1,000th Post: Sharing Some Illustrations & Design I've Done

[TheIronMonkey]

This past Friday, June 24th, was Lawrence Block's 84th birthday. On his website, he announced his new Bernie Rhodenbarr book, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown. I'm proud to say I did this book cover (and two others in the series). I was thrilled and flattered that Larry contacted me directly to do this new one:



P.S. I was pleasantly surprised to learn @sablebrush52 was a fan of Larry's Burglar books.

 

[sablebrush52]

This past Friday, June 24th, was Lawrence Block's 84th birthday. On his website, he announced his new Bernie Rhodenbarr book, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown. I'm proud to say I did this book cover (and two others in the series). I was thrilled and flattered that Larry contacted me directly to do this new one:

View attachment 153414

P.S. I was pleasantly surprised to learn @sablebrush52 was a fan of Larry's Burglar books.

Beautiful work!
Why wouldn't I be a fan of Block's Burglar books? They're wry, sharp, funny, well written, well plotted, and smart.

 

[bullet08]

Amazing work! How did I miss this post?

 

[n_irwin]

I really enjoyed reading through this thread. Really excellent work!

 

[puff_not_snuff]

One should reach 1000 posts the first year of joing a forum. This is the way.

 

[TheIronMonkey]

Beautiful work!
Why wouldn't I be a fan of Block's Burglar books? They're wry, sharp, funny, well written, well plotted, and smart.

It makes sense to me that you'd appreciate his work; with my involvement in mystery/crime/noir publishing and community, I've found it's almost a given to know who Lawrence Block is, but, outside of that world, there are plenty of people who have never heard of him.

 

[puff_not_snuff]

This past Friday, June 24th, was Lawrence Block's 84th birthday. On his website, he announced his new Bernie Rhodenbarr book, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown. I'm proud to say I did this book cover (and two others in the series). I was thrilled and flattered that Larry contacted me directly to do this new one:

View attachment 153414

P.S. I was pleasantly surprised to learn @sablebrush52 was a fan of Larry's Burglar books.

Very much appreciate the graphic design on this! Seems like books are the last bastion of decent graphic design although most look like crap.

 

[sablebrush52]

It makes sense to me that you'd appreciate his work; with my involvement in mystery/crime/noir publishing and community, I've found it's almost a given to know who Lawrence Block is, but, outside of that world, there are plenty of people who have never heard of him.

True that.
My cousin, who is a professor of 17th century rhetoric, absolutely refused to look at one of Lawrence Block's books because he wrote mystery/crime/noir books. I pity her.

 

[TheIronMonkey]

Amazing work! How did I miss this post?

I really enjoyed reading through this thread. Really excellent work!

Very much appreciate the graphic design on this! Seems like books are the last bastion of decent graphic design although most look like crap.

Thanks for taking the time to look!

 

[mav]

Congratulations on all these achievements, these are cool works of art.

 

[mso489]

Ironmonkey, good thread. The art pros on Forums gave full kudos. I'm an old art museum rat from high school on, but confine my visual arts to water colors of cats and pencil cartoons of members of the household on birthday and Valentines cards. Your figure studies would make a gallery show, as would the book covers.

When I get to a city on vacation or business, I usually managed to visit one or more of its major art museums -- Chicago, New York, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Toronto, Montreal, Seattle, San Francisco, L.A., Philly, and a number of smaller cities with good collections like Raleigh and Greensboro, N.C.

 

[TheIronMonkey]

I thought I'd share something some of you literary types here might appreciate. Here's a link to an interview I did with the Library of America about a coffee table book I designed:





The Washington Post gave the book a very nice review (it might be behind a pay wall—I hope you can read it).

The text of the book is comprised of selected portions of forty-seven plus hours of interviews my late friend, Paul Nelson, did with Kenneth Millar/Ross Macdonald in the Spring and Summer of 1976 (edited by my friend, Kevin Avery) and is illustrated with 1,300 plus items from my personal Kenneth Millar/Ross Macdonald collection. Any of you that are Bob Dylan fans might know that Paul was one of the only critics to defend Dylan going electric at the Newport Folk Festival and probably saw him interviewed in Martin Scorsese's documentary No Direction Home. Paul was the record reviews editor for Rolling Stone for many years and also signed the New York Dolls to Mercury Records when he was an A&R guy.

 

[ssjones]

I thought I'd share something some of you literary types here might appreciate. Here's a link to an interview I did with the Library of America about a coffee table book I designed:

View attachment 172411

View attachment 172412

The Washington Post gave the book a very nice review (it might be behind a pay wall—I hope you can read it).

The text of the book is comprised of selected portions of forty-seven plus hours of interviews my late friend, Paul Nelson, did with Kenneth Millar/Ross Macdonald in the Spring and Summer of 1976 (edited by my friend, Kevin Avery) and is illustrated with 1,300 plus items from my personal Kenneth Millar/Ross Macdonald collection. Any of you that are Bob Dylan fans might know that Paul was one of the only critics to defend Dylan going electric at the Newport Folk Festival and probably saw him interviewed in Martin Scorsese's documentary No Direction Home. Paul was the record reviews editor for Rolling Stone for many years and also signed the New York Dolls to Mercury Records when he was an A&R guy.

