Cover illo for the collection - of my art and Jay Lake's stories - entitled Greetings from Lake Wu.
While the original paperback printing of Greetings from Lake Wu from Wheatland Press included interior art in black and white, the art is reproduced in glorious COLOR as it was meant to be, in the special, limited Super-Luxury edition of Greetings from Lake Wu from Traife Buffet.
This beautiful artifact from the haute biblio press Traife Buffet has FULL-COLOR repros of the sixteen illos I did for this book (plus the stories, of course). It comes in a slipcase covered and lined with iridescent Thai silk, and the book is bound with twenty-four signatures so each page will lay flat. The pages themselves are 180g archival acid-free Japanese paper. This edition is limited to only 250 hand-crafted copies, each one signed by Jay Lake and me. Unlike the first edition from Wheatland Press, this is hard-cover, has full-color, is on acid-free paper, and includes three new stories and illos, in addition to artist and author introductions to each story! Even if this weren't a book with my art, I'd still think it's absolutely gorgeous - buy one now 'cos they're going fast!
Long ago the book was also sold in a special very limited (26 copies, now sold out!) Box of Wonders edition in a handmade wooden box, with the book, a set of color prints of the illos, a bag of tchotchkes (hand-picked from fossils, crystals, coins, medallions and other cool little bits), the only copy of a one-off story by Jay about a letter from the alphabet, and an accompanying one-of-a-kind illo by me.
The idea is inspired by the cover for Bruce Springstreen's album Greetings from Asbury Park. The various images in the letters illustrate stories from the book; Jay appears in the first and I appear in the second. The images will be appearing over the next few weeks on this site.
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Image (c) 2003 Frank Wu