Von Kharkov
- VON KHARKOV - A black ink and gray pencil drawing on an 11 x 14 size vellum paper. It appears in the TSR Gamebook, "Darklords".
When I received this assignment I kinda lost my mind. I told the editor, on the phone, that I was sick and tired of getting nothing but these dreadful stories about vampires, ghouls, flesh-eaters, and zombies, to illustrate! Couldn't she just once, send me something like a heroic-fantasy story, or a historical adventure!
Actually, what I really wanted to illustrate were science fiction stories, ala Asimov, Heinlein, Van Vogt, and Simak. Regretfully, I never got to illustrate stories for "Analog Science Fiction," the editors never contacted me and I had no need to contact them since I always had plenty of work to do, especially for "Galaxy".
As I look back over my work now, I see that most of the artwork I did during my career as an illustrator was related to heroic-fantasy and weird tales. But I was pleased about getting the chance to illustrate fantasy stories by Robert E. Howard, Abe Merritt, William Hope Hodgson, and a few other outstanding fantasy authors.
Anyway, TSR did not do science fiction, but they paid so well that I accepted these ugly stories to illustrate. Happily, after I complained, the editor, Peggy Cooper had compassion and switched me to illustrating their fantasy-adventure "Dragonlance" paperback books. And that was a welcome relief!
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