The Dow of Spanton

Really excited this morning to see the latest in SFRevu's new series of interviews with illustrators and editors. This time out, Senior Editor Ernest Lilley, interviews two friends of mine, illustrator Brian W. Dow and Simon Spanton, co-editorial director of Gollancz. Brian has done a number of covers for Pyr and Simon, well, I can't say enough good things about his taste.

Of his art and its inspiration, Brian says: "I always admired how Michael Whelan would put little symbolic touches into his paintings that meant something to him. They might not be immediately accessible to everyone, but they were there anyway. In Genetopia for instance, during my research I found a site that diagrammatically showed DNA code on a bar. I thought it would be kind of cool to have that pattern on Flint's staff. Again, not visible to anyone else but me. The novel, for me, had a very mystical quality to it. There was a calmness about it although there is much strife and turmoil. Ultimately, the mystical calmness won out. "

Of his editorial vision, Simon says: "I publish books that tell stories that excite me for some reason. Sometimes I'm wearing my literary hat and I fall in love with the ability of an author to make individual words fresh in your head, sometimes I'm wearing my commercial hat and the prose never occurs to me as the pages flip by on your way to the next cliff to hang from. Occasionally I get to wear both hats at once and those are the really special ones."

Again, I am just always really gratified by any and all efforts to call attention to the artists in our field, and thrilled to see editor's getting some exposure too. I love this new series from SFRevu and hope that long may it continue.