The digital age is like Christmas, (other festivals are available); if you don’t embrace it you’re thought to be a miserable old *#! So, in much the same way that I appease my family from around the third week in December through to the New Year, I am beginning to join in.
There are dangers for illustration and I worry about loss of quality in the digital delivery of artwork. But there are good things too I find: It’s ironic, perhaps, that desktop publishing and eBooks provide a great way for authors to revive old stories and give another lease of life to books that may have been overlooked (and I’m sure this happens) or long out of print. For all the fuss, the binary system just gives us another way of telling, or should that be ‘selling’ stories.
In recent years I’ve been working more directly with authors. Having worked on several, beautifully written, animal ‘faction’ stories by Sandra Markle, published by Charlesbridge, she asked me to do a cover for her story originally called “The Fledglings” and now more aptly “Soaring like Eagles”. Sandra lives in New Zealand, her agent in California and I in a quiet corner of South East England. I sent a scan of the artwork to online bookstore specifications and Bingo, it was published. A younger generation is saying “Duh!” but I should just point out that I grew up with, and loved, letterpress and vinyl records.
The excellent author, Chris Powling, with whom I have worked several times, has just used a scan of my cover for “The Mustang Machine” to republish the book.
And I have recently obtained the rights for my story “The Beachcomber”… I don’t want to lose publishers, they do so much more than distribute books, but this digital malarkey has potential.
Thanks to Alan for sharing his views on what is an important issue to all illustrators, and highlighted by some fine examples of his work.
