I always take illustration as more or less professional fanart, because I don't want the pictures to take over the job of the writing. So, favorite illustrators... Alan Lee and Berni Wrightson. Oh and how can I forget Gustave Doré
How can I have forgotten Alan Lee? (Speaking of which... what's with the emus on early covers of Hobbit and Fot R?)
Hail Martin Septim!Oh, the emus, the weird lion...those covers were funny. And they could have been worse.
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Well, in fairness, Randy Waterhouse apparently thought "hobbit" meant "snooty rich person detached from reality"... and the very '60s font up there is totally in line with the nature of the snooty rich people in question...
God, am I grasping at straws. Is this the pirated American version, or what?
edited 27th May '12 8:28:57 AM by DomaDoma
Hail Martin Septim!It could well be the cover for an OFFICIAL version. Ref:Contemptible Covers and so on. I always thought Hobbits were humanoid rabbit things until I saw Ralph Bakshi's cartoon adaptation of LOTR.
Going back more on topic, I like the Blake illustrations for Dahl. More than I like the books themselves, which is sort of odd.

It's gone out of fashion the moment you progress to chapters, sure. Harry Potter is the only recent exception I can think of, and then it's only for Americans. But illustration (done right) is the proper way to suborn the human imagination. Chris Van Allsburg, for instance - he singlehandedly transformed Mark Helprin's A City in Winter from a trippy, weird, forgettable story into a blooming masterpiece. And Sidney Paget, among sundry other accomplishments, is the only thing keeping the Reigate Squires from total ignominy.
On the other hand, I had a serious hatred for Quentin Blake as a child. Couldn't really wrap my head around that sort of stylization; heck, I couldn't even recognize the Foxtrot characters as having faces. In fact, the only Dahl illustrator I did like had this realistic engraving style for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. An early edition, I think; haven't seen the illustrations since I lost track of my childhood copy.
So yeah, this thread is dedicated to illustrators. Because they can be awesome.
Hail Martin Septim!