Dragonwriter

by Dragonwriter- A Tribute to Anne McCaffrey

  “It’s going to go for a lot of money, what’s my limit?”

  “Just get it.”

  I got it, and it was hung on the door of Mum’s office from that day on.

  It’s both fitting and an honor that Michael agreed to do the cover for this piece. Here Michael has kindly shared sketches and notes on the creation of the many famous covers that helped introduce readers to Pern.

  Picturing Pern

  MICHAEL WHELAN

  IN THE THIRTY-SIX years since I painted The White Dragon, I’ve done more book cover illustrations than I can count. For each book cover commission that was completed, there were anywhere from two to twenty-five concept sketches (or “comps” as they are known in the trade). These are small renderings of potential approaches to a particular cover painting, done for the art department and marketing people at a publisher so they can have a hand in selecting which approach would best serve the sale of the book. Sometimes, too, it would often happen that a book was so engaging that I couldn’t decide on just one scene to single out for the cover. In such cases, I would do several comps and leave the decision up to the publisher and author.

  When I became acquainted with SF conventions and fantasy and science fiction fandom, I was gratified to learn that there were collectors eager to own some of these preliminary pieces when they were available, and so most of my old comps have disappeared into private collections. Also, in the early years of my career, I neglected to document many of them, so my personal archive of these preliminary works is regretfully less complete than I would like. Still, I did manage to photograph or scan enough of them to provide a peek into the alternative ideas behind my works for Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novels.

  My approach to creating concept sketches has always been dictated by my subjective feelings about the book they were concerned with. Since I believe that the arrangement of lights and darks is the most important part of an image, and that the color scheme is the most malleable part of a painting, the majority of my comps over the years have been in monochrome—that is, either in black and white or limited color, sometimes with a suggestion of the warmer and cooler colors I thought might work well for the final image. However, on many occasions the colors were there in my mind when the idea for an image came to me; in such cases, I would go ahead and do the comps in color.

  The preliminary works shown here are culled from six of the Pern cover art projects I worked on. All of these were painted in acrylic.

  It was like winning an illustrator’s lottery to have the opportunity to contribute to such important and popular books, books that were both a joy to work with and which inspired some of my most popular cover paintings. Anne’s generous and steadfast enthusiasm for my work throughout the years is something I will always treasure and feel grateful for.

  Pern Cover Concept Sketches

  THE WHITE DRAGON

  My introduction to the world of Pern came with The White Dragon. When I was asked to take on the assignment, I was unfamiliar with the books, so some catch-up was involved. As legions of McCaffrey fans will attest, that was no hardship!

  After thoroughly reading The White Dragon, my primary concern was to come up with an exciting design that worked for the whole book, not just the front cover. The easiest way to do this, I felt, was to wrap some drawing paper around an actual book and draw the design directly onto the mock cover. This is just what I did, using pen and ink to sketch in the shapes. Later I added some loose color notes as accents to give the people at Del Rey Books an idea of where I intended to go with it. After the publisher okayed the idea, I was off and running on the actual painting.

  What you see here is a scan of that original piece of drawing paper I folded around the book.

  MORETA, DRAGONLADY OF PERN

  Pleased with the success of The White Dragon, Del Rey subsequently commissioned me to do cover paintings for more Pern novels: Dragonflight, Dragonquest, and other books through the years as Ms. McCaffrey wrote them and as I was available. Each of these assignments had its peculiarities and problems.

  For example, a month and a half before beginning work on a painting for Moreta, Dragonlady of Pern (1983), I had broken my painting hand in my karate class. When I went to the emergency room I kept hold of a pencil so they could build the cast so that my hand and arm were in a position that would allow me to continue working as soon as possible. Two other commissions and these concept sketches, all painted in acrylics, were done while I was burdened with that cast; it was something of a trial of patience getting through the work. Fortunately, when it was time to begin the painting for Moreta, I had healed enough to permit removal of the cast. The joy I felt in my newfound freedom of movement is what inspired the sweep of intense color in the sky seen in the final cover painting.

  DRAGONSDAWN

  Dragonsdawn was special for its emphasis on the fire-lizards of Pern, and I welcomed the chance to paint them in a cover illustration. The actual cover painting went well enough until the last few days, when I found I was having great difficulty visualizing the look of the water at the foot of the painting. Before I could finish it, I had to leave on a prearranged family vacation to the United Kingdom. While touring Wales, we visited Three Cliffs Bay, and I took the opportunity afforded by the spectacular location to walk a bit into the surf and look back toward the beach. I could see then where I had gone wrong in my painting at home. I looked long at the scene and tried my best to memorize it; when I got home, I was able to complete it in short order and send it to the publisher.

  RENEGADES OF PERN

  My cover painting for Renegades of Pern was slated to be the last one I could reliably deliver before the anticipated birth of my son, Adrian. It was going badly when, a week before his due date, I admitted defeat and started over on a new painting. Day after day, I labored to get the work done before the baby arrived and my time would be lost. But he was considerate enough to wait a few extra days, allowing me time to finish; I delivered it a mere day before Adrian himself was. A close one!

  ALL THE WEYRS OF PERN

  Due to a scheduling conflict, I had to begin work on the cover to All the Weyrs of Pern before Anne could finish writing the first draft of the book. Judy-Lynn del Rey had told me that I didn’t need to read the book to do this cover anyway, since Anne had a specific scene in mind for me to paint. Anne phoned me to describe the scene in detail while I took notes. As we were talking, I ended up telling her about a dream I’d had the night before of a scene with several dragons atop eroded peaks in a huge crater valley filled with dense fog. Her response was enthusiastic: She said, “Let’s do that one!” We agreed in the end that it would be best if I simply did comps of each of our ideas, and then she and Judy-Lynn could take their pick. As it happened, they chose my dream idea!

  I would have been happy to paint any of the concepts floating around for this book, but it was an added treat to not only see the idea I dreamed about come to fruition, but also to have Anne write it into the book.

  The first two sketches here I made from the description Anne gave me over the phone that day. When Smart Pop approached me about doing a painting, I thought of those sketches. It felt fitting that we use an idea of Anne’s for a tribute to her and Pern . . . and those sketches became the basis for this book’s cover.

  THE GIRL WHO HEARD DRAGONS

  With The Girl Who Heard Dragons I was most concerned with featuring the heroine of the story front and center. Though I usually try to avoid having characters face away from the viewer, the selected scene did just that. To compensate, I strove to make her pose as expressive as possible. Though I asked our secretary, Heather, to pose for my preliminary sketches, the figure in the comp that was chosen for the book cover was made up. I brushed in a full-size study of the figure on acetate and used that as my “model” while I did the full-size painting.

  Since 1976, MICHAEL WHELAN has been one of the world’s premier fantasy and science fiction artists, the first living artist to be inducted into the Science Ficti
on and Fantasy Hall of Fame. He currently devotes most of his time to his gallery paintings, but during his career he has created more than 350 book and album covers for authors and artists like Isaac Asimov, Anne McCaffrey, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen King, the Jacksons, Sepultura, and Meat Loaf. His clients have included every major U.S. book publisher, in addition to such diverse companies as National Geographic, CBS Records, and the Franklin Mint. Recent book covers seen on the top of the bestseller lists include Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time novel A Memory of Light and Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings.

  Alec Johnson is Anne McCaffrey’s eldest son. There were times when Alec was also the person who put food on her table, back in the dark days before The White Dragon became a best-seller and we started eating pancakes for dinner because we could.

  Since the summer of 2011, when she had to pass on Dragon*Con because of another mini-stroke, Mum was worried that she would pass on before she got “to see my two sons again.” She was looking forward to having Alec over for Thanksgiving; I would arrive the week before Christmas so as to spread out the holiday cheer.

  She passed away while Alec was still clearing customs. He flew to Ireland expecting his mother and found a funeral. Even so, he rose to the occasion and wrote a memorial for her, which he delivered eloquently at the service.

  Here now he writes just as eloquently of the legacy he received from his mother.

  Red Star Rising

  ALEC JOHNSON

  ONE OF MY earliest memories of family life with my mother was a time when we were gathered around the television watching The Wizard of Oz. Mom loved it as much as we did, and I’ve lost count of the number of times we watched it together. I’m reminded of this because of the Tin Man and what the Wizard told him about the heart he longed to possess: “A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.” By this measure there is no limit to my mother’s heart.

  I’m so proud that my mother led her life in such a manner as to have earned the admiration of so many, and it is altogether fitting that she be remembered in written tributes, including many gathered in these pages. As her eldest son, the privilege of writing and delivering her eulogy was given to me. She deserved nothing less than my very best effort, and that is what I confidently delivered that fair day in November. Yet as important as it was for me to rise to the occasion, I’ve come to realize since that the most fitting tribute I can pay Anne McCaffrey is the manner in which I lead my life, while honoring, through use, the many gifts I received from and through her. I’ve been a progressive activist my whole adult life in large part because of her influence. And never for a moment did I fail to enjoy her full support for my efforts. Let me elaborate.

  Like many of my mother’s admirers, I’m a big fan of Dragonriders of Pern. The courage, resolve, and dedication of the dragonriders inspired more than admiration. They inspired emulation, and I’m sure this had an influence on my future activism. I was also impressed by the example of Lessa’s strength and wisdom, along with that of the many other strong women who sprung from my mother’s remarkable imagination. The world I hoped to live in embraced strong people regardless of gender. My feminism, like the rest of my activism, has deep roots.

  When I first read Dragonflight many years ago, I’m sure I never thought I’d find parallels between Pern and life on Earth, but today I do. When F’lar first saw the Red Star rising in the sky, he fully understood the threat it signified—an existential threat to all life on Pern. Here on Earth there is no Red Star rising to warn us about the tremendous danger we’re beginning to face. Global warming1 is real, happening now, and every bit as much a threat, this century, as Thread falling through Pern’s skies in the world of my mother’s imagining. And here on Earth, just as on Pern, there are many who refuse to recognize the threat, choosing to ignore it at their peril. Unlike Pern, however, humanity here is beset by the largest corporate players on Earth, the fossil fuel industry2 that works its colossal betrayal through many of the largest governments on Earth. It’s almost more than a bronze rider can cope with. Almost.

