Black Vulmea’s Vengeance Book Cover 1979

Ken Kelly made this cover for "Black Vulmea's Vengeance" with paint and probably a brush. The scene sort of emerges out of the darkness, a kind of dream space. You can see that figuring is hard. It’s hard to get a body to look like a body. I’ve been there, trying to get the light and shadow to do the work. The guy in the painting is caught in this push-pull between light and dark. The snake really grabs your attention; you almost feel like it’s squeezing the air out of him. He's standing on a mess of broken stone, and you see that treasure chest lurking over there. Kelly’s got this thing for muscles and power, a bit like Frazetta. It’s like they're all in this eternal conversation, trading notes on how to make something out of nothing. It's the artist’s version of vengeance.