From conception to inception here is the cover art for my latest work of deranged fiction The Pigeon King, soon to be available on Amazon.
The Pigeon King is the story of a podcaster who goes to war with the ultimate noise polluters: pigeons.
Daniel J. Cameron is trying to record an audio essay on the Hikikomori (Japanese shut-ins who substitute their social needs with fantasy and entertainment). The problem is an avian infestation won’t let Daniel get a word in before ruining his recordings. It turns out there’s something supernatural about their presence and it has everything to do with the subject of the Daniel’s recording.
In a Twilight Zone-style trailer (I’ll show you later) I say the story is, “One part Alfred Hitchcock and another part Wile E. Coyote.”
With this cover I wanted to capture the cartoonish nature of the Daniel’s predicament. Charles Burns’s covers for Carl Hiaasen’s fantastic mysteries inspired this layout.
I thought it would be fun to give you a peek behind the curtain of my artistic process, from the first pigeon photos I took to the first illustrations and finally the cover itself.
Expect a lot more Pigeon King content on the blog in the not too distant future.
I’ll defo be grabbing this one. My friend and I both do audio narration and he has constant struggles with the local birdlife – mainly seagulls and mext door’s parrot! He needs to get some better soundproofing. Nothing supernatural yet, though.
This idea evolved out of my problems with soundproofing… It was partially inspired by something I discovered about my hometown in Atlas Obscura. Minneapolis is home to an anechoic chamber that holds the title for being the quietist room in the world. Legend has it that if you sit there in the dark for a half an hour you go mad. At one point, my hero builds his own anechoic chamber and the fun ensues. I can’t wait to share it.