  I was a teenager when I first read Dragonflight, and like many I longed to be a dragonrider myself. I recall asking Mom what kind of a rider she imagined I was, and she told me I rode a brown dragon. Knowing that the biggest dragons ridden by men were bronze, I requested and received an upgrade. And more than once during a demonstration or a direct action I’ve wished I could summon such a giant friend. Yet I recall reading somewhere that in China’s distant past the dragon symbolized the people in their power. And a dragon of this kind I’ve witnessed many times, first when I was sixteen.

  It was 1968, and I had traveled to Washington, DC, to participate in what remains the largest political demonstration I’ve ever witnessed, an anti-Vietnam war rally that reportedly had somewhere between 400,000 and 700,000 people attending. I recall stepping off from the Lincoln Memorial walking toward the Washington Monument. The path before me was filled with people all the way to the monument. When I arrived at it, I turned to see where I had come through, and the entire space had filled again with people. I’d never seen so many people in one place before in my life. It was an experience both electric and awesome. And while this went far toward propelling me on the path I’ve been on ever since, the real turning point came the following year and had much to do with Anne McCaffrey.

  In the 1960s we lived on the North Shore of Long Island, and I attended North Shore High School in Glenwood Landing, New York; drawing on the local accent, many students referred to it as “Nausea High.” In my senior year the school district was horrified when heroin was found on our high school campus. Our district was lily-white and quite middle to upper-middle class economically. Many regarded heroin as something that only happened in dangerous places like New York City, and a good deal of panic ensued. The school board invited students to share our concerns about this unexpected problem. What we delivered to the school board was equally unexpected, surprising them and the entire school district. And it wouldn’t have happened without Anne McCaffrey’s help.

  Before I continue with this story, it’s important to recall the context we were contending with at the time and the profound influence it had on my generation. It was the end of the ’60s, and many of us were steeped in the youth counterculture. The Vietnam War cast a very long shadow over my entire experience in high school. From the time I was fifteen, high school felt like a conveyor belt that was going to deliver me to an early grave in a distant jungle. Every week the news relayed the body counts of our troop losses and estimated “enemy” casualties as if it were some kind of macabre sporting event. And then there was the civil rights movement. I had grown up being assured that I lived in the greatest nation on Earth, especially loved by God because we were the “home of the brave and the land of the free.” Watching pictures of African-American school children being fire-hosed by white southern sheriffs sorted poorly with this gilded view. I was inspired by leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. I admired the bravery of the Freedom Riders, Students for a Democratic Society, and the Black Panthers. And I wasn’t alone. A whole cadre of students at Nausea High shared my views, and together we responded to the school board’s request for comment on the heroin crisis with more than a dozen pages of political and cultural critique that ranged far beyond the crisis in question to the larger issue of the strange and alienating world we were asked to take our place in. This document came to be known as the “Green Manifesto” (GM).

  Although I was not one of the authors of that document, I can certainly lay claim to being one of its publishers and a most ardent distributor throughout the school district. More than forty years have transpired since the GM was published, and I cannot remember precisely what its pages contained. I’m sure it included much about the war, concerns about civil rights, and many concerns widely shared by the counterculture we all identified with. The reference to “green” had nothing to do with environmental considerations and everything to do
with the fact that the paper it was printed on was green. Ten thousand copies were printed and distributed throughout the district, and it was a tremendous experience for all the students involved, all the more so when we beheld the collective jaw-dropping reaction of the school board and the firestorm of concern it inspired among parents in the district. It was an extraordinary introduction to the power of activism and democracy in action. It set my feet firmly on the path of a lifetime of activism (some of which I’ll share presently). And the fact that it was printed at all was because I was the son of Anne McCaffrey.

  The reason we were able to produce and distribute so many copies of the GM was because of a fringe benefit Anne McCaffrey enjoyed as secretary-treasurer of the Science Fiction Writers Association (SFWA). Mom printed their newsletter and somewhere along the line had acquired a Gestetner mimeograph machine for that purpose. We were overjoyed and more than a bit surprised when Mom not only agreed to help us print the GM but also proceeded to buy many cartons of green paper for the purpose. I can’t remember how many days it took us to print and collate all those copies, but it was a labor of love, the fruits of which just got better and better.

  In hindsight, my mother’s support for our activism wasn’t all that surprising. She always encouraged the young adults in her life, whether they were her offspring or not. Wherever we lived, our house quickly became a sanctuary for teens, who flowered in the environment my mother created so naturally. I should mention that she wasn’t that great with very young children, and my early years were a trial for us both, but from the time I was about fourteen, and for the rest of my life, I could always confide in her, trust her, and be confident in her belief in me. And I never doubted her love was absolute and unconditional, a gift I enjoy even now that she’s passed away.