FOCUS ON THE FANTASTIC: LORE Artist of the Month M. Wayne Miller

M. Wayne Miller was an especially fitting choice to inaugurate LORE Online’s Artist of the Month series. He was not simply an illustrator whose work suited horror and weird fiction; he was already part of LORE’s own visual history.

The original feature looked backward to Miller’s work with Rod and Sean during the magazine’s 1996–1998 period and forward to the revived “LORE 2.0.” It also presented examples of his book-cover and personal artwork. Those historical gallery files are not reliably available on the restored site today, so this recovery edition does not substitute broken image icons or unrelated modern pictures for Miller’s original art. Instead, it preserves the surviving text and identifies the artworks that accompanied it.

LORE’s First Artist of the Month: M. Wayne Miller

The original feature opened with a short introduction from Sean O’Leary:

M. Wayne Miller in His Own Words

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, 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!

The Artwork Shown in the Original Feature

The archived page is useful not only for Miller’s recollection of LORE but also because it records specific artwork associated with this point in his career. Rather than leaving broken image boxes in the restored article, the original gallery is catalogued below.

From Black-and-White Horror Illustration to Digital Painting

Miller’s own account places his LORE work at an important transition in his career. During the 1990s he was producing black-and-white interior illustrations for horror publications. By 2011 he described himself as fully digital and increasingly focused on full-color cover work.

That development continued well beyond this LORE feature. Later profiles describe his first published illustration as appearing in Deathrealm in 1995 and document a career spanning horror, fantasy and science-fiction illustration. His later work has included book covers, interior illustration and role-playing-game art.

The connection with weird fiction also remained strong. Miller went on to illustrate Lovecraftian projects and work connected with publishers and game companies in the fantastic and horror fields. That later career makes the 2011 LORE article especially interesting: it captures an artist reflecting on his early magazine years while already moving decisively into digital cover illustration.

Why the Missing Art Is Not Being Replaced

A visual feature presents a special problem for archival recovery. The Wayback-era HTML still records filenames and captions even when the image files themselves are no longer dependable. A generic fantasy or horror image may look attractive, but presenting it in place of Miller’s actual work would make the archive less accurate.

For that reason, this restored edition separates two things clearly: Miller’s surviving original text is preserved as historical material, while the missing gallery is documented by title and publication context. If verified copies of the original LORE-hosted images are recovered later, they can be restored to their proper positions without changing the article’s text.

M. Wayne Miller Beyond the 2011 LORE Feature

Miller remained active as an illustrator after this feature appeared. Later professional profiles describe his work across science fiction, fantasy, horror and role-playing games, while publishers and reviewers credit him on projects ranging from Lovecraftian anthologies to game books. His work for Chaosium also included art associated with award-winning role-playing publications.

This later record reinforces why LORE’s choice of Miller as its inaugural Artist of the Month was significant. The article was not simply a portfolio post; it reconnected the revived website to an artist who had helped define the visual identity of the earlier magazine.

LORE Archive Record

Part of the LORE Online Recovery Project — restoring interviews, criticism, art features, reviews and weird-fiction history from earlier incarnations of LORE.