John Coulthart (born 15 March 1962) is a British

graphic artist A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, p ...

, illustrator, author and

designer A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exp ...

who has produced book covers and illustrations, CD covers and posters. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed Lovecraft-inspired book ''The Haunter of the Dark: And Other Grotesque Visions'' which contains a collaboration with

Alan Moore Alan Moore (born 18 November 1953) is an English author known primarily for his work in comic books including '' Watchmen'', ''V for Vendetta'', '' The Ballad of Halo Jones'', ''Swamp Thing'', ''Batman:'' ''The Killing Joke'', and '' From He ...

entitled ''The Great Old Ones'' that is unique to this book and also has an introduction by

. He has been updating a daily blog entitled ''cataloguing interests, obsessions and passing enthusiasms'' since February 2006 and also uses Twitter. He was nominated for a British Fantasy Award, for Best Artist, in 2005. In 2012 he won the Artist of the Year award at the

World Fantasy Awards The World Fantasy Awards are a set of awards given each year for the best fantasy fiction published during the previous calendar year. Organized and overseen by the World Fantasy Convention, the awards are given each year at the eponymous annu ...

Design and illustration

In the music field, he has designed promotional art and CD covers and packaging for the heavy metal group Cradle of Filth,

Hawkwind Hawkwind are an English rock band known as one of the earliest space rock groups. Since their formation in November 1969, Hawkwind have gone through many incarnations and have incorporated many different styles into their music, including hard ...

and Steven Severin. He also created the poster and cover art for spoken-word albums by writer Alan Moore. Within the field of literature, he also worked with

Colin Wilson Colin Henry Wilson (26 June 1931 – 5 December 2013) was an English writer, philosopher and novelist. He also wrote widely on true crime, mysticism and the paranormal, eventually writing more than a hundred books. Wilson called his phil ...

and for a lavish Savoy Books edition of David Lindsay's ''

A Voyage to Arcturus ''A Voyage to Arcturus'' is a novel by the Scottish writer David Lindsay, first published in 1920. An interstellar voyage is the framework for a narrative of a journey through fantastic landscapes. The story is set at Tormance, an imaginary pl ...

''.Moorcock, Michael (31 August 2002). "Review: Science fiction: The alienness of atmosphere: Michael Moorcock welcomes back one of the great originals: A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay", ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', p. 29. He has designed the covers for many contemporary Steampunk novels. He designed (and contributed an entry to) the anthology work '' The Thackery T Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases'' and also its sequel '' The Thackery T Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities''. He has also produced numerous cover illustrations for '' Arthur Magazine''.

Comics work and adaptation

He has done much work based upon the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, adapting "

The Haunter of the Dark "The Haunter of the Dark" is a horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written between 5–9 November 1935 and published in the December 1936 edition of ''Weird Tales'' (Vol. 28, No. 5, p. 538–53). It was the last written ...

", "

The Call of Cthulhu "The Call of Cthulhu" is a short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in the summer of 1926, it was first published in the pulp magazine ''Weird Tales'' in February 1928. Inspiration The first seed of the story's first chapter '' ...

" and "

The Dunwich Horror "The Dunwich Horror" is a horror novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in 1928, it was first published in the April 1929 issue of '' Weird Tales'' (pp. 481–508). It takes place in Dunwich, a fictional town in Massachusett ...

" to the page. His adaptation of "

The Picture of Dorian Gray ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' is a philosophical fiction, philosophical novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde. A shorter novella-length version was published in the July 1890 issue of the American periodical ''Lippincott's Monthly Magazine''.''Th ...

" done as 10 pages of collages appears as the last story in volume 2 of '' The Graphic Canon''.
He is also noted for illustrating the '' Lord Horror'' comic book written by

David Britton David Britton (18 February 1945 – 29 December 2020) was a British author, artist, and publisher. In the 1970s he founded ''Weird Fantasy'' and ''Crucified Toad'', a series of small press magazines of the speculative fiction and horror genres. ...

, produced by Savoy Books and republished as a 344-page book entitled ''Lord Horror: Reverbstorm'' in February 2013.

Other work

Coulthart has also provided card art for the

collectible card game A collectible card game (CCG), also called a trading card game (TCG) among other names, is a type of card game that mixes strategy game, strategic deck building elements with features of trading cards, introduced with ''Magic: The Gathering'' in ...

Magic: The Gathering ''Magic: The Gathering'' (colloquially known as ''Magic'' or ''MTG'') is a Tabletop game, tabletop and Digital collectible card game, digital Collectible card game, collectable card game created by Richard Garfield. Released in 1993 by Wizards ...

''. In 2006 he designed the film posters and the entire DVD packaging and menu interface for the documentary feature film '' The Mindscape of Alan Moore''. Coulthart has also designed the cover art of the album "Steps of Descent", by the

death metal Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking; deep growling vocals; aggressive, powerful drumming, feat ...

band Cyaegha. The album is based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft. He contributed 30 film reviews and 4 essays to the book ''Horror: The Definitive Guide to the Cinema of Fear''. He has done illustrations and the cover design for '' The Moon & Serpent Bumper Book of Magic'' by Alan Moore and Steve Moore. The book is due to be published by

Top Shelf Productions Top Shelf Productions is an American publishing company founded in 1997, originally owned and operated by Chris Staros and Brett Warnock and a small staff. Now an imprint of IDW Publishing, Top Shelf is based in Marietta, Georgia. Top Shelf pu ...

sometime in the near future. Other future projects include a series of novels the first one of which is entitled ''Axiom''.

References

External links

Atelier CoulthartJohn Coulthart Fansite"Arthur""'Tygers of Wrath' by John CoulthartThe Graphic Canon Volume 2
Sample pages from adaptation of

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coulthart, John 1962 births Living people English designers English comics artists English illustrators Horror artists Game artists Psychedelic artists