Lupine Fan Art

James Wynn · 16 Sep 2004, 11:57 · from 2004-September.txt.gz

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From: thewynns at earthlink.net (James Wynn)
Date: Thu Sep 16 11:57:55 2004
Subject: (urth) Lupine Fan Art
Message-ID: <000c01c49c1f$19e0f930$4108a9c0 at pointserve.com>

PMorris33 at aol.com wrote:
>> Has anyone noticed that there is not much "fan art" connected with
>>Wolfe?  I've seen the lovely archives of Tolkien fan art at Berkeley.
>>At least a 20 year old collection.  And I've seen the interesting
>>collections for Ian Banks and Peter F. Hamilton.
>>
>>But why hasn't Wolfe inspired the same kind of fan art?
>>
>>Thanks Pippin

>There was a book published some years ago, called REALMS OF FANTASY
>(I think), written in part by Robert Holdstock (I think), in which ten of
>the most famous fantasy worlds were described along with illustrations
>by various artists, and I believe that Urth was the tenth world
>depicted.  It's been some years since I've seen the book, but I don't
>recall being particularly impressed with the illustrations.
>
>(The other worlds I remember being in the book were Tolkien's
>Middle-Earth, Moorcock's Melinbone, Le Guin's Earthsea, Donaldson's
>Land, and Peake's Ghormenghast.  That leaves four more that I can't
>remember, though.)
>
>I know Pippin's question was about "fan art," but there hasn't been a
>tremendous amount of "professional art" related to Wolfe either.  This
>Holdstock book is the only Urth-related artwork I've seen (other than
>the covers, of course).
>
>Charles

Ohmygosh! I complete forgot about this book sitting on one of my shelves. I
bought it coincidentally about 2 months before I read tBotNS for the first
time at a friend's recommendation. Each section has an article by the
authors (Malcom Edwards and Robert Holdstock) discussing the topic. It seems
to be out of print.

Here's a run-down of the topics and the illustrations:

Urth
Illustrations by Michael Johnson
The best fantasy illustrator of all those featured in this book IMO was
reserved for "The Book of the New Sun."
My favorite picture is of the Baldander's castle with the Hierodules' ship
parked over it.
It also includes:
The Botanical Gardens
Father Inire and his mirrors.
Nessus from a distance across the Gyoll. (Not my particular vision of the
city but well-done anyway.)

This topic is actually the last in the book, and the article is decently
insightful considering "Citadel of the Autarch" had only been released the
year before this book's publication. The authors compare tBotNS favorably to
LotR.
The article also mentions William Hope Hodgson's "The Night Land".

Middle Earth
illustrated by Paul Monteagle
Unimpressive illustrations in the world of available Tolkien fan art.

Gormenghast
illustrations by Ian Miller
These are actually nice illustrations reminiscent of David Day's
illustrations in "A Tolkien Bestiary".

Hyborea (The Realm of Conan)
illustrations by David O'Connor
Unimpressive illustrations. But then, for me, there's no worthwhile Conan
art after Frank Frazetta.

Melnibone
Illustrations by Mark Harrison
Yeoman's work but nothing I would hang on a wall or anything.

Earthsea (Le Guin)
Illustrated by Stephen Bradbury
Well-done but in a remarkably "dated" style

The Land (Thomas Covenant Chronicles by Donaldson)
Illustrated by Mark Harrison
The illustrations are okay but mostly unremarkable. Nice picture of Lord
Foul's towers.

Mars
illustrations by Dan Woods
Very nice illustrations.

Discusses:
Leigh Brackett's "The Sword of Rhiannon"
H.G. Well's "War of the Worlds"
Phillip Farmer's "Jesus on Mars"
E.R. Burroughs' novels
C.S. Lewis' "Out of the Silent Planet"
Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles" and "Thrilling Wonder"

Lost Worlds
illustrations by Bill Donohue
Discusses:
A.C. Doyle's "Lost World"
James Hilton's "Lost Horizon"
H. Rider Haggard's various novels
E.R. Burroughs' novels
Jules Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth"
also
Abraham Merrit, Dennis Wheatly, Gary Kilworth, Richard Cowper, Robert
Holdstock, and a mention of the French movie "Le Vallee" (which was
unremarkable except for its Pink Floyd soundtrack)

Atlantis
illustrations by Chris Foss
Two nice illustrations. I wish there were more.

Discusses:
Plato
Thomas More's Utopia
Sir Francis Bacon's "The New Atlantis"
Abbe Charles-Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg
Jules Verne's "20K Leagues Under the Sea"
R.E. Howard's "King Kull"
Jane Gaskell's Atlan saga
Tolkien's "Silmarillion"

~ Crush

P.S. I posted all of Charles' post because I wasn't sure how many had seen
it
but me. But its not my SOP
:-)

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