Anyone following Charles Vess on Facebook is often treated with peeks at the various books and projects he is working on. It seems HaperCollins has asked his to do a few additional drawings for an upcoming edition of his and Neil Gaiman’s Stardust. To which I say, hurray!
An in-progress for a full color painting to go into a limited edition:
Update: Neil Gaiman just posted the finished art for the sketch below.
Irene Gallo is the Art Director of Tor Books.
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It was really fun to dive back into the world of Stardust no matter how briefly. But altogether strange dealing with a publisher that seemed to have no idea that I’d been there at the birth of that world and had even done 175 paintings for its first incarmation. But we sorted it all out eventually…
And as to ‘Rackhamtree’ this site would not let me post anything. It kept saying that my name ‘Charles Vess’ was already in use. Go figure?
A lot of people are asking so, the new trade edition will have a single b/w illustration (with a one color overlay) as a frontispece and a chapter heading drawing (with a single color overlay).
The limited, signed edition with use the same chapter heading art but have a full color, frontispiece.
All of this art is brand new to these editions.
Thanks for stopping by and letting us know, Charles!
Truth be told, I’d love to see a new edition of the illustrated Stardust that was NOT constrained by its having been designed and issued as four, 48 page, serialized books that were then combined (as is) to make the current edition from DC/Vertigo. This meant that many illustrations had to be reduced well past recognition and some small bits of text trimmed. Since that initial pblication, I’ve prodced about 12 new pieces of art that could then be integrated into this proverbial ‘new’ edition. A mix of the new, double page spread of the fairy-market (seen only in pencil form in the hardcover reissue from 2007), the various art commissions I’ve done based on un-illustrated portions of the text, etc. Both the text vand the art could be shown then in a more aesthetically pleasing relationship to each other. But this is probably only a pipe-dream of mine…