{"id":19267,"date":"2019-08-22T01:02:19","date_gmt":"2019-08-22T00:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=19267"},"modified":"2019-08-22T01:02:19","modified_gmt":"2019-08-22T00:02:19","slug":"the-righteous-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2019\/08\/22\/the-righteous-one\/","title":{"rendered":"The Righteous One"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"righteous.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Another week, another new book cover. Author Neil Perry Gordon<\/a> was in touch earlier this year asking if I could create something for his latest novel set in New York City. Gordon’s previous novels have been historical narratives about the city’s Jewish community; The Righteous One<\/em> (subtitled “A Cobbler’s Journey into the Dreamworld and Beyond”) follows suit but is slightly different in having more of a fantasy theme:<\/p>\n

The Righteous One<\/em> is the story of Moshe the cobbler, a gentle, sixty-year-old tzaddik<\/em>\u2014a righteous and saintly Jew\u2014who is called upon to rekindle his divine connection to the Almighty in order to destroy the notorious New York gangster and rasha<\/em> Solomon Blass, a man who uses his power of foreseeing events via his vivid dreams to advance his own financial interests.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For a guide to the visual content I was given this illustration<\/a> from Camille Flammarion’s L’Atmosph\u00e8re: M\u00e9t\u00e9orologie Populaire<\/em> (1888), a picture whose antiquated appearance has often led it to be taken as a much older engraving. It’s also one of those occult or mystical illustrations you see reproduced in many books about magic or the supernatural without any reference to its origin.<\/p>\n

\"flammarion.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Neil’s request was for his book cover to show a similar barrier between the worlds with his cobbler character being caught between the wake world and the dream world. An engraved style wouldn’t have suited a story set in New York City (even the NYC of the recent past) but I also didn’t want the cover to look like a piece of typical fantasy art filled with Photoshop mists and translucent layers. The final design is modelled on the bolder art styles of Tarot cards, hence the flattened perspective, simplified colouring and distinct outlines. I spent some time researching old New York for this one as I wanted the buildings and street lamps to look accurate. Did you know those old “bishop’s crook” lamps come in a variety of different shapes? I didn’t until working on this.<\/p>\n

The Righteous One<\/em> will be published next month as a Kindle paperback.<\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 Les Terres du Ciel<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another week, another new book cover. Author Neil Perry Gordon was in touch earlier this year asking if I could create something for his latest novel set in New York City. Gordon’s previous novels have been historical narratives about the city’s Jewish community; The Righteous One (subtitled “A Cobbler’s Journey into the Dreamworld and Beyond”) … Continue reading “The Righteous One”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,2,42,51,4,16,23],"tags":[5096,10194,552],"class_list":["post-19267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-art","category-books","category-cities","category-design","category-occult","category-work","tag-camille-flammarion","tag-neil-perry-gordon","tag-tarot"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-50L","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}