(From the book "Solar Wind Vol
1")By : Deborah Susan Jones : Editor
"In
the beginning . . . . . the summer of 1973.
Time and place = Mid-morning, Theobalds Road, at the tiny
central London office, a once-a-week meeting point for Penguin Books Ltd,
otherwise based then at Harmondsworth out near London
Airport (before their move to The King's Road in
London some years later) - a commission; from
Doreen Scott, the art buyer; for a paperback:
ISBN-10 0140306927 - Genre, Children's
Fiction. The very first book cover commission ever,
eventually leading to publication on 25th July 1975
(publishers typically worked "a year ahead" in their
schedules in those days).
"I had already created an unpublished
"speculative tester piece" (left) as a trial run, by
creating my very first Science Fiction and Fantasy
painting for "A Prince in Waiting" for Doreen with whom
I'd arranged to "come back in a month" with the
completed artwork after she'd asked "how are you on
Science Fiction?" when I'd actually gone to see her on
the recommendation of a college tutor who participated
in Puffin's annual "Puffin Club" event for young readers
and I'd shown him some wildlife paintings I'd done and
he mentioned that Puffin published such material in book
form and that it'd be "a good idea to go and have a chat
with them about it and your work and I will see if I can
get you a meeting", which indeed he did, and for which I
am grateful to this very day,
"Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on
how one views my subsequent career, Doreen said "I'm
sorry, your work is very good indeed, but we are no
longer publishing that kind of book, at least for the
moment" but who, seeing the potential in my work, was
then prompted to say "how are you on Science Fiction?".To be totally truthful I'd
never considered it (as a cover artist that is) but I'd
always been interested in it in terms of movie and TV
consumption, so I said so, and so it was that this first
commission came about - entirely by chance, once I'd done
the "tester" piece which, when I took it to show her,
expecting a big analysis of what I'd created, she merely
said "fine" which astonished me and then handed me the
manuscript for the actual, real, first commission, for "A
Castle of Bone.""So, it wasn't "a plan", it was
just a happy accident ! ! !I went on to do a few more
covers for her for children's books (and eventually my
Fighting Fantasy works in the mid-80s) but then got
tempted by publishers of adult Science Fiction, Panther
and Mayflower Books and Futura Publications, both then
situated in central London, the former in
Golden Square and the latter in Poland Street in Soho,
both just a few streets away from where I was
studying at the time at St Martin's School of Art.
Panther's office was just across the road from the end of
Carnaby Street and Futura's was in a small room above a
gigantic garage, the office being so small that if the art
director wanted to ask the editor his view of my cover
just presented I had to leave the room and stand in the
corridor because there was only enough room for two people
at any one time in the room! The companies grew and grew
until they were gigantic corporations, gobbled-up by
others en-route, but back then they were tiny affairs and
every commission was a short verbal briefing and promise
to return a month later with whichever covers I was given
to do."The whole commissioning
process, be it by Puffin, Panther or Futura, was an
extremely simple affair punctuated now and then with a
lunch treat from the art director on behalf of the company
if I'd either sold a lot of books or if their was a need
to discuss a "big book" that they were asking me to cover."A Castle of Bone was
created on stretched cartridge paper (which is how
we were taught at St Martins) and painted in Gouache, Oil
paint and airbrush, the latter, on this piece, being my
very first attempt at using it."There's an oft-quoted and
common view that I used airbrush because of influence from
Chris Foss's Science Fiction covers, but that is not
accurate. The actual reason is I had been creating profile
illustrations of aircraft for my degree portfolio (because
I collected magazines and books on the subject and had
done since a teenager who spent many years visiting
airshows and also created paintings on the subject)
and so when the Puffin job came up and I was, obviously,
aware that this piece of equipment was to the fore in the
SF genre, at least in the UK at that time, I just felt
that the dark smoke in the painting would look good if I
airbrushed it and it also seemed an ideal opportunity to
test run the technique on an actual printed published
item."Simple beginnings . . . . . .
.""Peter Andrew Jones
(edited by Deborah Susan Jones)
