I know the trend for internal art in anthologies has faded away due to keeping costs down for the anthologies. The RainFurrest anthology asks for donations (much like the story submissions are donations) either in the form of a personal artist willing to do art for your story or artists they know who would be willing to draw for the anthology. What I’m wondering is how people feel about an anthology offering to include art for an accepted story? In the sense that the anthology will not pay for it, but if the author has commissioned art for their story, it could be included.
I think for anthologies to include story specific art, then all stories should have art, and all art by the same artist. For one story to have art and another to not that could be seen as editor/publisher favoring/endorsing one story over another even if the writer paid for the art. So I don’t think it’s too economical unless the publisher has an artist on retainer. I prefer seeing anthologies as a unified selection of stories.
I’d like to point out that, in addition to Camio’s points, you also run the risk of an author not securing proper rights to the artwork. If that author gets a commission, odds are they aren’t also getting a contract from that artist saying that the publisher will have rights to sell a product with that artwork in it.
I will then provide the counter-argument of The Furry Future which has what seems like random internal art for a story or two. Though I don’t know the details behind it.
I supplied my own art for Rain Furrest. It wasn’t great art, but it was at least a scene from my story.
I offered to sign a release waiver that YES it was my art and that could publish it but they were like that’s OK.
So… not sure if they are just easy going or if maybe that they aren’t using my art.
I do like art when it’s from the story. I don’t like it so much when its clip art. Like a natural lion under a tree when the story’s about a bipedal lion trying to change a car tyre in the rain… would just NOT be with the trouble, IMHO
I would not suggest using the Rainfurrest anthologies as a role model for how to handle contracts.
It was nice art but it did seem a bit weird to have it there. I feel the aim of an anthology is to present a unified whole, and having disparate art in different styles can make the work feel disjointed. Allowing authors to supply their own art is taking control of the design out of the editor’s hands and spreading it around a bunch of people who aren’t communicating with each other and don’t have a feel for the work as a whole, which might not be a great idea.
Heat showcases different artists along with different authors, but the publication has more of a magazine feel and format, and the art is an integral part of it, selected by the editors. Hot Dish, from the same publisher, with its longer stories, went for a consistent format of a full-page image by the same artist facing the first page of each story.
As editor of “The Furry Future”, I can reply. The book was not going to be illustrated at all, but Dave Hopkins said that he wanted Roz Gibson to illustrate his story, and he was willing to have FurPlanet use its payment to him to pay for the art. FurPlanet said sure, in that case, if Roz considered the payment enough for her drawing. She said that she’d do two full-page drawings, for the money and because Dave was a friend.
I’m editing “An Anthropomorphic Century” now, an anthology of reprints for publication at Anthrocon. Again, it was not going to be illustrated, but we wanted a story by Chris Hoekstra written back in 2000 that we liked. He had commissioned Dark Natasha to do a full-page illustration for it, and he asked if that could be printed too, at no extra cost? FurPlanet checked with Dark Natasha since Hoekstra had paid only for the art, not for publication rights. She said it was fine with her, so we’ll be publishing it.
I feel like having the authors commissioning art for their stories is putting too much of the logistics there out of the hands of the editor/publisher and into someone who may not know what kind of format, style, etc. is preferred for publication, and what the deadlines are, and so forth. And, of course, it benefits authors who have the money to commission good artists for their work, and not everyone has the disposable income for that.
I personally prefer to either see every story illustrated, or none, but I don’t really have any preference as far as using the same artist for the whole anthology or different ones. I would think it’d be hard, though, to find a single artist whose style really suits every story in the whole anthology.
I’m personally leaning more towards the ‘all-or-none’ frame of mind, which is something I’ll be looking into for the sports anthology.
I’m all for authors suggesting artists they’d like to see involved, but it strikes me as a little odd if they start dictating how the anthology ends up.
I’m sure that FurPlanet would not accept art that did not fit a book’s format, even if an author did pay for it. I am thinking of books I’ve seen that were illustrated by the author him/herself, and it looked positively amateurish/dreadful in comparison with the professional printing by CreateSpace.
