 Okay, this is a video response for Chad and Chris over at hppodcraft.com their latest episode they talked about a story by Clark Ashton Smith called Hunters from Beyond or something like that and they were laughing at this cover painting from the magazine where the story appeared and I have to admit when I first saw it when they posted it on Facebook I laughed at it too I was like is this for real is this I thought maybe it was a joke that somebody had had photo shopped up but anyway I wanted to I wanted to address what they said during their episode about how they thought that the artist didn't know what he was doing or he didn't care or that he misunderstood some of the vocabulary that was used to describe this monster speaking as a contract artist myself I can pretty much guarantee you that the artist had not read the story he was going by what someone told him to paint and he had to do it in a couple of hours it was due at the printer that day or the next day these cartoonists and painters that were working for magazines at the time they were just like the writers they were working for pennies they were doing the best they could with what little they had they weren't being told enough about what they were doing back in the early days of the sci-fi channel Harlan Ellison had his own show where he would sit in front of a video camera and rant about some science fiction related subject and one day he started by saying that he used to think that artists were complete idiots or at least completely incompetent because back in the day he would write a story about say a robot and it would be bought by a astounding magazine or something and when the magazine hit the shelves he would pick it up and the cover painting would have a robot on it but it would look nothing like what he described in his story nothing at all and it would be chasing a girl or something which didn't happen in the story and this happened repeatedly and over the years he was thinking these artists are breaking me down they're either completely stupid or they don't care or they're deliberately disrespecting me and many years later he talked to one of these artists who used to do these cover paintings and he asked him what the deal was and the guy said I never read your stories you think I actually got to read these stories before they were published no I would get a phone call from the editor and he was said I need a robot painting tomorrow and I would say well what's it supposed to look like and he would just say just paint a robot damn it click that's the way it was done and that's the way it's still done not only did these artists not know what was in the stories for the pictures they were painting they didn't even know which stories these paintings were for they had to crank out paintings they had to crank them out every day they had to go by what little they were told which is usually nothing paint a robot this library monster in this cover you were talking about here it actually looks kind of like what Smith was trying to describe so I'll tell you how this conversation went this artist got a call from the publisher who said I need a I need a cover painting today and he says well what's it supposed to look like and the guy says it's a guy in a library looking at a monster go paint and the guy says wait a minute what does this monster look like and the publisher says ah you artist in your details is it has like a baboon skull for a head and a puffy snake body just paint it we go to print tomorrow go I mean do you really think that these editors and publishers back in the day sitting behind their desks in their CD New York offices with their tie undone chain smoking with a bottle of bourbon with piles and piles of unpublished typewritten manuscripts on the disc you really think these guys were going the extra mile to make sure that every artist got a preview copy of these as yet unpublished stories that that no I mean today writers and artists have an opportunity to contact each other and cross pollinate and and produce some kind of some kind of thing that resembles what both want but that doesn't even happen today I mean look at the covers of magazines and books that are even being published today it'll just be a painting of a spaceship exploding in front of a planet has got nothing to do with any story that's in the book they need paintings they need them in time to go the printer and they need them now when you stop and think about it realistically for a second you'll realize how naive is the idea that the artist is supposed to know what the what the writer had in mind much less what the writer even wrote so yeah don't blame the artist if you want to get a better idea of what creative contract work is like there's a tumbler and a Twitter called clients from hell follow that you'll see stories of what contract artists and designers go through every day and you and you'll learn to be more realistic about your expectations so Chad and Chris I love the show I've been listening to it from the beginning and I'm looking forward to next week bye you can support 30 second sci-fi and my other projects by becoming a patron there is a link in the description below and visit the 30 second sci-fi tumbler that's my headquarters in addition to my videos I publish links and updates there every day