Royo, Luis
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Artist.
(1954- ) Spanish artist. In recent years he sometimes collaborates with his son Rómulo Royo (1976- ), who is also an artist. After formal training at Spain's La Escuela de Artes Aplicados, he first launched a career as a painter, and his works were featured in several exhibitions. He then shifted his attention to Comics, publishing strips in several fanzines and professional magazines, including Heavy Metal. As he developed an international reputation, he began receiving assignments to paint book covers for American publishers, beginning in 1984 with covers for several novels by Robert Adams; he has since painted over 250 covers, including a number of books by Gordon R Dickson, David Gemmell, and W Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear. He has also painted covers for the magazines Realms of Fantasy and Science Fiction Age. His work has been described as "hyper-real", usually foregrounding attractive women or fierce warriors, carefully rendered with great attention to detail. However, he is also capable of taking very different approaches, as shown by his astronomical starscape for the cover of Samuel R Delany's Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (1984) or the abstract images for the 1989 cover of Kate Wilhelm's The Infinity Box (in Orbit 9, anth 1971, ed Damon Knight; 1989 dos).
In the 1990s, while continuing to produce book covers, Royo also branched into video games, CD covers, trading cards, and original paintings that were featured in numerous folios, attributed to different publishers with different publication dates in various references and library databases; a definitive bibliography of these books and his many other works would require considerable research. [GW]
Luis Royo
born Olalla, Spain: 20 May 1954
works
Some were possibly published earlier by other publishers; some are possibly retitled editions of earlier books.
- Secrets (New York: NBM, 1996) [graph: pb/Luis Royo]
- Malefic (New York: NBM, 1997) [graph: hb/Luis Royo]
- Women (New York: NBM, 1997) [graph: pb/Luis Royo]
- III Millennium (New York: NBM, 1998) [graph: pb/Luis Royo]
- Dreams (New York: NBM, 1999) [graph: pb/Luis Royo]
- Prohibited Book (Rockville Centre, New York: Heavy Metal, 1999) [graph: hb/Luis Royo]
- Tattoos (Barcelona, Spain: Norma Editorial, 2000) [graph: pb/Luis Royo]
- Prohibited Book 2 (Rockville Centre, New York: Heavy Metal, 2001) [graph: hb/Luis Royo]
- Evolution (New York: NBM, 2001) [graph: pb/Luis Royo]
- Visions (New York: NBM, 2003) [graph: pb/Luis Royo]
- Prohibited Book 3 (Barcelona, Spain: Norma Editorial, 2003) [graph: hb/Luis Royo]
- Fantastic Art: The Best of Luis Royo (Barcelona, Spain: Norma Editorial, 2003; New York: NBM, 2004) [graph: hb/Luis Royo]
- Subversive Beauty (Barcelona, Spain: Norma Editorial, 2005; Rockville Centre, New York: Heavy Metal, 2007) [graph: hb/Luis Royo]
- Tarot (Rockville Centre, New York: Heavy Metal, 2005) [graph: hb/Luis Royo]
- Dark Labyrinth (New York: NBM, 2006) [graph: with accompanying story: hb/Luis Royo]
- Dead Moon (Barcelona, Spain: Norma Editorial, 2009) [graph: hb/Luis Royo]
- Dead Moon: A Portfolio (New York: Science Fiction Book Club, 2009) [graph: selection of works from the above: hb/Luis Royo]
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