It is behind a paywall (Damn you Washington Post!), so thanks for the backstory. Paul Nelson sounds worthy of a book as well! Well, looks like there is one:

Category:

Back in 2006, when I heard about the death of rock journalist Paul Nelson (born in 1936), two things quickly came to mind: He was a beautiful writer who put a heavy emphasis on interpreting lyrics,...

retroactivekaos.weebly.com

 

[Papamique]

Excellent work and posts! Thank you so much for sharing them.

 

[jpmcwjr]

MacDonald was my parents' favorite author. They devoured detective novels by the bushel. I liked him, too, but can't remember a word I read some 50 years ago.

Was he the guy who set many of his stories in the Venice-Sarasota-Ft. Meyers area?

 

[TheIronMonkey]

MacDonald was my parents' favorite author. They devoured detective novels by the bushel. I liked him, too, but can't remember a word I read some 50 years ago.

Was he the guy who set many of his stories in the Venice-Sarasota-Ft. Meyers area?

No, you’re thinking of John D. MacDonald, who wrote the Travis McGee books—they often had colours in the titles. This Macdonald (small “d”) had a series character named Lew Archer—most of the stories took place in the fictional Santa Teresa (based on Santa Barbara) and the LA area. The first Lew Archer book, The Moving Target (adapted into the Paul Newman film, Harper, in 1966) was published in 1949 by Ken Millar using the pseudonym, “John Macdonald.” Supposedly, John D. MacDonald’s mom mistakenly bought ten copies of the book, thinking it was by her son. Millar’s nom de plume changed to “John Ross Macdonald” on the next book in 1950 to help avoid further confusion, and in 1956 became “Ross Macdonald” for the remainder of his career. The title of Millar’s final Lew Archer novel, The Blue Hammer, upset John D. because of the use of “blue,” which he felt he owned.

I have an amazing exchange of letters between the two authors arguing over the name that I acquired after the publication of the coffee table book—I would’ve loved to have included them.

 

[woodsroad]

FANTASTIC Work!!!!

 

[TheIronMonkey]

Congratulations on all these achievements, these are cool works of art.

Ironmonkey, good thread. The art pros on Forums gave full kudos. I'm an old art museum rat from high school on, but confine my visual arts to water colors of cats and pencil cartoons of members of the household on birthday and Valentines cards. Your figure studies would make a gallery show, as would the book covers.

When I get to a city on vacation or business, I usually managed to visit one or more of its major art museums -- Chicago, New York, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Toronto, Montreal, Seattle, San Francisco, L.A., Philly, and a number of smaller cities with good collections like Raleigh and Greensboro, N.C.

It is behind a paywall (Damn you Washington Post!), so thanks for the backstory. Paul Nelson sounds worthy of a book as well! Well, looks like there is one:

Category:

Back in 2006, when I heard about the death of rock journalist Paul Nelson (born in 1936), two things quickly came to mind: He was a beautiful writer who put a heavy emphasis on interpreting lyrics,...

retroactivekaos.weebly.com

Excellent work and posts! Thank you so much for sharing them.

No, you’re thinking of John D. MacDonald, who wrote the Travis McGee books—they often had colours in the titles. This Macdonald (small “d”) had a series character named Lew Archer—most of the stories took place in the fictional Santa Teresa (based on Santa Barbara) and the LA area. The first Lew Archer book, The Moving Target (adapted into the Paul Newman film, Harper, in 1966) was published in 1949 by Ken Millar using the pseudonym, “John Macdonald.” Supposedly, John D. MacDonald’s mom mistakenly bought ten copies of the book, thinking it was by her son. Millar’s nom de plume changed to “John Ross Macdonald” on the next book in 1950 to help avoid further confusion, and in 1956 became “Ross Macdonald” for the remainder of his career. The title of Millar’s final Lew Archer novel, The Blue Hammer, upset John D. because of the use of “blue,” which he felt he owned.

I have an amazing exchange of letters between the two authors arguing over the name that I acquired after the publication of the coffee table book—I would’ve loved to have included them.

FANTASTIC Work!!!!

Thank you all (and all the previous posters) for taking the time to look. I've been fortunate to be able to make pictures for a living. Switching to a 9 to 5 graphic design situation the last five years has been an adjustment, but, I'm grateful it still involves doing art. After shoveling 5.5 cubic yards of gravel with Susan to fix up the yard a few weeks ago, I don't envy those of you that do backbreaking work all the time—kudos to you.

 

[woodsroad]

I hear ya!

 

[mikethompson]

WOW! JUST, WOW!

When Jesse is impressed by your work, that's something else.