Untitled Document

Where to begin? 'I, Robot' was the beginning for me. Packager Byron Preiss, a longtime finder-exploiter-nurturer of new talent, caught one of my cold mailings when I was still a lathe operator. In 1992 they signed me to do -- a dream project for a classic illustration freak -- sixteen interior full-page paintings to accompany the narrative of Harlan Ellison's epic screenplay version of Isaac Asimov's loosely-connected anthology. This was a screenplay in a book. A novel with visual zooms and pans spelled out. A horse of a unique color. Through the project I was introduced to Harlan Ellison himself -- whom in my cultural shelter I had never heard of. Recieving me in his home -- a spiced-coffee-suffused oasis of intrigue he calls Ellison Wonderland -- he kept dropping conversational references to this or that in his staggering oeuvre of work, then exchanging worried, disbelieving glances with wife Susan as it became apparent that this rube in the dungarees and lug-soles had never read a word he'd written. That he nonetheless extended to me the respect of an artistic colleague in our co-operative sally will remain a neverending source of amazement to me. And I must say, the subsequent release of a movie also titled I, Robot starring Will Smith only makes warmer and more cherished in retrospect every single gleam and grit of working on this, the only "greatest science fiction movie never made." Emphasis mine.