I’m generally of the opinion of many others in the thread. If you want the anthology to look its most professional, then all or nothing is probably the best way to go. Is there something wrong with authors providing art for their stories that they commissioned if the anthology can’t provide it themselves? Not that I can see. Provided that the anthology makes it clear that authors are not expected to provide their own art (and provided that the social expectation also stays away from that).
In contrast to Camio, I think the concerns of other authors feeling left out would not be that big. I say this from my own limited experience for things like Heat, where we have several times selected a story to be illustrated on the cover in addition to interior illustrations. I haven’t heard any complaints about authors who weren’t selected, just excitation from the one who was. I could see it as being an issue if the same author kept being selected every time, though.
I, uh, actually commissioned artwork to appear alongside my story in the RF charity anthology. I got the OK to do it. I’m not sure I’ve given it to them yet? I think I have.
I’d consider Heat it’s own animal since every story receives illustrations. I think I would call Heat more an art magazine with excellent stories. I suppose I would have to go back and review the issues I have, not sure I noticed the cover art was specific to a story, aside from 3… I think for anthologies I would be fine if the artist commission picked the illustration for the cover from the stories.
As an author who didn’t get their story illustrated while others did in the RF anthology Furtual Horizons, I can honestly say I wasn’t hurt or even a little twinged by it. Honestly, after a good friend’s bad experience with an editor-chosen artist completely getting even the title of his story mixed up (a different anthology, mind you, but still), I was far more nervous about having an illustration than not >.>
Either way, I definitely prefer consistency for antho illustrations over not. While it can be nice having different styles for different stories, there should be at least some form of quality control with it >.<
I would really like, as an author with a deep grounding in the panopoly of talent to be had in and around the genre, to be consulted about artists and styles that would accompany my stories. I’ve had some illustrations accompany my stories that delighted me; I’ve had some illustrations accompany my stories that were infuriatingly WRONG, in major detail.
I’ve yet to see one of my stories illustrated and would be thrilled to see it happen. That said, based on this comment and others, I would likely be annoyed to no end if something significant was wrong in an illustration. If I found out a story of mine was going to be illustrated, I would ask if it would be possible to preview the illustration and identify any such issues beforehand. That of course presumes that the art is being produced sufficiently far in advance of publication that there is time to handle this, which it isn’t always the case.
It turns out the story I mentioned that was so wrongly illustrated was for a conbook v.v It was titled “A Coyote Named Bluejay”, about a coyote, well, who happened to go by the name Bluejay, and the story behind the why. Instead, the artist made a picture of, I kid you not, a bluejay x.x
That is a surprisingly frequent issue. Another, I think more common, problem is if a mistake does make it into the final artwork, especially if that artwork was hand-drawn, then asking for a change to the artwork might take many hours of work whereas changing a detail of the story might take mere minutes. This happened in one of my stories, where a character was drawn wearing clothes out of character for her. So even though it didn’t mesh with my vision of who the character was, I just edited the two or three lines where the clothes were mentioned and that was it.
I think that’s a great and classy way to correct that issue, if and when it arises and the opportunity exists.
I know in my case with illustrations I’ve had issues with, I saw nothing until after the images were provided in the physical printing of the book. In one case, the style the illustrator presented a species with was so badly stylized I had people asking why it was very clearly an illustration of an entirely different species altogether. (And we’re not talking easy mistakes to make. To spare the guilty, I won’t say which story, but this wasn’t like leopard vs jaguar, this was more like horse vs camel.)
In the second incidence, the illustrator had either ignored the character description or had intentionally disregarded it with the focus of making it “cuter”, when it was (as so very few characters in any of my stories are), not in the least bit cute. If I describe monstrous deformities on a character, I expect to see those monstrous deformities presented in the character illustration!
So to come back to the original topic: Internal illustration on an anthology is awesome when you can spare the coin, but PLEASE get artists 1) a copy of the story to read and 2) contact information for the author with instructions to contact them and ensure the artwork is at least vaguely representative!
But that’s my birthday cake wishlist two cents. :\