Tuesday, May 17, 2011

The Monitors cover



I did this picture for a book cover published by TOR books in 1984. The book was "The Monitors" by Keith Laumer. In the book, Earth is invaded by an army of identical tall handsome blond men wearing yellow suits, who become the "Monitors" of Earth's life and existence. The story goes downhill from there. It turns out that these guys are all robots, as I remember dimly. The template for the face of the Monitors was a TV news announcer, Jack Williams, who was on WBZ-TV in Boston in those days and incredibly, is still there now. This whole project was not a success and it reminds me how bad I was as a cover artist and how much I should have done differently.

"The Monitors" is acrylic on illustration board, 13" x 22", November 1983.

2 comments:

Tristan Alexander said...

How was it not a sucess? This looks great! It is graphicaly strong, the buildings are near photographic and over all I think it is a good cover!

Pyracantha said...

The art director had seen another painting of mine with stoic figures looking seriously out into space, and wanted that look for my Monitors cover. So I did what the art director asked. But later another art director said he would have asked for much more motion, action, and even weaponry (though the "Monitors" in the book were not armed.) Always obey the art director who is paying you.