I recently completed the book illustrations for Joe R. Lansdale's riotous novella The Ape Man's Brother published by Subterranean Press. Available now in ebook, with the special hardcover edition featuring my cover painting and five black & white interior drawings (below) to follow in the new year.
In this delightfully snarky and irreverent retelling of the Tarzan story, Joe R. Lansdale delivers an affectionate send-up of Edgar Rice Burroughs. The Ape Man's Brother is a "must read" for Lansdale's legion of fans and for everyone who thrilled to ERB's sensational adventure tales as a boy, like me.
My cover painting features the book's dual protagonists; the famous "you-know-who of the Apes" and his lesser known simian half-brother. Each is shown at the full extent of his character development -- when beast has become civilized man, and man has become wild beast.
The wealth of great picture material in the manuscript made it tough to limit my interior illustrations to only five. Ultimately, I chose subjects that would elucidate the story's main characters, highlight the chief episodes of the plot, and allow me to join in providing the reader with some damn good fun!
I love these illustrations and your blog, which I just discovered thanks to James Gurney's blog. I look forward to following you in the future. Kudos to you. You're keeping classic illustration alive, and doing so extremely well, I must say. (I'll be checking out Lansdale's books too!)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Tom! I'd loved classic illustration as a teenager, and resolved to make it my life's work. When I stepped into the gallery of N.C.Wyeth paintings at the newly opened Brandywine River Museum in 1971, the excitement of those paintings overwhelmed me. I'm sure you know what I mean.
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