Thursday, October 06, 2016

Richard Hescox


A  nice little treat for me at CONtraflow Con was getting to meet Richard Hescox, who was the artist guest of honor. Although he has done much wonderful work since, I’ll always associate him with the covers for the Dray Prescot series of Sword and Planet novels published by DAW between about 1972 and 1988. This would include A Sword for Kregen, #20 in the series, my first exposure to the books, and still my favorite. Hescox didn’t do all the covers. There were 37 books published originally in that series in English, which was written by the British author Ken Bulmer. They were definitely an influence on my own Talera series.

I chatted with Mr. Hescox several times and he was charming and friendly, and very knowledgeable about art. I sat in on a panel where he showed images of some amazing fantasy art from around the world that has very seldom been seen. Many of these would make great covers. Check out his webpage to see what he is up to these days.

Here are some more of his covers for the Prescot series: 





11 comments:

  1. Classic Sci-Fi Art!

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  2. Paul, nice guy.

    Cloudia, definitely

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  3. Yu really live and breathe pulp Charles. I can think of worse things.

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  4. Mark, I've known some folks who make me look like a piker on that front.

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  5. How very cool! And though I'm totally diggin' his art, I'm also now kind of interested in Prescott's series. Might have to look around for some of those. :)

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  6. Tom, I like the Prescot series a lot. Good sword and planet fiction. Very wide ranging, emphasis on adventure. I thought the best ones were about 11 through 24, but I did enjoy the early ones too

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  7. These are great, cool, and nifty fifty. Reminds me that one of Frank Frazetta's sons had opened a museum in my home town of East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania dedicated to his father's work but another son tried to bulldoze his way into the museum to steal the artwork and was arrested -- a story in itself, I suppose . . .

    I dig this style of artwork.

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  8. Erik, I heard a bit about that story. I know some folks who know quite a lot about Frazetta. Amazing.

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  9. Charles, those are some fine illustrations and covers, which is always such an incentive to read the book.

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  10. Prashant, I've come to appreciate them more over the years

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