Charles Vess

Charles Vess (born June 10, 1951) is an American fantasy artist and comics artist who has specialized in the illustration of myths and fairy tales. His influences include British "Golden Age" book illustrator Arthur Rackham, Czech Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha, and comic-strip artist Hal Foster, among others. Vess has won several awards for his illustrations. Vess' studio, Green Man Press, is located in Abingdon, Virginia.

He has received numerous awards and honors for his work including the 2019 and 2023 Locus Award for Best Artist and the 2019 Hugo Awards for Best Professional Artist and Best Art Book for The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition.

In 1991, his work with Neil Gaiman on the Sandman comic short story "A Midsummer Night's Dream" became the first comic to win the World Fantasy Award.

Charles Vess began drawing comic art as a child. He graduated with a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in 1974. While at VCU, Vess' comics appeared in the Fan Free Funnies, a comic tabloid published by the student newspaper. His first professional position was as a commercial animator for Candy Apple Productions in Richmond, Virginia, which he held for approximately two years.

In 1976 he moved to New York City and became a freelance illustrator. He contributed illustrations to publications including Heavy Metal, Klutz Press (now an imprint of Scholastic Press), and National Lampoon. One notable publication from this early period was The Horns of Elfland (ISBN 0-915822-25-3) published by Archival Press in 1979, which Vess wrote and illustrated.

From 1980 to 1982 Vess worked as an art instructor at the Parsons School of Design in New York City. During that period, his work appeared in one of the first major museum exhibitions of science fiction and fantasy art, held at the New Britain Museum of American Art in 1980.

By the late 1980s Vess had found a niche in the world of fantasy comic art with publications such as The Raven Banner: A Tale of Asgard written by Alan Zelenetz and published by Marvel Comics in 1985, The Book of Night, published by Dark Horse Comics in 1987, and "The Warriors Three Saga" in Marvel Fanfare #34–37 (Sept. 1987–April 1988). He painted the cover of the debut issue of Web of Spider-Man (April 1985), wrote and drew a backup story in The Amazing Spider-Man #277 (June 1986), and crafted the Spider-Man: Spirits of the Earth graphic novel (1990). In 1991 he illustrated the official comic-book adaptation of Steven Spielberg’s Hook and had an eleven issue run (#129–139) as cover artist of Swamp Thing by DC Comics in 1993.

In 1990, Vess began one of his best-known collaborations to date, with writer Neil Gaiman. He illustrated "The Land of Summer's Twilight", one of the four episodes in the original The Books of Magic mini-series, and worked on three issues of Gaiman's critically acclaimed The Sandman series. Sandman #19 ("A Midsummer Night's Dream") is a meta-fictional adaptation of William Shakespeare's play and in 1991, that issue won the World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story, the only comic book to hold the honor, as award organizers subsequently amended the rules to specifically exclude comics. Vess contributed eight drawings for a prose-based inset that appeared in Sandman #62 ("The Kindly Ones: 6") and illustrated the final issue of the series, Sandman #75, a second Shakespeare adaptation ("The Tempest"). He drew the covers for the Books of Faerie spin-off series Molly's Story (1999).