DUKE VS. UNC HARPER COLLINS BOOK COVER ART KILLED
12-14-06 POST RATED: Harper Collins, Will Blythe, Sports Illustrated, ESPN Magazine, Book Cover, Sports Illustration, Duke, UNC, Blue Devils, Tarheels, Cojoart.com, Artsucks.com
The illustration I was commissioned to do for the paperback edition of TO HATE LIKE THIS IS TO BE HAPPY FOREVER : A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivalry by Will Blythe for Harper Collins recently got killed at the end of the rough pencil stage. (I originally wrote about the commission here).
The Harper Collins Art Directors and Editors loved my sketches but unfortunately Will Blythe, the author, had ultimate veto and opted for these Photoshop marvels- click to see at actual size. He spotted them printed in some Esquire and had Harper get the reprint rights. Please note that the layout I put together with my artwork above is just the sketch, the finished cover would be inked and in full eye-catching color.
It would have been nice to have my art on a New York Times Bestseller, bigger and better next time. Harper Collins contacted me about this job, but quite frankly I'm confused as to why I haven't approached large publishers for book cover work in the past. The turnaround time for art deadlines are in months rather than days, it pays much better than monthly periodicals, and the shelf life is much longer.
I got a nice kill fee and as per our contract all the rights to my pencil art reverted to me. If SPORTS ILLUSTRATED or ESPN MAGAZINE, or any other publication wants to commission me to finish either or both of them in color so you can run them either as spots, feature art, feature and complimentary spot art, or editorial header(s) please DROP ME A LINE HERE. For any other book publishers who would like to commission me to create art for your covers you can CONTACT ME HERE, and if DUKE UNIVERSITY would like to commission me to create a line art version of their blue devil mascot, they can also CONTACT ME HERE.
Anyway, here's how it happened. . .The job started with a clear-cut idea by the publishers. They wanted the mascots for the two teams shaking hands and smiling while behind their backs they were actually wielding large weapons ala Mad Magazine's SPY VS. SPY characters. The first step was to research.
Harper had cleared rights with both Duke and the University of North Carolina to use their respective Logos / Mascots in the piece so now I had to find out what they looked like.
Via the web I researched both school's websites / histories / and online libraries. UNC's mascot, the little pissed off Tar heel Ram was easy to find as the school uses his full body line-art on their merchandising.
Duke was much harder. It sounds odd, being that the school is so old and rich in tradition, but the Duke Blue Devil, other than the profile head that sits in the counter (the negative space of the letterform) of the Duke D-see above, has never been drawn full body in line-art form. It was puzzling. I called the school historian and he helped me research this via e-mail. The most recent illustrative rendering is a painted realistic interpretation of the Duke Blue Devil- see above from the cover of some school magazine dated 1984.
SIDENOTE TO DUKE'S ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT,
The merchandising you could do if you wanted me to work up a line art mascot for you. Just float me one student's tuition for the hassle and you will make it back in merchandising in one day with the finished art I could craft for you!
So I was on my own trying to develop a line-art blue devil staying true to the profile and the 1984 painting. I ordered some 1977 SPY Vs. SPY books off of eBay for 11 bucks and they arrived in two days. I worked out the characters in a shaking pose with wood clubs behind their backs for the first rough.
When I sent this art, in the body of the e-mail to the AD (Art Director) I explained that the clubs could be changed to chainsaws, bombs, giant axes or whatever they wanted. They loved the sketch and told me that I would be able to "go to finish" (color and ink) on it when they got approval from the writer.
A few weeks later I got word that Will Blythe doesn't like the SPY Vs. SPY idea and he now wanted just the two guys fighting and have it look more comic book less cartoony. Like Wolverine fighting Sabertooth!
This is a total change of concept but I was willing to bend because the new concept sounded fun to draw. While he was explaning this to me over the phone I scribbled a thumbnail down with a pen.
Within an hour they changed their minds as far as having the mascots fighting. Now it would be actual generic basketball players from the opposing teams staring each other off pissed to hell. Two guys of the same build, hulkingly big. The Duke guy would have the Blue Devil's Trident, while the UNC guy would have an axe.
I knocked out that image and sent it off to the client with a comment that I'm concerned about how to go about coloring these guys considering the UNC guy's features were more ethnic. This is something you have to think about when you do commercial work. I decided to create a new version where the characters would have adapted certain features of their respective team's mascots. I gave the Duke player devil horns, the nose and van dyke beard, as well as the devil tail. I gave the UNC player the ram horns and the little sailor cap and sent this version to the AD.
I explained that the Duke Guy would be colored Blue Devil Blue, while the UNC player will be colored the gray of the Tar heel Ram. I sent them this version and they loved it.
Weeks went by and I contacted them asking if I could go to finish on this yet. This is when I got the news of Will finding the Photoshop pieces and the job getting killed. Shit happens. . . I'm sure I'll work with them again.
BREAKING NEWS: - AUTHOR WILL BLYTHE RESPONDS TO THIS UPDATE:
