With the American Gods tv show in the works, and more Neil Gaiman stuff always in the hopper, his books are often reprinted. And as this blog post explains, a new edition of American Gods was needed and somehow, the idea of retro cover was discussed and the famed illustrator RobertE. MCGnnis — pretty much king of the 60s paperbackk cover — was enlisted at the age of 90. I’ll let Neil explain the rest as he’s a bit more eloquent than I:
I sent a note to Jennifer asking if there was even the slightest possibility that Mr McGinnis would be interested in painting the covers for the paperback set we wanted to do. He said yes.
I say that so blithely. But he has retired, pretty much, and he doesn’t have email, and it was only because the Morrow art director had worked with him, and he was intrigued by the commission… and ROBERT MCGINNIS SAID YES.
He sent in the first painting, the one for American Gods. It was perfect. Now we needed to make everything that wasn’t the cover feel right.
Todd Klein, the finest letterer in comics, came in to create each book’s logo and to help design it and pick the fonts, to make each book feel like it came from a certain age.
Each painting from McGinnis was better than the one before. Each Logo and layout from Todd Klein was more assured and more accurate. These things are glorious.
So. Cool. Can’t wait to see the rest of the line!
