Weaver, Richard
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Artist.
(? - ) British artist. Almost nothing is known about this artist, who created numerous covers of sf books for the British publisher Dennis Dobson from 1965 to 1980 and apparently did no other genre work. His covers sometimes seem minimalist, products more of graphic design (such as collaged clip-art) than of studio art, though others are more conventionally pictorial.
Many of his covers may strike readers as odd, incongruous, or hurriedly executed, but a few have a genuine impact; one might consider, among other examples, his cover for a 1967 edition of Jack Vance's The Killing Machine (1964), showing a segmented blue-and-red insect, with human faces in its eyes, advancing toward the observer (this is of course the human-carrying Machine of the title, designed to induce terror); his cover for a 1969 edition of Poul Anderson's The Makeshift Rocket (November-December 1958 Astounding as "A Bicycle Built for Brew"; 1962), wherein a man's head ascends within a bottle issuing exhaust while observed by elderly scientists; or his cover for a 1976 edition of R A Lafferty's Space Chantey (1968 dos), depicting a knight in armour riding an enormous insect through space. Republication of selected Weaver covers might spark greater interest in his work. [GW]
Richard Weaver
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