Marie Marshall

© Millie Ho

The wonderful thing about having cover art by Millie Ho is that it feels like a collaboration, it feels as though we are making something together, that the book and the cover artwork are a seamless whole. Hers is not the work of a hack cover-artist, but of someone who has read the book and understands what it’s driving at. This is one reason why I’m rather sorry that we had to abandon our attempt to turn From My Cold, Undead Hand into a graphic novel – but we both had other work to which we needed to give priority.

© Millie Ho

Anyhow, here Millie has given us an insight into how the cover illustration evolved from a sketch to a finished piece of ‘noir’ artwork; it is fascinating to watch the video of the hand-drawn and computer-finished picture being executed. Exceptionally, Millie produced two completed works, one with a white background and one with a black. The black one fitted my vision for the cover perfectly. However, my publisher might go with other design, because of thumbnail issues, and put it on a coloured background – maybe red. We’ll have to see. Whatever is the case, I am grateful beyond words to Millie for her work, and I hope I have the opportunity to produce more writing that she will be able to illustrate in the future. By the way, as we did with The Everywhen Angels, after publication I hope to offer some free wallpapers based on the book cover. Wait and see what turns up!