Sunday, May 31, 2015

The Art of TOM ROBERTS (Part 3)


A fine Crippen & Landru cover from 2002. My thanks to Richard (Tip the Wink) Robinson for the scan.


Here's Jo Gar. If this painting has any surprises hidden in the details, I failed to discover them. 


From the Olden Days of Black Dog Books. 2000. 


A more recent Black Dog collection, from 2011, featuring the author of the Doan & Carstairs series (discussed HERE).

Parts 1 and 2 are HERE. Part 4 next Sunday!

2 comments:

Rick Robinson said...

Great series of posts, glad you could use those scans.

Tom Roberts said...

The cover for JO GAR'S CASEBOOK is one of my personal favorite pieces and illustrates a scene from the Jo Gar story, "The Amber Fan." My friend Kevin Chen, who incidentally owns a Chinese restaurant, posed for the part of both characters. His wife, Sue, wrote the classic Chinese characters for me which I transcribed onto the window and the hanging banner. The window, as I recall, reads something to the extent of "Yu Gen's Shop," while the banner, mostly obscured by the book's logo, reads "Good quality, Low Prices."

That is a portrait of my friend Kevin and he proudly displayed a copy of the book on the restaurant's counter for some time afterwards.

Unlike the MARKSMAN cover, there are no hidden gems in this one. Just a lot of pouring through Chinese history and art books from our local library trying to determine what would be for sale in a Chinese curio shop.

The drawing for THE INVISIBLE MASTER does have a small Lovecraft-headed statue on the desk, thrown in just as a little odd item to incite intrigue.

The model for the DEAD MAN'S BRAND cover was my oldest son, Alex, although there was no attempt to make it look like him. He was simply the body holding up the clothes and holding my Winchester.