John Picacio’s much anticipated 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire calendar hits North American stores today and we have a sneak preview directly from the source! Picacio worked on this calendar for a year creating twelve gorgeous images of George R.R. Martin’s detailed fantasy world. The calendar from Bantam presents Picacio’s [Read it all...]]]>

John Picacio’s much anticipated 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire calendar hits North American stores today and we have a sneak preview directly from the source! Picacio worked on this calendar for a year creating twelve gorgeous images of George R.R. Martin’s detailed fantasy world. The calendar from Bantam presents Picacio’s view of the the characters and events in the books with his own interpretation, differing in varying degrees from that seen in HBO’s Game of Thrones series. Different, and awesome! Granted, we’re biased because we know John and love his work. And we’ve totally imbibed the GRRM kool-aid. But that doesn’t take away from this stunning portfolio of memorable images.

You will find many of your favorite characters depicted including Jon Snow, Ned Stark, Tyrion Lanister, Jaime Lanister, Arya Stark, Sansa Stark and the Hound; but Picacio also shows some of the second tier players like Gregor Clegane, the Red Viper and Melisandre. This calendar is the perfect way to rest your eyes when taking a break from long passages of GRRM’s new A Dance with Dragons.

John Picacio has posted all twelve images on his blog, but you’ll still want to get the calendar and see all the detail in these images. And if you will be attending San Diego Comic Con, Picacio will be appearing with George R.R. Martin at AA21 from 3p-5p on Friday. He will also have calendars available at his booth (#4600) all weekend and Random House (booth #1515) will have them as well. All ASoIaF and Game of Thrones fans should stop by and visit.

On his blog, Picacio has this to say about his work and his time in Westeros:

All of my artworks in this calendar are a hybrid of traditional pencil drawing and traditional paint, digitally composited together. I love drawing with pencils on a piece of good Strathmore illustration board. Working up those original underdrawings, through the buildups of color, and on to the final layerings, was a labor of love.

I lived in Westeros for many months while doing this work. It was one of the greatest trips of my life, to date. I learned a lot. I would return again in a heartbeat. Thanks to the family members and friends who were my reference models and helped me channel my visions into better drawings and paintings.

John Picacio's 'The Others'

We’ve got more…after the jump…

John Snow & Ghost

Bran Stark

Looking for more? Picacio discusses each image in greater detail on his blog so head over to John Picacio’s blog for the full collection! You can also read a sweet and timely interview with John Picacio on SF Signal. And let us know what you think and which one is your favorite.

John Picacio's cover for Elric: Swords and Roses.

Vincent Villafranca's Dogs of War.

San Antonio resident Picacio, a book illustrator and member of the Missions Unknown editorial staff, was nominated for Best Paperback Illustration [Read it all...]]]>

John Picacio's cover for Elric: Swords and Roses.

Vincent Villafranca's Dogs of War.

San Antonio resident Picacio, a book illustrator and member of the Missions Unknown editorial staff, was nominated for Best Paperback Illustration for the cover of Elric: Swords and Roses by Michael Moorcock (Del Rey), Best Hardcover Illustration for the cover of The Waters Rising by Sheri S. Tepper (Harper Voyager) and Best Interior Illustration for Elric: Swords and Roses.

Sculptor Villafranca, a onetime San Antonio and Del Rio resident, was nominated for Best Three-Dimensional Work for his bronze Dogs of War. He now lives in the North Texas town of Hays.

Picacio and Villafranca have each won three previous Chesley Awards.

The Chesleys, given yearly by the Association of Science Fiction & Fantasy Artists, recognize individual works and achievements in visual arts not otherwise recognized by the Hugo Awards. They’re typically awarded at the World Science Fiction Convention, and this year’s WorldCon is scheduled for Aug. 17-21 in Reno, Nevada.

The award is named for famed astronomical artist Chesley Bonestell.

A complete list of the 2011 Chesley nominees is available here.

Lauren Beukes’ ZOO CITY is one of the most buzzworthy and acclaimed novels of 2010. This week, it finally releases as a mass market paperback in North American bookstores. ZOO CITY is a hardboiled urban fantasy thriller [Read it all...]]]>

Cover art by John Picacio for Lauren Beukes' ZOO CITY (North American edition / Angry Robot Books)

Lauren Beukes’ ZOO CITY is one of the most buzzworthy and acclaimed novels of 2010. This week, it finally releases as a mass market paperback in North American bookstores. ZOO CITY is a hardboiled urban fantasy thriller set in a re-imagined Johannesburg. Beukes says, “It’s the story of a girl with a sloth on her back, a dirty 419 habit and the magical ability to find lost things who gets drawn into a case to find a missing pop star.” Indeed, Beukes is from SA — not the SA that most readers of this blog know all too well, but in fact, South Africa.

“In ZOO CITY we have an unfamiliar land full of familiars, a broken Johannesburg of the near future peopled with damaged wonders. Proving her debut novel was no fluke, she writes better than I wish I could on my best day. If our words are bullets, Lauren Beukes is a marksman in a world of drunken machine-gunners, firing her ideas and images into us with a sly and deadly accuracy, wasting nothing, never missing. I’ll follow her career as long as she’s willing to write and I’m able to read,” says Bill Willingham, creator of DC/Vertigo’s FABLES.

