"This day's experience, set in order, none of it left ragged or lying about, all of it gathered in like treasure and finished with, set aside." –Alice Munro, "What is Remembered"
Think furry fetishism is a twenty-first century innovation in sex? Think again…
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
As is usually the case with the fantasy and SF paperback covers that I post, I myself created the above image from my very own copy of James Broom Lynne’s novel.
And lest you think I am nearing the end of my supply of paperbacks with covers by Jeffrey Jones, let me assure you that I have enough for several more posts, at least.
I have complained several times here at RCN about the lack of basic publication and other information about the covers, spot illustrations, and other materials featured in the books that have been published to date about the work of Jeffrey Jones.
Today, however, I am delighted to highlight a book that promises to fill in some of the blanks in our knowledge of Jones’s career and perhaps bring to light a few forgotten gems in Jones’s vast back-catalogue of published work:
[CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE]
Here’s the publisher’s description:
Vanguard follows Frazetta: The Definitive Reference with Jeffrey Jones: The Definitive Reference. Frazetta called Hugo and World Fantasy Award winner, Jones, the greatest living painter. This book catalogues all published Jones work: book covers, National Lampoon, Idyl, comics, The Studio (with Wrightson, Winsdor-Smith and Kaluta), prints, portfolios, and more.
The regular hardcover edition runs 176 pages, the deluxe slip-cased edition is 192 pages and features a 16 page bonus folio section not part of the regular hardcover edition.
With a career as poorly documented as Jones’s has been, the task of compiling a catalogue of all of the artist’s published work must have involved countless hours of scholarly detective work. That being said, however, one doesn’t have to be Nostradamus to predict that an online errata sheet will be posted by someone or other shortly after the book is published. Because the fact is, generally speaking, very few scholarly reference works make it to press without some errors and/or omissions, and even fewer do so when the area of research is an obscure corner of popular culture. But don’t pass up the first edition of Jeffrey Jones: The Definitive Reference in hope that an updated/corrected/perfect edition will appear at some future date. If the first edition is not successful in the first place, an updated/corrected edition won’t even be a possibility.
P.S. Needless to say, Jones fan that I am, I have already pre-ordered the slip-cased edition.
Here’s another “treasure” from the library of yours truly. As far as I am aware, the painting on the cover of Devil Soul has not been reproduced in any form in any collection of the work of Jeffrey Jones published to date. Enjoy!
[CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE]
As you can see, my copy of the novel is truly in excellent condition! It makes me happy just to know it is on my bookshelf. Is this what people mean when they talk about “pride of ownership”?
Earlier this week, I purchased a random selection of nine National Geographic magazines from 1967 and 1969 from a local thrift store. A few days later, as I was flipping through volume 135, number 4, from April 1969, I noticed an image by writer/photographer Malcolm S. Kirk that I knew I’d seen, in part, before. Here’s the comparison:
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
Well would you look at that! When the Kickstarter for Maria Paz Cabardo’s documentary film Better Things: The Life and Choices of Jeffrey Catherine Jones failed to reach its goal — and shame on everyone who didn’t support it — I sent my donation to Maria via PayPal anyway, and then, after a few months in 2011 when the film’s website seemed devoid of all life, I sort of forgot about the whole thing. Well, turns out, I shouldn’t have given up hope, because this morning I finally thought to check on the film’s progress and was pleasantly surprised to discover that the promotional site has been updated with a new design and new content, including comps of three different posters designed by John Pinsky. Take a look. And what’s more, this morning I also stumbled across an old post by Arnie Fenner, who back in March of this year announced on the Muddy Colors blog that the film is complete: “It’s edited. It’s scored. It’s a wrap.”
No word yet if and when DVDs will be available for purchase, but I do hope it’s soon! Because there is not a snowball’s chance in hell that Better Things will ever show in a theatre near me. More’s the pity…
Pinsky designed another, slightly more provocative poster for the film, but it’s only available on the film’s website as a tiny thumbnail at the moment:
I saw the painting Crescent Moon (a.k.a., Moon Nymph) by nineteenth-century Spanish painter and astronomy enthusiast Luis Ricardo Falero for the first time about an hour ago, when I read an article about Falero’s work that Ron Miller wrote for io9 and posted earlier today. And as is my wont, I immediately noticed a possible connection between one of Falero’s paintings and an SF illustration by one of my favourite artists, Jeffrey Jones, the promotion of whose work has been a frequent theme of my posts here at RCN (although not so much lately as it has been in the past):
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
BONUS IMAGE (added 27 December 2013):
There were four books in the “Zanthar” series by Robert Moore Williams — Zanthar of the Many Worlds (1967), Zanthar at the Edge of Never (1968), Zanthar at Moon’s Madness (1968) and Zanthar at Trip’s End (1969) — but as far as I can determine, only the first, third, and fourth volumes had cover art by Jeffrey Jones. I’ve posted two of Jones’s “Zanthar” covers previously on RCN at a smaller size; now here are all three covers, re-scanned where necessary, and displayed in order of publication:
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
I’ve posted some of these covers before, but I recently purchased some copies that, in a couple of instances, and for various reasons (like this, for example), are nicer than the books I scanned previously, so here I am to share with you:
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
Bon appétit!
— THE GOLDEN AGE —
BONUS LINK:
After I posted the above link, the thought occurred to me that many of those illustrations by Jones are exactly the right proportion for bookmarks. So I used Irfanview to quickly assemble a panoramic image of five of the nicest family-friendly images, added some light grey guidelines so I could cut them out with a box cutter and a metal ruler, printed them off at the highest quality on a full sheet of glossy photo paper, carefully sliced along the guidelines, and basked in the glow of my very own Jones bookmarks.
Here’s my file for you to download and print some bookmarks for yourself, too. Give it a try! If you keep your expectations low, and you have a good printer and good photo paper at your disposal, you just might be pleasantly surprised how nice the bookmarks look when you’re done.
From the paperback collection of yours truly, here are two more classic Zebra/Kensington covers, with wrap-around art by Jeffrey Jones:
To view all of the Zebra/Kensington editions of Robert E. Howard’s books with Jones covers that I’ve posted so far, click here.
Ragged Claws Network 
