Image from new novel

One of the problems with print literature is the cost barrier with doing full-color interior spreads; books are often 3 to 4 times more expensive to publish in full color. In compositing an image for The Apocryphon of Oxtan Imlay, which is a story in a new forthcoming book, I collaged images from 1860s Civil War-era newspapers, as well as an illustration from a Quaker magazine circa 1910, a cactus from a Mexican cigar box, and my favorite sun image, which I had originally scanned in wayway back wen I was in Canada, consulting for CIBC on long winter weekends. A red wash made the images striking, but unusable in the interior of a black and white spread, so I post the full color image here.I was inspired by a recent Kara Walker exhibit in Paris, and her black-and-white style of illustration and collage really contributed at a meaningful time to an evolution of style I had been making in illustration. This upcoming book hilights the new style of illustration, but this particular illustration is a throwback to The Dreambook of Skyler Dread. Which — yes — is still unpublished. Being by necessity a full-color book, and the Oscura Press being by dint of its present circumstances unable to justify the cost of publishing of a full-color book, this book will have to wait for a while….