Michael Whelan is Cover Artist for all Four Books!!!

[Furls Fire]

hmmm, well, if that's the case...where is the One Table, the One Fork, the One Knife, the One Spoon, the One Napkin and the One Cup???

Sorry for the silliness...I'm in giddy mode this morning.

The covers I especially liked where on the first edition paperbacks. I think the depiction of Mhoram summoning Wildwood on the cover of the Illearth War is just awesome. Who was that artist?

[Khaliban]

I met Michael Whelan at Gen Con one year. He said the publishers of Mordant's Need pressured him to make the cover paintings look like Hildebrandt and Darrel K. Sweet. He called SRD to ask his opinion. Donaldson told him, "Paint what you want. I trust you." Whelan finally signed the paintings "Michael Hildesweet" in frustration.

I asked MW his opinion of Donaldson. He told me, "He's a really nice guy, and he reminds me of an accountant." Not sure what he meant by that.

[caamora]

Yes, I think we need a new banner! I hate how TC and LA look on this cover! They looks so strong and unafraid - so unlike how they are in the book! BUT - let's wait to get a Whelan cover to change the banner!


Whelan is the best!!!


Duchess, the actress in the Bionic Woman was Lindsey Wagner. You're right - it does look like her.

[danlo]

Yes "I've always called it the Bionic Woman/Hal Ketcham cover, but not many people know who Hal Ketcham is..I'll see if I can find a link. edit: here you go www.robertcorwin.com/country3.html he's the guy in the black "muscle" t-shirt

[kastenessen]

Sounds great Danlo! Michael Whelan is a great artist. I have some books with his covers...

Furls Fire wrote:

The covers I especially liked where on the first edition paperbacks. I think the depiction of Mhoram summoning Wildwood on the illearthwar is just awesome. Who was that artist?

That is the famous/infamous Darrell K. Sweet. I agree with you, the first chrons Sweet covers are great. I love them and have made copies and they are now hanging on the wall...It's the colours and the deatails, put them beside eachother you hae one red, one blue and one green cover, they're great. The second chrons' cover weren't half as good...

kasten

[matrixman]

I personally love Darrell K. Sweet's covers for all the Covenant books. Looking at that work alone, I would have said he is a fabulous fantasy artist. But I've also looked through a book of his art, and the stuff in there is fabulous, too. I'll spare you all an essay on Sweet's art, since this is not a Darrell Sweet discussion. It's too bad that his name doesn't sit well with a number of folks here or with SRD himself.

As for Mr. Michael Whelan, he is clearly the favored artist of everyone including SRD, so he must be doing something right. Congrats to him.

[kastenessen]

I haven't seen too much of Darrell K Sweets works, but it seems like he was better in his early years. For instance I find the illustrations for the Robert Jordan works of now pretty dull, or maybe uninspired...or is it that the books didn't inspire him? ... Yes I know...not a D. K. Sweet thread...


kasten

[regis]

Hi folks, I am rather new here, although I have been lurking for a while. I agree that Whelan is the perfect choice for the cover art. Unlike most cover artists he always insists to read the manucript which he is supposed to illustrate/paint the cover for, and he is VERY picky about the authors he takes on.

He has been Tad Williams´s cover artist for many, many years and has done almost all of Tad´s books.

Here is a link to the latest cover he did for Tad:

The War of the Flowers Cover

By the way, Whelan will also be doing the cover art for Tad´s next fantasy epic, SHADOWMARCH, which will hit the stores in November. So, there might be two gorgeous Whelan covers out almost at the same time.

By the way, any other Germans around here??

[danlo]

There is a "German thread" in The Summonsing forum--Yes his Otherland covers are stunning (click my www. go to the Williams forum, if interested. Covers to War of the Flowers, River of Blue Fire and To Green Angel Tower are viewable there...)

