I just purchased a used copy of Fever Dream, the Ray Bradbury short story. When looking at the dust jacket cover illustration, I notice it looks very similar to the Heroes album by David Bowie front cover photo. Please let me know what you think about this.

Let's see...

David Bowie's Heroes
Ray Bradbury's Fever Dream

I see what you mean!

According to this web page, the Bowie cover was based on a painting by Gramatte, so maybe Gramatte also influenced Darrel Anderson, who illustrated Fever Dream.

Thank you Phil for adding the visuals. Of course, I only bought Bradbury's Fever Dream, as well as other Bradbury books, after seeing them on your web site, listed by you above. Additionally, Fever Dream glows in the dark!

You're welcome, greenray. I think I have an email address for Darrel Anderson, so I may ask him about the Gramatte influence.

The simple answer is no.
'Tho I like much of Bowie's work, I'd never seen either the Heros album cover or the Gramatte portrait.
...but I certainly see the serendipitous link.

I love Ray Bradbury's work -- have for decades.

On a more general note, I don't think that Fever Dream was my finest hour as an artist/illustrator... the work is competent enough, but the story deserved more -- and less...

Ray Bradbury was generous enough to correspond with me back in the early 80's when I was working on screen graphics for a Commodore 64/Atari 800 generation computer game adaptation of The Martian Chronicles.

He noted that he was not all that fond of illustrated fiction -- that it could interfere with the readers imagination and personal visualization of the work. Bradbury preferred that illustrations be evocative, suggestive, abstract rather than illustrative, descriptive, literal. I remember particularly, his suggestion that characters faces be turned away, or swathed in shadow.

These ideas meshed well with my own feelings about illustration and art in general -- that there should room for interpretation, that the final result be a collaboration between artist & viewer. My biggest complaint about most science fiction illustration is the emphasis on highly rendered, photo realistic imagery -- Lehr, Powers, and others back in the 60's, had a better approach.

I don't feel I hit those marks with Fever Dream (in part due to circumstances beyond my control), but I was happy with the game graphics (well, as happy as one can be with 4 color images a few hundred pixels in width).

-Darrel

Phil! Talk about "Resources"! Good on you for contacting the artist and getting his comments on this board! Or, as they say here, "Phil, you da man!"

Absolutely invaluable, what a contribution!

All I can say is WOW Phil

The thanks should all go to Darrel, for a response above and beyond the call of duty! Darrel, I hope you will drop by the board from time to time - we'd love to have you here.

Simply amazing that such a simple question would get such scholarly results. Darrel mentions the Commodore 64 above. Reminds me of the time my dad and I lined up outside the now gone Gemco store for a chance at the Commodore VIC-20, which was on sale for $99. We had to run with all the other dads, but we got one. At that time, I couldn't afford the 64.

Thanks to the Ray Bradbury Board Community, for your kind help and cooperation these last few months. You have always answered my questions in a friendly and reasonable manner. So, please take a bow, you Bradbury Scholars! Bradbury, An Illustrated Life just arrived in the mail today.

Additionally, thanks to Abe, Alibris, Amazon, eBay, Gauntlet, Gemstone, Half, and Barnes and Noble Used, which are all excellent sources of new and used Ray Bradbury books, including Fever Dream.