SciFi Art Now book gets green light

By John Freeman on 14 December 2009

ILEX Books have given the green light to SciFi Art Now, a book project assembling outstanding examples of the very best in science fiction art, which is being edited by downthetubes webmaster John Freeman.

John hopes plenty of illustrators from around the world from book, game, comics and other publishing fields will want to have a sample of their work considered for the final book. “We want the book to feature the very best samples from both new and established illustrators,” he says.

Editorially, ILEX, well known for their huge range of art books including Comic Art Now, edited by Dez Skinn and Fantasy Art Now by Martin McKenna, would prefer to see more aliens and human SF visuals — strong, inspiring characters from modern SF — rather than spaceships and alien vistas, although there will be space for those too. It’s worth checking out the Amazon links above to both books as both catalogue entires offer a ‘look inside’ feature which will give you an indication of the kind of standard of work that has been featured in the past.

Samples will be needed by 8th January 2010 if possible.

“ILEX tell me contributors to the other books in the series have secured work as a result of being in the collections,” says John, “which I hope is incentive to artists to get involved.”

• For more information about chapter headings, technical details and other information, get in touch with John via johnfreeman6-scifiartnow@yahoo.co.uk

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John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.