[Ard Rhys]

To Everyone:

I got confirmation from Whelan this morning that he is painting all four covers. Very good news for us. Although I really enjoyed the Sweet covers (with the exception of the last one), there is no one out there at the moment that rivals Whelan. He is simply the best at what he does.

So, the board is set. The pieces are moving. Blah blah blah. There are several scenes in Runes that will lend great cover art fodder for Whelan. I can't wait to see what he does!

Ard Rhys

[Ryzel]

So the D. Sweet covers are the ones with the people in them. Who did the other ones. Maybe that was the UK edition?

[kastenessen]

If you're talking about the landscapes (the Land) with the cirkles in the middle depicting something out of the chrons it is Peter Goodfellow, a rather famous scottish( I think) landscape-painter. They are fantastic! I actually tried to buy one at one time but couldn't at that point afford it. I tried again awhile back but no, not one left..alas!

kasten

[markjeffrey]

I asked MW his opinion of Donaldson. He told me, "He's a really nice guy, and he reminds me of an accountant." Not sure what he meant by that.

Ha ... I can speak to this a little bit. When we did the online interview with him in 98, we were on the phone with him for about two hours. (Romeo was online but I don't think he was able to listen into the phone conversation if I recall correctly).

In any event, SRD was very cool, but reserved, which I suppose could come across a little accountant-y. You got the distinct impression that there was an awful lot going on in his head that didn't quite make it to his mouth in live conversation -- which, two sweeping epic trilogies later, I think we can all attest to. He's just not very 'open' -- he hangs back, he organizes his thoughts, then he speaks.

That having been said, reading his more recent interviews and other things, I get the impression he's loosened up in public a lot more. The interview we did with him seems to have been a surprisingly rare event given his popularity and fanbase -- so he may just have been getting used to that sort of thing back then.

But if you banged on his door, he'd probably open it and yell, "Goddamn it, if I wanted visitors, I'd post a sign!!" hahahahaha

[markjeffrey]

[

Which WGW cover are you talking about? The original, with Honninscrave melded into the floor, isn't bad - of course, TC looks like Igor from "Young Frankenstein" (it's pronounced I-gor ) and LA looks like she's practicing for an audition for an Excedrin commercial, but Gibbon looks really scary. The cover for which the KW logo is derived (see above) is horrible. It's like TC is telling LA "Someday, my dear, this Sunbane-wracked Land will be all yours."

Hear hear!! On WGW I always thought the na-Mhoram looked like an oversized Jawa with a left arm drawn where a right arm should be holding a rukh, and TC looked like a grizzled hunchbacked Neanderthal. And Honniscrave looks like his arms have been chopped off and he's growling like a dog. And yes, Linden as the Excedrin poster girl nails it, perfect!! LOL!!! Ravers! Sunbane! CALGON, TAKE ME AWAY!!

[Encryptic]

Glad to hear that Whelan will be doing the new covers. I really like the stuff I've seen him do in the past.

Sweet seems to be constitutionally incapable of drawing a cover that actually reflects anything from the books. I've got old copies of the Chronicles that I picked up at a secondhand bookstore and about the only one that looks halfway decent is Power That Preserves (Covenant confronting Elena at the Colossus with Triock and Foamfollower on the sidelines). Foamfollower does look a bit more like a basketball player than an actual Giant, though.

[Ard Rhys]

Just a quick note here, but some painters do not capture an actual scene from the book, but rather the feel of the book. Whelan will assuredly swing to the latter than the former, but his work is so amazing that it doesn't matter usually.

Shawn

[Fist and Faith]

But if you banged on his door, he'd probably open it and yell, "Goddamn it, if I wanted visitors, I'd post a sign!!" hahahahaha

[Brody]

I've only ever seen the 'artwork in circles' art from the early 80's UK edition, but I really liked em! I used to look at those pictures on my dad's copies before I was old enough to read em, so they're really vivid for me! Who was that artist again?

[danlo]

[danlo]

bump