Long before J.K. Rowling worked her magic on a boy wizard at a boarding school for neophyte spell casters, the artist Steve Lavis was commissioned to do a series of book covers for a speccy wizard kid centered around a couple of books by noted American fantasy author John Bellairs. Bellairs career had taken off in a new direction, when in 1973 following on from the success of his Tolkien'esque "The Face in the Frost" the second publisher that he approached with a script for an adult fantasy novel suggested he rewrote it for a younger audience. The book titled "The House With a Clock in it's Walls" had been followed by another fourteen young adult fantasy novels of which these are two.
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They still look amazing some twenty years on:
What is it about boy wizards and bins? There's that lad there, and Master Potter of course, and Timothy Hunter in the Books of Magic - I seem to remember he was four-eyed too. It's all that late-night reading by torchlight under the bed clothes, no doubt.
ReplyDeleteTimothy Hunter?
ReplyDeleteSounds like someone else I need to mug up on Dave - many thanks for the pointer!
Hi Guys, great to see my old buddy Steve's work.
ReplyDeleteMike Brownlow put me onto your blog great stuff!
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