Edgar Allan Poe's 200th Birthday

Whether you know it or not, you are familiar with Michael Deas' artwork...and have even licked it. Not only did he paint the Columbia Pictures logo, but he's done numerous portraits for the US Postal service -- James Dean, Cary Grant, Stephen Vincent Benete, and many others. And the odd Time cover, Tor cover!, and, and,...

Michael also happened to write the book on Edgar Allan Poe portraits, so I'm sure he was thrilled to be given the commission to paint Poe for today's big birthday. Congrats, Michael!

If you are ever in the same room with Michael, buy him a drink and ask him to tell you about the National Art's Club stolen Poe daguerreotype. It's a great story. The FBI was involved.

Other artsy Poe-ness:
Mark Summers on drawing Poe, and again. "He’s got one of those faces rich with distinct and fascinating features, but I’ve found that it all comes down to the eyes—the saddest, deepest eyes in literature."
Adam Rex making funny with the Poe and writer's block, here, here, and here.

Adam Rex Interviewed

Adam Rex is interviewed on Nebula Awards -- talking about his work as an illustrator, a writer, and in between.

Adam Rex is a freak.

As proven by this video. But he's a funny freak, so...

The "Other" Site

After 15 hours straight of answering emails and pressing “refresh”, I have made it through day 1 of Tor.com. What this does to The Art Department, I’m not sure. I would like to keep both running without too many posts being a simple redirect, but in the beginning the balance will be a bit off.

So, playing catch up, here are a couple of part related posts over there:

A quick interview with Dice Tsutsumi on the Totoro Project: "Our first goal for this project was, of course, to raise funds to help save the Sayama Forest, the birthplace of our beloved Totoro. However, this event has had huge symbolic meaning for us as well. It has been thrilling to see so many people come together, united by their admiration for Hayao Miyazaki's work, and to see how much art and artists can contribute to the material improvement of our shared world."

A quick post about a cool online vide game gallery: Into the Pixel

Adam Rex on Frankenstein Takes the Cake

Pablo Defendini promises a series of book cover design critiques.

Soon there will be Dan Dos Santos’ art and sketches for a new Tor cover.

Lastly, wallpapers galore! For one week we are reoffering all of the books and wallpapers given out during our pre-reg promo. If you missed any, you have until next Sunday to grab ‘em.

Adam Rex Takes the Cake

Adam Rex sayz that Frankenstein Takes the Cake, his follow up to Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich (aka: funniest book evah -- visually and textualy) is available early through Amazon. Best news I've heard all day.

[Earlier post on Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich]

As if we needed another reason to love Adam Rex.

Dracula eating garlic bread.

EditpusRex.

Look Book and Smekday

This evening, on my train ride from Astor Place to the upper east side, I read The Look Book. (I knew the St. Mark's Bookshop wouldn't let me down.) It's just as good as I thought it would be. Of course it had to look great, it's Red Nose, but it’s also very sweet, creepy, clever, funny, and at times poignant.

I also picked up Adam Rex's The True Meaning of Smekday , just out, and laughed three times on the first page. I'm off to LA tomorrow night and it will be a fight as to whether I'm reading this or Brian Slattery's new manuscript....Actually, who am I kidding, I'll be asleep within minutes of take off. I can never stay awake in moving vehicles.

Earlier post on The Look Book.

Earlier post on Smekday.

Thumbnails: Adam Rex...errr, I mean, the Boov

Thumbnails: 30 Second Interviews

Adam Rex is one of the most versatile and talented people I know. Besides being an awesome painter, his childrens’ books, which he writes as well as illustrates, are hilarious. Last year I made a post about his Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich and thinking back on that book still makes me crack up.

Adam’s first novel, The True Meaning of Smekday, recounting the Boov alien invasion of Earth will be available in October. It’s meant for ages 9 and up but, if it’s at all like Sandwich, then adults are sure to love it. I’ve seen bits and pieces of it over the past year, mostly the picturey bits, and I'm very anxious to finally read the full book.

Smekday Website, including an excerpt and a puppet show. You can also check out Adam's blog, EditpusRex, for sketches, alternate covers, and other goodies.

I tried to get Adam to answer a few questions but J.lo the Boov seemed to have hijacked his computer.

