Vintage horror fiction fans are well aware of American artist
J.K. Potter, born Jeffrey Knight Potter in California on this date in 1956. His macabre photorealistic imagery decorated the covers of dozens of small-press hardcovers,
various magazines, and plenty of paperbacks throughout the Eighties and beyond, most often for such genre heavyweights as Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Ramsey Campbell, Dennis Etchison, Charles L. Grant, and Karl Edward Wagner, along with many other writers in the fantasy and science fiction fields as well.
With its surrealistic blending of collage and contrasting elements along with ghostly hues and piercing eyes, Potter's art probably unsettled and attracted as many readers as it repelled! Here is a sampling of his paperback work:
Thank you for reminding me of Potter's work! I especially associate him with his work in Twilight Zone Magazine, where his nightmare fuel frequently graced the pages. Good stuff.
ReplyDeleteBack when you had to actually know something about photography and developing to manipulate images like that. A lost skill...
ReplyDeleteI love the illustrations he did for Michael McDowell's Toplin.
ReplyDeletePoor man. Back in mid-1989, as a one-shot sf convention in Slidell, La. (where I was then living, across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans), some guy in the huckster room insisted I had to be Potter, as we apparently looked alike. He's from Shreveport, at the other end of the state (& in turn only about an hour from my hometown in the deep La.-Texas corner of Arkansas), so his presence wouldn't have been completely out of the question.
ReplyDeleteI can only hope the ensuing 32+ years have treated him more kindly than they have me.