Book Cover Illustrations

Halloween witches have varied over the years from the comical creations of Disney to the more sinister women of horror movies. They’ve got mixed reviews, from the too-real Salem Witch trials to the sorceresses of Greek myth to the friendly witches of TV comedy series. Some are portrayed as beguilingly beautiful; others as terrifying hags. […]

In 2009 I created an illustrated version of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” which I’ve been giving away for free since then (it is available to read online or download in PDF format at Scribd). In addition to the horror illustrations I created for this short book, I also designed a typeface — and hid […]

In my childhood, Halloween was a more innocent time. Since then, one can feel the evil influences and while these have certainly done much to energize parts of the entertainment industry and put a few entertainment thrills and chills into readers and audiences, it is not without a downside. I often would like a little […]

Day four of my exploration of horror and Halloweenish artwork that I’ve created for magazine and book illustrations as well as artwork that as yet remains unsold. Today’s artwork will take a look at those terrifying skulls and bones that we associate with death — and which are within us all, just below the skin. […]

Autumn is always busy in the publishing industry, and this one is no exception here at the Duncan Long Studio (hence the picture of one the staff, Ralph the flying monkey). Once consequence of the growing workload is updating of my blog slides. But that said, here’re a few of the more book cover projects […]

When I stared creating the illustrations for the graphic novel The Werewolves of New Idria, we knew the final page count and approximately how many illustrations I’d need to create for John Chadwell’s story. That said, there’s always a little “wheel spinning” with an art project like this, so a few pieces were created that […]

Normally the summer is a slow time for publishing. But with many authors now going the self-publishing route, this summer is proving to be an exception – busy, busy, busy. Which is just how I like it because I love my work — and there’s always a need for a little more money, right? This […]

Self publishing authors and indie press operators often wonder what the illustration rates paid by big publishers of books and magazines are. Fortunately the answer to that question isn’t a big dark secret these days. In fact the industry rates for magazine and book illustrators are pretty standard (and sadly have not gone up much […]

Here’s a nice interview with my favorite book cover illustrator (me, of course): Portrait of a Book Illustrator: Duncan Long Arguably I’m a bit wordy… Sue Bursztynski only asked four questions, and I spun out the answers to the point that it formed her entire column. Of course you can see more of my book […]

A society’s morbid fascination with zombies can be interesting — if not horrifying. And like the subconscious worries that generated stories about alien invaders and “pod people” during the Cold War era, it’s very possible that today’s popularity of zombie stories reflects a subconscious fear of the foreign invader, illegal aliens, and similar problems of […]