Blades For France

BLADES FOR FRANCE - A black ink and black color pencil drawing, with Zip-a-tone, on an 11 x 14 size coquille board. This drawing appears on the front cover of George Hamilton's 1975 fan press booklet, "BLADES FOR FRANCE" by Robert E. Howard".

George Hamilton published a lot of fanzine booklets featuring obscure stories written by Howard. I drew many of the covers for those fanzines. George lives in California and was among the first fanzine publishers to pay for my artwork.

Over 35 years have passed since he stopped publishing but we still contact each other via email whenever he wants to buy some books that I put on eBay, or when he has a yen to buy another drawing from me.

I'm amazed at how many people I came to know over the years through my work as an illustrator. I never met them in person; editors, writers, publishers, fans, art collectors, so many of them I knew only as voices on the phone, letters in the mail, or emails on my computer. In today's world, however, I suppose that's not unusual.