SFX Magazine gave the book a 5-star review saying it’s “an energetic and imaginative fusion of sci-fi, fantasy and noir thriller. Beukes has created a convincing and frequently disturbing world, while also looking at the lost and the marginalised through the eyes of a compelling, believably flawed protagonist… ZOO CITY is an absolute must for anyone with a taste for the wilder edges of the genre.”

San Antonio’s John Picacio illustrated the North American cover. He adds, “I was given a solid brief from Angry Robot Books that described what they wanted on the cover. They wanted three main characters, and their pets, to be the focus, and offered a fairly specific way to handle it. I saw the cover a different way that included all of the elements (main characters, pets, setting, mood, attitude). They were terrific and said ‘go for it!’ In light of the ‘racefail‘ cover choices that we’ve seen on some recent sf/f titles, I’m proud that Lauren and Angry Robot vigorously embraced the accurate depiction of race and gender. We were on the same page there from the start. Unfortunately, I think there are still certain marketing and sales forces within publishing that think covers featuring non-white characters, and especially non-white female characters, are a kiss of death for sales. I believe that’s a myth, and a nasty one at that, and I look forward to US readers discovering this book and buzzing about what a brilliant story Lauren has crafted. I’d love for covers like the US edition of ZOO CITY to set a precedent in the other direction, and help change the culture of how those forces look at race, gender and cover art. You’d think we’d be beyond this in the 21st century, but there’s still work to do.”

Visit Angry Robot Books’ site for more on ZOO CITY.

Michael Moorcock’s ELRIC: SWORDS AND ROSES arrives in bookstores today. It’s the sixth and concluding book in Ballantine/Del Rey’s definitive Elric omnibus series. San Antonio’s John Picacio illustrated the cover and interior illustrations for this volume. It’s the third cover [Read it all...]]]>

Cover art by John Picacio for Michael Moorcock's ELRIC: SWORDS AND ROSES (Del Rey)

Michael Moorcock’s ELRIC: SWORDS AND ROSES arrives in bookstores today. It’s the sixth and concluding book in Ballantine/Del Rey’s definitive Elric omnibus series. San Antonio’s John Picacio illustrated the cover and interior illustrations for this volume. It’s the third cover he provided for the six-book series, and he joins Michael Kaluta, Justin Sweet and Steve Ellis as the four artists commissioned to create brand-new art for it. For Elric fans who own past editions, the new ones contain loads of bonus goodies and appendices. For readers who are new to the character and Moorcock’s Multiverse, these provide the perfect set to enjoy all of Elric’s adventures at a very reasonable price. SWORDS AND ROSES also contains a terrific, updated readers’ guide courtesy of John Davey which will be indispensable for readers new and old, as well as diehard collectors.

Visit Suvudu — the official website of the Random House publishing family — where they’ve posted an exclusive preview by John Picacio, discussing the new Elric art, along with sneak peeks of a few of the interior artworks.

The first holiday that really bowled me over was in the first issue of INFINITY back in November 1955. “The Star” by Arthur C. Clarke. I was just a kid, and I’d certainly never thought of anything like Clarke came up with. Not exactly the kind of Christmas story that would [Read it all...]]]> Bill Crider – Author

The first holiday that really bowled me over was in the first issue of INFINITY back in November 1955. “The Star” by Arthur C. Clarke. I was just a kid, and I’d certainly never thought of anything like Clarke came up with. Not exactly the kind of Christmas story that would make a lot of people happy. No holly jolly Christmas here, but it’s a story I’ve never forgotten.

Paul Vaughn – Ding.us Design

My most memorable SF holiday experience is perhaps one of the most infamous as well. The Star Wars Holiday Special was so bad it was shown only once, in 1978 at the height of the original wave of Star Wars mania. The plot revolves around Chewbacca and Han Solo attempting to return to the wookie’s home planet Kashyyk for the Life Day celebration. But this is simply a framing sequence to string together musical numbers that don’t quite work. This special was the first Star Wars spin-off and kids around the world eagerly awaited it. Even though it introduced the popular Boba Fett character, the show fell flat. This show is had to find, with Star Wars fans trading bootleg copies since it originally aired.

Ross Ruediger – The Rued Morgue

It’s nigh impossible to choose just one scene or piece of pop culture related to Christmas that’s my all-time favorite, so instead I’ll settle on one that I really, really adore, as well as one that’s fresh in my memory…thanks to my wife picking up the Blu-ray this afternoon. There was a time – in my teens and early 20s – when “Gremlins” was my holiday movie. Then in my jaded mid-20s, “The Ref” came out and all that changed. Then I got even older (like you do), and maybe a little less jaded, and “Love Actually” became my holiday standard…but that doesn’t quite fit in here at Missions Unknown. “Gremlins” most certainly does. Before tonight, it’d been about eight years since I last saw “Gremlins,” and I’d forgotten what a wonderfully twisted film it is. Scene after iconic scene has been burned into my memory, and tonight’s viewing was a jolt to the funny bone, and I cackled all the way through it.

