are worse than the American ones.

Darwinia had a wonderful cover (though diluted by graphics that take up too much space at the top), and its one of Bob's favourites. I would comment on others, but since there's a different cover for each edition (later printings & foreign), it would get too complicated. I sometimes rib him about the poorer covers, saying that I should do them. But he has no power over that I gather, and I think he'd rather someone less cartoony illustrate his books. For all that he has a wonderful sense of humour, Bob can be very sensitive about looking like a "serious" writer of science fiction. His books are never light reading.

The small press editon of the short version of Julian has a great cover, but odds are it won't appear on the mass edition full length novel.

No Richard Powers.




Mark

No what, Richard Powers? What's that an answer to?

In abstract, Powers was certainly one of the all time greats in SF painting. Right up there with Freas and a couple of others, but appealing to more high-brow audience that didn't like lurid covers of purple aliens threatening women in low-cut space suits. The 60's and 70's were the highpoint of SF illustration in my book. You had all the classics and some damned good modern guys. Since then there's only been two or three guys who've dominated the field for the last thirty years.

Sorry about that; FA formatting got in the way.

About modern illustrative styles, you wrote:

> its usually too literal. Here's a picture of a sword-maiden and a starship in broad daylight, everything brand spanking new and shiney; no subtlety, no innuendo, no style.

In other words, no Richard Powers.




Mark

What a great cover and what a perfectly beautiful thing to do. They must have been thrilled.

You captured the style just right. Art that has emotion, style and nuance shouldn't be relegated to the back bins!
I've got a proper number of Analogs in my book boxes and mistook your cover for a real one. You rock. Have a nice day.

I don't know if you're aware of the compositional rule that Analog's art director allegedly imposed in those days, namely that some element of the picture should always lead the viewer's eye to the price at top right. Obviously the mountains in your picture more or less qualify.

Nowadays they don't do that anymore because the price is in the barcode, but the logo is much bigger, taking up the top quarter of the cover.

No, I didn't know that. I guess I have keener senses of subconscious obersvation that I realized. Much better than actually thinking about it.

Very cool. Especially about puttin' this on the actual books.

Had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Freas at the '97 CF. :) Just like Chesley Bonestell, the world lost a great artist when he passed on a few years ago.

(And for you rocker-types, you'll recognise Freas' handiwork for the cover of Queen's "News of the World" album, which was itself based on one of his own magazine covers from the '50s... :) )

d.m.f.

Almost forgot about that Queen album. I don't have the album (though I do have some other Queen), but the *original* painting is reproduced in "Frank Kely Freas, the Art of Science Fiction" on page 32. It says it was for a story called "The Gulf Between" by Tom Goodwin (Astounding, Oct. 1953). I doubt very much if I've read the story, though with the number of old paperback collection I've read you never know...

I picked up a line drawing work at art auction from Conversion97 in Edmonton Alberta on the U of Eh campus many years ago. It was cool to have a piece of work done by such a legend and meeting him there was even greater. The had a slide show where he talked about many of his works and seeing some of the pieces without magazine lettering covering parts added an incredible new dimension to some classics of his that I'd seen before.

I know I spoke with Frank Kelly Freas breifly once, but it wouldn't have been anything he'd remember. I spoke with one of his daughters once too, who seemed to have a low opinion of someone her father and I both knew. I had a relatively low opinion of that character too.

By and large, though, I find it difficult to establish any real contact with someone like Freas at a convention. There are SO many people there all trying to get close to the Great One, and only one of him trying to remember the thousands of faces. You can't really expect a rapport. Not only that, but some writers (and pro artists) cultivate a Following. They'e surrounded by groupies who work as an effective shield to prevent strangers getting anywhere near.

When you can meet pros on friendlier ground, perhaps in the SWFA suite, or away from a con altogether, they usually turn out to be pretty ordinary people. You might even find them kind of dull. Many are introverted and communicate best with a word processor or a brush.

I met him once at a furcon not long before his death - I found that I didn't have much of anything to say to him, which is my usual state in such situations (James Thurber once wrote a piece on the perils of the literary pilgramage that invariably results in this sort of scene). It didn't help that I have a low voice that doesn't carry very well in a loud environment such as a con.

He was holding a SIG later on that I somehow managed to miss as well.