Michael Whelan

Michael Whelan (born June 29, 1950) is an American artist of imaginative realism.

For more than 30 years, he worked as an illustrator, specializing in science fiction and fantasy cover art.

"Michael Whelan is one of the most important contemporary science fiction and fantasy artists, and certainly the most popular. His work was a dominant force in the transition of genre book covers away from the surrealism introduced in the 1950s and 1960s back to realism."

His paintings have appeared on the covers of more than 350 books and magazines, including many Stephen King novels, most of the Del Rey editions of Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series, Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series, the Del Rey edition of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars series, Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince and Dragon Star series, the Del Rey editions of H. P. Lovecraft's short story collections, the Grand Master edition of Ray Bradbury's fix-up novel The Martian Chronicles, DAW editions of Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné books, numerous DAW editions of C. J. Cherryh's work, many of Robert A. Heinlein's novels including Friday and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, the Ace editions of H. Beam Piper's Fuzzy novels, and Tad Williams's Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Otherland, and Shadowmarch series and Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive.

Whelan provided covers and interior illustrations for Stephen King's The Gunslinger and The Dark Tower, the first and last of his Dark Tower books.

Cover art by Michael Whelan has graced many music record albums including Demolition Hammer's Epidemic of Violence, The Jacksons' Victory; Sepultura's Beneath the Remains, Arise, Chaos A.D. and Roots; Soulfly's Dark Ages; Obituary's Cause of Death; and every album by the Elric-influenced metal band Cirith Ungol.

He painted original works for the covers of Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell and The Very Best of Meat Loaf albums and several of his older paintings illustrate the liner notes of the former.

After graduating from San José State University in 1973 with a BA in Painting (as a "President's Scholar"), Whelan studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California for nine months from 1973 to 1974.

In 1974, Whelan exhibited his work at the World Science Fiction Convention in Washington, D.C., where it was seen by Thomas Schlück, who first discovered his work and contracted to use it in European publications shortly afterwards.

Donald A. Wollheim of DAW Books gave him his first American professional assignment—the cover painting and frontispiece drawing for Lin Carter's fantasy novel, The Enchantress of World's End (May 1975).

Shortly after arriving on the East Coast he exhibited some of his student work in the Lunacon convention art show in New York, where it was seen by Harlan Ellison.

Ellison obtained the first magazine assignment for him, illustrating Ellison's story "Croatoan" which appeared in Gallery magazine in June 1975.

At Lunacon Michael also met Rick Bryant, who subsequently introduced him to Neal Adams.

Adams called the art director of Ace Books and paved the way for his first assignment at Ace.

In 1975, Whelan painted the cover illustrations for ten books, eight from DAW and two Ace reprints of early Darkover novels by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

Whelan soon gained a reputation as a talented, imaginative, and dependable cover artist, working for science fiction and fantasy publishers such as DAW, Del Rey, and Ace.

Whelan credits the 1978 publication of Anne McCaffrey's best-selling The White Dragon featuring his cover art as a turning point in his career.

The SF Hall of Fame agrees.

Whelan won his first Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist in 1980 at the World Science Fiction Convention in Boston.

Since the mid-1990s, he has pursued a fine art career, selling non-commissioned paintings through galleries in the United States and through his website.

He went on to win the next Hugos, and at the 50th Worldcon in 1992 was voted the best professional artist of the last 50 years.

Whelan illustrated the cover for Meat Loaf's 1993 album Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell.

Whelan's time near White Sands and Vandenberg Air Force Base proved a lasting influence; in a 2000 interview, he noted that "living near to missile launching sites and Air Force bases had an impact. It was always thrilling to watch them go up ... and sometimes blow up."

By the time he was a sophomore in high school, his family had moved to Denver, Colorado.

There he began formal training in art, taking summer classes at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design when he was 15.

Whelan continued school as a pre-medical biology major at San José State University, initially.

There he worked in the Anatomy and Physiology Department, gaining a first-hand knowledge of human anatomy.

He says that his job "involved all sorts of tasks related to the anatomy department, such as preparing cadavers for the classes, stringing bones together to make complete skeletons, making models of body parts, some medical illustration, etc."

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted Whelan in June 2009, the first living artist so honored.

According to his Hall of Fame citation

In 2009, he painted the cover art for thrash metal band Evile's album Infected Nations.

Michael Whelan was born in Culver City, California, the son of William and Nancy Whelan.

As a child, he had a nomadic existence, moving nearly every other year, as the family followed his father's career in the aerospace industry.

So he attended eight elementary schools, three junior high schools and four high schools, and often lived for a summer in other locations.

He grew up in Colorado, several cities along the California coast, and in New Mexico, near the White Sands Missile Range.

As of 2010, he has won fifteen Hugo Awards.

When commissioned, Whelan made a practice of reading the entire book that he sought to illustrate, usually twice.

"I try to let the book I'm illustrating determine the approach and subject matter," he stated.

Fantasist Michael Moorcock wrote of Whelan, "I am more than usually grateful for an artist who not only depicts him [Elric] as I imagine (and describe him) but who also manages to capture some of the appropriate atmosphere" (Wonderworks, p. 36).

Science fiction writer Anne McCaffrey praised him, declaring, "Fortunate indeed is the author who has Michael Whelan for an illustrator" (Wonderworks, p. 55).