FOCUS ON THE FANTASTIC: LORE Artist of the Month M. Wayne Miller
Last Updated on Tuesday, 05 July 2011 17:09 Written by Sean O'Leary Sunday, 03 July 2011 00:32
Artist M. Wayne Miller has been guarding the LORE tomb for these past few months (see his wonderful illustration included at the bottom of our salutatory statement, "Who Goes There?") so we thought, who better to inaugurate our "Artist of the Month" feature? So, in his own words, here's LORE's Mr. July:
I, like anyone feverishly waiting for LORE 2.0 to arrive, am a huge fan of short horror fiction and, like many of you again, love great horror art. When Sean asked me to provide some biographical information to include in the new Artist of the Month series they are implementing on the site (and the first artist to be featured as such!), I could not say yes fast enough. My approach, however, is not going to be a straight bio with a few pics. I will add relevance by tying my history with LORE, because we share much, and it has been a fun ride.
Rod and Sean, who represented LORE, became friends of mine during 1996-98. At the time I was a budding freelance illustrator, and had been publishing interiors in several notable horror publications. Rod contacted me initially, and Sean a little later. I ended up doing seven different illustrations, including one highly successful cover called LoreKeeper (left), for issue #7. I loved that cover, and incidentally, it was lost in the mail sometime after publication (yeah, there was a time when I had no option other than to send small originals for printing. The horrors of the pre-digital age!), so THERE is a mystery with an as yet unresolved ending. My association with LORE ended with my cover illustration for the never published issue #10, which was an illustration that I loved, and ended up using as my homepage illustration on my website for years in the 2000's. I was saddened to lose my association with Rod and Sean before issue #10 made it to print (Note: It never did). Those were hard years, when Deathrealm Magazine and Terminal Frights, both mainstays for my freelance work, folded as well.
Ultimately, as things are wont to do, it worked out for the better, as I moved from b/w interior to full color cover work for some great publications. Nowadays, I am fully digital, and work just as feverishly for an ever expanding batch of great friends in the publishing business. I am one of those lucky artists to have had very few tragedies in the biz, and have burned only a couple of bridges (or more accurately, had them burned by publishers) during my career.
With the arrival of LORE 2.0, I am thrilled to see that the old girl is as alive, or rather, undead as ever, and hope to continue to work with the great guys there. I expect incredible things to come, and wait in eager anticipation with the rest of you!
- M. Wayne Miller
July, 2011
To see more of Wayne's work, please visit his website: www.mwaynemiller.com
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| Gathered Dust, and Others, cover by W.H. Pugmire, Dark Regions Press. |
Blue Devil Island, cover by Stephen Mark Rainey, Marrietta Publishing. |
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| M.I.L.O.'s First Sunrise, personal work based on a podcast story by Mike Resnick. | |
