Free Online Preview of "Drawing Down the Moon - The Art of Charles Vess" Still Available

Charles Vess, gifted artist of all things fantasy and fairy and close collaborative friend of Neil Gaiman and Charles de Lint, has a new hardcover art book coming in December. And we get to have a free preview! (This hasn't just appeared but I re-checked today and the preview is still available, though it isn't clear how long it will remain so.)

From the illustrated version of "Stardust" by Neil Gaiman

As per the announcement on Mr. Vess' BLOG:

My big, fat art book: Drawing Down the Moon, The Art of Charles Vess has taken a loooooooong while to wind its way from the completion of my initial layouts to actually seeing print this December. And along the way there have been multiple false alarms as to its publication date.

The folks at Dark Horse and I want to apologize for any confusion that these solicitations may have caused.

So, in an effort to make certain that you know that the book will indeed be available this December we are providing you with a sneak preview of the entire 200 pages.

The link to the 200 page free preview is HERE.

Go have a look at all this gorgeous artwork while you can (then order one for yourself - I mean someone else - for Christmas...).

From "A Circle of Cats" by Charles de Lint

Charles Vess Maps "Instructions"

A little while back I posted the announcement that Charles Vess was busy working hard on a illustrated version of Neil Gaiman's poem "Instructions". (You can find that post HERE.) He is now DONE! (40 paintings in two months apparently - I can't wait to see the results.)

Mr. Vess recently posted his illustration for 'mapping' the land which the reader needs 'instructions' to navigate.

To see a larger version, click HERE or on the image and be taken to his site to see it there.

Charles has also posted a few interesting fairy tale maps he's found along the way and I thought I'd do the same.

"The Land of Make Believe" by Jaro Hess. It was created in 1930 and is thought to be one of the first times all the fairy tale 'lands' were put together as if they exist/ed in the same space and time. You can find more interesting information about this map HERE.

The one above is a real map of a tour (it's actually a self-navigated route most of the time unless there's a promotion like the current Disney one) you can take in Germany to sites said to be the inspiration for the local versions of the Grimm's tales. SurLaLune had a brief post about a current Disney version of the tour, which you can find HERE.

I'm surprised there aren't more maps of fairy tales and make believe, available. I'm positive I've seen a map for the whole story of Disney's Snow White (when I was a child - not recently) but I can't find it, or reference to it, anywhere.

Do feel free to post a comment if you have any information, or other maps to share.

Charles Vess Illustrating Gaiman's "Instructions"

We're about to be treated: Charles Vess is busy illustrating Neil Gaiman's "Instructions".

If you're not familiar with the poem, it's what to do if you ever find yourself caught in the middle of a fairy tale - what to do, what not to.

Here's an excerpt:

If an eagle gives you a feather, keep it safe.
Remember: that giants sleep too soundly;
that witches are often betrayed by their appetites;
dragons have one soft spot, somewhere, always;
hearts can be well-hidden,
and you betray them with your tongue.

You can find the whole poem at the Endicott Studio HERE.

Re the image above: Don't forget to count the black birds...

I also found a video of Mr. Gaiman reading his poem, which you can see below:

It's a deceptively simple poem but there's a lot in there and lovers of fairy tales should have a copy somewhere in their collection.

As for the illustrations, Charles Vess has collaborated with Neil Gaiman many times in the past and is the perfect illustrator to render these images. Gaiman is extremely pleased to have Vess on the project, as you can tell by his post HERE, which also has one of the images as a preview.

You can see some examples here in this post but there are quite a few more. Mr. Vess has kindly posted his WIP drawings for some of the panels at his Green Man Press HERE and you can see a couple of others in his friend's blog HERE.Re the image above: Can you recognize the characters and objects in the illustration? There are more than there first appears to be.

I don't think a release date is set yet but it's definitely next year (2010) sometime.