Saturday, September 11, 2010

Vulcan's Hammer



In the summer of 1979 I did another set of frontispiece illustrations of Philip Dick books, again for Gregg Press. This is one of the set, for PKD's "Vulcan's Hammer." This tale combines artificial intelligences that become sentient, video surveillance, androids, terrorists, killer drones, and a pervading sense of paranoia. All of this is so like our modern world that this book, written in 1960, could have been written yesterday. I hated the book, as I remember. But I did my best to capture the feeling of the text in my pen drawing, including, of course, the obligatory nasty sexy girl. Every PhilKDick book has at least one of these. I had to put a sexy girl in each picture. Nothing has changed. I'd like to put a sexy girl in every one of my pictures, if it brought me more viewers and money. What, you think I do art for the love of it? Sorry, I have to shut up now.

"Vulcan's Hammer," ink on illustration board, 7" x 10", summer 1979.

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