Anita - Frontispiece
- ANITA: Frontispiece - A black ink and black color pencil drawing on an 11 x 14 size coquille board. It appears as the frontispiece in the book, "Anita" by Keith Roberts, published by Owlswick Press in 1990.
I received this assignment with a note attached from editor, Darrell Schweitzer, asking that I not draw Anita as a beautiful young girl because the author is a bit peeved that illustrators in the past had pictured her as a sexy babe. And according to him, she is not, he has described her in his stories as a plain, homely girl, and he would appreciate it if I drew her that way.
But as I proceeded to read the manuscript and underline all the descriptive words and passages that I considered important, all the descriptions related to Anita's appearance described her as a really beautiful sexy babe; "young men whistled at her as she walked by," "their eyes popped out at the sight of her luscious figure," "their hearts broke if she didn't smile at them," etc. etc.
So I sent a note to the editor pointing out this odd contradiction and he responded by telling me to go ahead and draw her as she is described in the stories. When the book was published I received a note from the author. I thought he was going to chastise me, but instead, he complimented me for doing such a nice job! Not a word about his original "peeve". I was happy about that, but also a bit perplexed.
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