{"id":3135,"date":"2008-05-18T01:19:39","date_gmt":"2008-05-18T00:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2008\/05\/18\/the-art-of-ian-miller\/"},"modified":"2022-07-13T19:01:25","modified_gmt":"2022-07-13T18:01:25","slug":"the-art-of-ian-miller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2008\/05\/18\/the-art-of-ian-miller\/","title":{"rendered":"The art of Ian Miller"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ian_miller9.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the Hollywood Gothic series (1984).<\/em><\/p>\n

Jeff VanderMeer<\/a> has a great post about artist\/illustrator Ian Miller at io9<\/a> which prompts me to write a few words about his work myself, something I’ve intended for a while.<\/p>\n

Miller is indelibly linked for me with HP Lovecraft on account of his covers for the Panther Horror editions of the 1970s, the first Lovecraft volumes I bought. His sinister and minutely detailed ink drawings were a big inspiration when I started to draw seriously myself, unsurprisingly when my own drawings possessed a similar quantity of detail and macabre atmosphere. I still think his cover for William Hope Hodgson’s The House on the Borderland<\/em> (below) is one of the most successful anyone has produced for that novel. His Mountains of Madness<\/em> cover, while not being a direct illustration, perfectly encapsulates the feel of much of Lovecraft’s later fiction.<\/p>\n

Jeff’s post has a wide range of work which I’ve avoided duplicating. The items shown here are all scans from my own library. More of Miller’s Lovecraft illustration will appear in the forthcoming Artists Inspired by HP Lovecraft<\/em><\/a> from Centipede Press, along with several pieces by yours truly.<\/p>\n

\"ian_miller4.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The House on the Borderland (1972).<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"ian_miller5.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Haunter of the Dark (1972).<\/em><\/p>\n

This much-abused paperback (scribbled on by my younger brother) looks like it was rescued from the catacombs depicted on the cover. This was the copy I used whilst adapting the Lovecraft comic strips which appear in my own Haunter of the Dark<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"ian_miller1.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1973).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ian_miller2.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At the Mountains of Madness (1974).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ian_miller6.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Beetle Helm (1976).<\/em><\/p>\n

From several works featured in a collection of science fiction and fantasy art, Visions of the Future<\/em>, a repackaging of illustrations from Science Fiction Monthly<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"ian_miller3.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Green Dog Trumpet (1978).<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the later art books produced by Dragon’s Dream before that company became the more commercial (and less adventurous) Paper Tiger. This was a collection of five wordless comic strips by Miller, crammed with inventive scenes and detail. This book and similar strips running in Heavy Metal<\/em> magazine made a big impression on me at the time.<\/p>\n

\"ian_miller8.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Triwag Chronicles from Green Dog Trumpet (1978). <\/em><\/p>\n

\"ian_miller7.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Luck in the Head (1991). <\/em><\/p>\n

Gollancz made a doomed foray into the world of comics in the early Nineties with a series of what they called graphic novels although all the books were only long comic stories with glossy production. The best two of these were A Small Killing<\/em> by Alan Moore & Oscar Zarate and The Luck in the Head<\/em> a collaboration between Ian Miller and M John Harrison<\/a> based on one of Harrison’s peerless Viriconium stories. Miller had illustrated Harrison before and was a perfect choice for this even though Harrison himself insists that Viriconium should only ever be regarded as a world of words, not visuals. I agree with that up to a point, some of the scenes in the book lost their power by being illustrated but Miller does a splendid job at capturing the seediness and decay of Harrison’s Pastel City and its inhabitants.<\/p>\n

For more of Ian Miller’s work in a variety of media, see his website<\/a>. There’s more Panther Horror here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

Update:<\/strong> The Mountains of Madness<\/em> illustration returns on the cover of The Damned Highway<\/em><\/a> (2011), a book from Dark Horse. And there’s also this<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The book covers archive<\/a>
\n\u2022 The fantastic art archive<\/a>
\n\u2022 The illustrators archive<\/a>
\n\u2022 The Lovecraft archive<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Hollywood Gothic series (1984). Jeff VanderMeer has a great post about artist\/illustrator Ian Miller at io9 which prompts me to write a few words about his work myself, something I’ve intended for a while. Miller is indelibly linked for me with HP Lovecraft on account of his covers for the Panther Horror editions … Continue reading “The art of Ian Miller”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,30,42,22,48,26,43,20],"tags":[103,1279,1687,723,142,2291,2232,1951],"class_list":["post-3135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-black-white","category-books","category-horror","category-illustrators","category-lovecraft","category-magazines","category-science-fiction","tag-alan-moore","tag-clark-ashton-smith","tag-hp-lovecraft","tag-ian-miller","tag-jeff-vandermeer","tag-m-john-harrison","tag-viriconium","tag-william-hope-hodgson"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-Oz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3135","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=3135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}