Newsletter July 2025

John Harris – now you see him, now you don't

John's decided to take a short break from the work we all know and love. He sent me a small collection of sketches and then said he wanted to work on a project he's been harbouring for a while.

We're having problems with 'Fine Art America' aka 'pixels.com' who are offering his work on wall art, stationery, puzzles and other nonsense utterly without any authority. We're working on that one but if anyone's ordered work from them please let me know.

And of course, for people who care about authenticity and morals we're still making genuine archival prints to order while John has a break. And the quality of those is superb, as we're often told by people who've just received them.

I'm sure he'll remember to fire up his computer if he must, but most of the time it's in the corner gathering dust. And weirdly there are now internet teachers who will tell you how to produce a John Harris painting . . . digitally. So perhaps he's immortal anyway. . . .

Alexis Deacon illustrates Russell Hoban

Another artist who prefers traditional media is Alexis Deacon who's illustrated two books by Russell Hoban, 'the strangest writer in Britan'. We now have a selection of his original work for Soonchild. This very powerful drawing is of Nanuq, the Ice Bear.

And this is 'No-Face John in the Long White Alone'

As The Guardian suggested, 'you could be reading an Inuit legend, shot full of wryness and wit and with deep insight into human nature. Alexis Deacon's moody pencil illustrations add a haunting counterpoint to the magical realism of the story, and have their own moments of wit.'

You can see these and some of Alexis's other originals here.

It's a Record

You may have heard that the special edition of IT by Stephen King and illustrated by Jim Burns sold out in seven minutes. There were 500 books to sell, and 3000 people wanted one.

The Folio Society are expert at publishing in this way but the speed of this one may have surprised even them. We're hoping they publish a 'core edition' so that more people can see Jim's work so we'll let you know if that happens.

You can see their film about the whole process here.

Jim�s expecting to take some of the original paintings and drawings to Fantasycon in Brighton in November but if you're interested in learning more about them before then, just let me know, or contact Jim. All the images are on Jim's Instagram pages.

And finally

Osmotic Meld: The Hounds of Hell. Just look at this Kickstarter campaign to fund the production of miniatures based on the work of Ian Miller. It's beaten its goal by about eight times which says a lot about the quality of both Ian's original work and the dedication and detail of the work of John Robertson. What a team!

We still have a few prints of Ian's Chaos Warrior 4 image (left) but you'll have to hurry if you want one.

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Newsletter July 2025

John Harris – now you see him, now you don't

Alexis Deacon illustrates Russell Hoban

It's a Record

And finally