My favorite scene in the film does not directly involve the Gremlins. Instead it’s the one where – in the middle of all the mayhem – the movie takes time out so that Kate (Phoebe Cates) can explain to Billy (Zach Galligan) exactly why she hates Christmas and how she came to learn that there was no Santa Claus. If by some chance you’ve not seen the film, I won’t spoil it for you, but the scene takes an already dark movie and shifts it into even darker, character-driven territory. “Gremlins” was rated PG when it came out, and it’s credited as being one of two movies (the other was “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”) that influenced the MPAA to create the PG-13 rating. Watching it tonight, my teenage son was aghast that it wasn’t rated R. So, there you go. But ratings aside, what struck me most about tonight’s viewing was all of the wonderful puppetry, and that if this movie were made today, how the Gremlins and Mogwai would most certainly be created via CGI, and how thoroughly “unmagical” such a movie would seem. It’s surprising – in this day and age of mining classic franchises for quick profit – that the concept hasn’t been pillaged yet for sequel or remake purposes. Let’s hope it stays that way.

John Picacio – Illustrator

Alex Ross / Art for limited edition JLA Christmas Plate (DC Comics)

I’m not sure this is my favorite Christmas image ever from sf/f and genre, but for whatever strange reason, it’s the first one that came to mind. The artist is Alex Ross and this yuletide image of DC Comics’ Justice League was commissioned for a limited-edition collectors’ plate. I dig the storytelling that’s packed into this group shot. As a lifelong Batman fan, what’s more perfect than Batman resisting the festivities while everyone parties? Christmas is a time for family and he doesn’t have one, and therefore he won’t go there. So perfect. It’s made even better by Superman reaching out to him in futility. Anyone have any idea what’s bugging Aquaman? I can’t figure that one out. Is he pissed that Black Canary’s homemade stuffing has oysters? Maybe he’s angry at that big blue traditionalist Superman for insisting on a real tree, instead of a more earth-friendly recyclable one? And what’s up with Plastic Man and Green Lantern, and the two-handed shoulder massage in the corner? Hmmmm. Questions. I don’t have answers. What a great composition though, isn’t it? This image pushes all of the right nostalgic buttons for me, during a season that’s all about making nostalgia. Happy Holidays, everyone, and all the best to you for 2011.

Pete Barnstrom – Left Food Red Productions

You can keep your George Baileys and your Hermey the Dentists, and even your Jack Skellingtons.  The holiday film I return to year after year is “Two Front Teeth.” Written and directed by Jamie Nash (who writes all of the Blair Witch team’s new movies), this twisted little vision of bloody gumdrops reveals the truth behind the creepy old guy who likes to watch you when you’re sleeping and slips down your chimney at night.  Replete with kung fu elves and zombie reindeer, and all the sick humor you can cram onto your Christmas list, “Two Front Teeth” will have you moving your furniture in front of the fireplace and arming yourself with sharpened candy canes.  Keep young eyes away, unless you want to scar them for life!

Sanford Allen – Author and Musician

About a week ago, my wife and I queued up the 1974 holiday shocker “Black Christmas,” and it was blast. We’d both forgotten just how innovative and creepy a film it is. We had fun counting the elements that went on to become slasher-flick conventions — from the killer’s point-of-view shots (“Friday the 13th,” et al.) to the vicious prank calls (the “Scream” movies). Not to mention, the nasty and ambiguous shock ending was a perfect antidote to the pat, predictable conclusions of most contemporary U.S. horror films. Of course, there was also the delicious irony that director Bob Clark went on to make the perennial yuletide favorite “A Christmas Story” (yes, the one with the Red Rider BB gun).

UK-based ImagineFX is one of the preeminent sf/fantasy art magazines on the planet right now, and the Christmas issue, #64, is currently on sale across the US, including San Antonio bookstores.

Why should SA sf/f fans care about [Read it all...]]]>

ImagineFX #64 is packed with sf/f art goodness, including an interview with San Antonio's John Picacio.

UK-based ImagineFX is one of the preeminent sf/fantasy art magazines on the planet right now, and the Christmas issue, #64, is currently on sale across the US, including San Antonio bookstores.

Why should SA sf/f fans care about this one? It features one of the best interviews yet with SA’s own John Picacio, along with lots of full-color art and tips. Here’s a look at the first two pages of the feature. And here are highlights of the rest of the issue.

For anyone who has ever played Dungeons and Dragons, this issue is a must, as it chronicles the history of Dungeons & Dragons art. Magic The Gathering lovers will appreciate the step-by-step process of the making of a piece of Magic card art. There’s also a free 2011 calendar and workshop DVD inside.

When you browse the newsstand, look for the plastic polybag with the big red stripe at the top that says “FREE CALENDAR & DVD”. It costs $15.99, which is a bit pricey, but remember this is a UK import, and unlike most mags, you get a lot of value and inspiration for your money. If you love sf/f art, comics, or game art, or know someone who does, this mag is a perfect Xmas gift or stocking stuffer.

Cover illustration by John Picacio for Robert Silverberg's forthcoming TIMES THREE (Subterranean Press). Available April 2011.