Book #8 Cover Evolution

The eighth Jerx bonus book is shipping to supporters this month. Here’s how the cover evolved from idea to the final version by my friend, Stasia.

It started with my love of the artwork of Mort Künstler who passed away earlier this year.

As a nod to his work in men’s adventure magazines, I wanted the cover to be something with similar thematic elements.

I’ve always enjoyed the perspective of this image of his, with the woman dangling and the “camera’s eye” positioned above them.

I had the idea of putting a magician’s assistant dangling off a cliff, with a shirtless magician who had somehow managed to save her from plummeting to certain death with a fortuitously dispatched length of mouth coils.

As I normally do, I sent Stasia a mockup of the idea as it existed in my head, using all of my artistic talent.

And, as always, I thought to myself, “Damn, Andy. Do you even need to commission artwork when you are already such a master of the visual medium?”

But, to be kind, I thought I’d let Stasia take a crack at it as well. Her initial sketch captured just what I had asked for.

But I realized something was missing.

The beauty of Mort Künstler’s work, as you can see in the link at the top, is that his images seem to tell a full story with just a single picture.

What this image was missing was the story element. It captured this precarious position, but there was no hint at how we got there.

(I go into more detail in the book about how this situation relates to performing magic generally.)

So I asked Staisa to add some more elements—a hint of an overturned circus wagon, magic props spread over the cliffside. I wanted the picture to tell the story of a travelling circus caravan accident that sent everything flying out of the magician’s wagon, including his assistant.

The next sketch added those elements…

And that, in turn, became the cover many of you will be holding soon.