I don’t want to forget to check out the artists who were nominated for the Hugo this year. Partly for my benefit and partly in case any of you with voting memberships also want to check out the artists and don’t necessarily want to take the time to look everyone up, here are the artists, with links.
The last one, Carter Reid, I couldn’t quickly find anything of his but the Zombie Nation webcomic I linked. I poked around for five minutes, but if he has a gallery somewhere, I didn’t happen across it. If anybody cares to share a link, great; if not, well, his work doesn’t really seem comparable to the other nominated artists.
Best Professional Artist
My first impression: I like Julie Dillon, I’ve always liked Julie Dillon, I like her use of color and organic curvy shapes, and I am probably going to put her first.
While I like Julie Dillon’s art and think I could spot it across a crowded bookstore, and I’ve never heard of most of the others, I really liked Nick Greenwood’s stuff and if I were voting would put his work first for the variety I see in his gallery. He shows sf/fantasy and juvenile and mystery and misc. work. While there are similarities in each category there’s enough variation in the overall – especially for the juvenile works – that I’m really impressed.
But I’m not voting so
Of all the artists listed here, Julie Dillon’s appeals to me the most. It has a sort of dreamlike quality, and I also love her use of color.
I haven’t looked extensively at anybody but Dillon — that’s why I wanted to post with links, so I could go back and look more carefully — but I did like my first glimpse of Greenwood. I’ll take a good hard look at the top four, maybe not the Zombie Nation artist since I really don’t think a web comic is in the same genre as a cover artist.