Favorite painting you did in the past year?
What? I am more of a wallpaper person.

What are you working on now?
An escalator to the moon. For day trips. And a new kind of gelatin for wearing.

Dream assignment?
No, thank you. I was offered an assignment forwith the Dream Division and I said "no." It is nothing but naked peoples and math tests, all the time.

What painting do you wish you painted?
This one is nice:


Most embarrassing illustration related moment?
A funny story! I had not noticed my illustration was undone and everyones could see my poomp. Very embarrassing.

Advice to a young illustrator?
Hm. A hard question. It is no kind of business, to be an illustrator and be paid only to cover people's poomps all day long. I would needs to know more things about this young illustrator of which you are talking. Does he have a very bad smell? In his early development did he grow too many legs, or not enough? His things could all be reasons one is forced to illustrate. I say to you, young illustrator: "Keep your head down and cover those poomps and one day then you may be promoted to Legtaster, or Stickyfellow."

Any other statement you'd like to make?
I have now a MySpace page! For netsworking!

BEA Bound

Me to Adam Rex: "Today at lunch I slipped on a banana peal. Swear to god."
Adam Rex to me: "What a coincidence. I took a pie in the face yesterday. Fortunately that guy with the seltzer happened by."

(Except in my case, it really did happen, I really did slip on a banana peal. Had I my camera with me, you'd all be looking at one brown and squishied up piece of banana road kill.)

But the point is....This weekend is Book Expo America. and I am very much looking forward to saying "hi" to Adam and seeing him tout his first novel, The True Meaning of Smekday.

BEA is fun for me. For some reason Tor gives me a ticket and yet I have no official dealings while I am there. So, I get to run around, hang out with people, and look at lots of cool books.

Besides Adam, other BEA events I’m looking forward to:

• Going out to dinner with Arnie Fenner, co-creator and editor of Spectrum
• Catching up with awesome designer Howard Grossman of 12E Design.
• Listening to Brian Slattery, author of my favorite Tor book, Spaceman Blues, speak on the “NYC Visions: Fresh Authors and Portrayals.” panel. (Unfortunately it overlaps with a bunch of our editors speaking on the “Changing Face of SF” panel. I may have to bring my running shoes.)
• Visiting Lou Anders of Pyr.
• Checking out the Mark Murphy Design booth. (I hear they have some new Jeff Soto stuff coming out this summer.)

And the rest will be just looking at what's new.

MicroVisions in Spectrum!

Congrats to Adam Rex, Jon Foster, Vincent Di Fate, and Boris Vallejo. Their mini paintings from the MicroVisions student scholarship fundraising auction have been selected to appear in Spectrum 14. I’m thrilled to see their efforts continue to live beyond the auction and the students that will benefit from it.

Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich

I just read Adam Rex’s new children’s book, Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich —a collection of poems and paintings about the classic movie monsters facing everyday issues like “The Creature From the Black Lagoon: Doesn’t Wait an Hour Before Swimming” or “The Phantom of the Opera: Can’t Get ‘It’s a Small World After All’ Out of His head.” It is hilarious! It made me laugh out loud, I swear, I have witnesses. It’s also a book that rewards a careful reader — the words and imagery hold more laughs within them than you’d realize at a quick glance. The artwork has Adam’s usual mastery and he’s done many of the paintings in various styles to match the tone of the monsters — some in color, some black and white, one in a Charles Dana Gibson-esque line drawings, another in a Golden Books-style cartooning, it goes on. The whole thing is a delightful experience.

I asked Adam how the book came about:

I was getting more and more interested in writing funny rhyming stories for kids, and I thought it would be fun to do a whole book of them around one basic theme. When I hit on monsters as a ripe subject for illustrations, the title suddenly popped in my head. I think I was going through this phase when I thought that “sandwich” was a really funny word, and the idea of this fantastic character doing this mundane thing seemed funny all by itself to me. So that’s how the theme came about — monsters with really run-of-the-mill problems. It took months before I figured out what the titular poem was about, though.

Below is Adam painting a promotion piece for Sandwich at the Society of Illustrators’ Art Out Loud painting demo series.
Thankfully, Adam is well entrenched in a new project. He is currently writing and illustrating a young adult science fiction novel, complete with prose, sequential pages, and illustration.