Independent creator Wayne Alan Harold is teaming up with his long-time friend and collaborator P. Craig Russell to create another beautiful art book—and this one is extra special, because it commemorates Russell’s 50th year as a comics professional!

Fast Facts about ‘Anniversary: 50 Years in Full Color’

• It’s a 12″ x 12″ oversized hardcover
• There will be approximately 116-132 pages on a heavy matte paper stock
• It will have a full-color cover and color interiors (although some illustrations will be in B&W)
• It will come personally signed & numbered by P. Craig Russell!

P. Craig Russell Discusses The Book

The name of the book is Anniversary because it’s celebrating 50 years doing what I’ve been doing from 1972 to 2022. I started when I was 20. I’m now 70. So it’s a nice time to do a book that touches on that. Although it’s not a retrospective. There will be a part of it that is, but it’s also going to focus on the color pieces that I’ve done over the years, many of them unpublished and completely new. A few have been seen on a website or via social media, but this will be the first time that they will be actually appearing in print.

If we’re showing some of the paintings or illustrations on the right hand page, on the left hand page we will be putting notes and sketches and background information on the piece. We’re thinking of doing the color piece on the right hand page and the same piece in black and white on the left hand side of the spread.

I’ve always been fascinated by the difference between the black and white and color versions when looking at other artists’ work. If you see a color piece, then you wonder what it looks like in black and white. Whether it’s a single illustration or it’s the full comics page, it’s nice to see what color adds to it—but also there’s something special about getting to see it in black and white. And some people like to see both. I know I do. There will also be a number of new black and white pieces that I’ve done—full, dense illustrations—that will be appearing in print for the very first time.

It should be a fun book. It’s certainly going to have variety with color paintings, black and white illustrations, sketches and much more. It’s going to be a really nice “dinner.” Not just the entree, but the salad and the appetizer and the dessert and the whole thing. So you’ll get a range of meat and potatoes and chocolate eclairs!
 

More Sample Images From The Book

About The Artist

P. Craig Russell is a Harvey and Eisner award-winning comics writer, artist and illustrator. After establishing a name for himself at Marvel Comics in the 1970s on both Killraven and Doctor Strange, he went on to become one of the pioneers who opened new vistas for this underestimated field with, among other works, adaptations of operas by Mozart (The Magic Flute), Strauss (Salome) and Wagner (The Ring of the Nibelung). Russell is also known for his Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde series as well as his graphic novel adaptations of Lois Lowry’s The Giver and Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, American Gods and Norse Mythology.