covers: Bacchus #54

While rummaging through my files I came across a lost Previews cover sketch (only a photocopy I add, anticipating a request to own it). I wasn't always particular about filing these. They were sketches made to be printed along with the solicitation in the distributors catalogues two months before the book was due to come out, and the solicitation and drawing would have to be done another month in advance of that, making it three months in advance altogether (or four?... it's been a while). At the beginning, when we (Campbell Industries) had ten distributors we'd photocopy a dozen of these and hand-color with felt-tips or coloured pencils the ones that were to be sent to colour catalogues. If there was a colour version of the one below i can't recall it. When we started we usually had a black ink version of the cover that would be used, but after a while we were always rushing and making do and I'd have to just guess what the cover was going to be about. On this one I had a good idea of where I was headed but it it still had to be worked out. It's one of those occasions when the sketch had its own particular quality that wasn't repeated in the finished work or anywhere else. (Bacchus #54, August 2000).