Artsy-Fartsy

                Recently I began the task of getting together with the person who I thought was going to do the book cover for my novel, The Zealot.  Yes, I said, “I thought”.  You see, I had prearranged through my cousin Dennis, who is like a brother to me, to have his future son-in-law do my book cover.  This young man is a very good graphic artist and runs a distillery owned by his family.  We are VERY excited to have him join the family.

                Somewhere in the passage of time, my cousin somehow didn’t tell him what my novel was about and I thought an artist was an artist.  I sent by email the first two chapters of my manuscript to him, which has the first murder scene.  My idea for the cover is to have the murder scene on the cover.  I explained in the email exactly what I was seeking and told him to call me if he had any questions.  I said we would be over in a couple weeks and we could visit if he wanted.  I would like to see some preliminary work as soon as he could.  I waited.

                Imagine my surprise when I heard back, not from the artist, no, but from my cousin.  He said that he would not be able to do my book cover because he doesn’t do murder scenes.  He said he is more of a “dragon guy”.  He basically said if I wanted a dragon drawn, he was my guy.  Huh?  Are you kidding me?  Could someone have told me this around a month sooner?

                I wanted to refer this guy to Mike, jump on my LX-2000 broomstick, and ride over and beat someone into a pile of dragon crap.  My cousin then said, as if trying to rescue the day, that “The Dragon Man” has a friend that does murder scenes.  If I want, he would pass along my email to him.  Oh brother!  This can’t be true.  Do these guys really specialize this much?

                My mind immediately slipped away.  I imagined kindergarten all over again.  I thought of these two friends in art class.  Billy is drawing circles and Tommy is drawing squares.  Both are experts at each.

                “Gee, Tommy you do make swell squares.  I can’t do them that good.”

                “Thanks Billy, but you’re really great at circles and I can’t do them as good as you.  Hey, let’s make a deal.  We’re always going to be best friends, right?”

                “You bet.”

                “Well, as we go through school and then later, anytime either one of us needs a circle, you make it for both of us and if we need a square, I’ll make it.”

                Tommy’s face lit up like it was Christmas.  “That’s a great idea.  Maybe we can get Suzy in on this.  She does triangles really good.”

                “Good idea.  I’ll ask her.  Hey Tommy, what do you do with all your great squares after school each day?”

                “I go home and put them on my cloud.”

                Yeah, I can picture these two guys specializing even back then.  It frightens me.  Anyway, I checked out my new guy’s website.  He definitely has some talent.  It look like he has the ability to stay within the lines and he makes circles really well.