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.
They still look amazing some twenty years on:
British Library Crime Classics
15 hours ago
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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