Gods of Illustration

I first experienced it on a humid morning in late June of 1978.

Walking into the sprawling National Record Mart on Forbes Avenue just off of Market Square in downtown Pittsburgh, I relished the sudden blast of arctic air from the AC vent above. I could feel the sweat instantly drying of my damp skin, cooling me off from the long trek I had just endured from the Southside. As was my customary routine, I made my way to the back of the store where rows of glorious paperback books surrounded a super-sized magazine rack housing Starlog, Cinefastique, Creepy, Mad, and all the other magazines that I could not live without. I glanced over at the paperback rack to my left marked "used", and that is when I saw it.

It was just a small 5 by 7 inch mass market paperback, but what I saw on the cover was larger than life indeed. Underneath the bold red font that read Conan The Adventurer was a cover illustration...a painting...so bold, so primal, so real....I could not stop staring. I needed to possess that book. I needed to feel more of what that cover made me feel.

I needed to somehow become Conan the Barbarian.

The was my first experience of Four Color Crack.
That was my first experience of a Frank Frazetta Conan cover.
That was my first experience with a God of Illustration.

Over the years, I came to know and love the work of so many great illustrators. Through the Muscle Magazines I read, I came to know the master of human form Boris and later his wife Julie Bell. In the 1980's I became mesmerized by the one sheet movie posters of Drew Struzan that lined up the lobby of the local cinema. My addiction to noir and pulp lead me to the bask in the sensual cover paintings of Robert McGinnis, Paul Radar, and Robert Bonfils.

So when I finally was in a position to choose a cover artist for my own books, I knew I needed to find someone who could create that same kind of magic. Some gifted illustrator who possessed the ability to sum up the emotion, the feeling, and even the philosophy of a novel with one stunning image. Someone who could capture the erotic drenched noir of She, and the riveting over the top desperation of Action Figure. And finally, I found that cover artist in Erin Gibson. For both books now possess covers that not only speak of what is inside the pages, but it is artwork that takes on a life of its own as well.

Four Color Crack.

That was the term I heard that best described that feeling I get from a piece of illustration that leaps off the page, or the canvas, or the movie poster, or the book cover.
Artwork that creates emotion and mood.
Artwork that tells a story.
Artwork that somehow seems to jump across the blood brain barrier and infiltrate the cerebral cortex, saturate the pleasure receptors of the frontal lobe, and create an intense feeling of addictive euphoria.

Four Color Crack.