OBIR: Occasional Biased and Ignorant Reviews reflecting this reader’s opinion.
Worlds Dark and Dangerous – October 2025.
Publisher: G.W. Thomas, Rage Machine Books, Alberta & British Columbia, Canada.
Cover Art: by M.D. Jackson
I’m old fashioned. I believe every prolific artist deserves a retrospective portfolio art book at the height of their career. There is something truly delicious in perusing such a book. Something wonderful in slowly turning the pages and discovering eye-catching art pieces on the right with the artist’s comments on the left. It’s not just a walk through an art gallery, savouring each piece, but also a tour through the life of an artist dedicated to his art. One gains an understanding of what shaped the direction of his career and what motivated him to evolve his technique. Fascinating stuff.
Me, I’ve always been held in thrall by science fiction illustration. Ever since my “Tom Corbett, Space Cadet” days. Loved the illos in the books. Alas, all I’m capable of is creating lively stick figures. I used to draw stick figures running through tunnels in hell being chased by demons and pack the resulting “art” to mail to my grandfather. Back would come letters to my parents inevitably asking the question, “What’s wrong with this boy?” He never did get an answer. Too much to explain, probably.
Anyway, I’m a sucker for eye candy, both in movies and illustrations, be they in books, comics, magazines, fanzines, or online. I particularly like hard-edged, realistic art displaying imaginary spacecraft or planetary landscapes as if they were documenting something which actually exists. Even better, if a poignant moment in time and action caught in a snapshot forever, lending the image an immortal, timeless quality. M.D. Jackson is especially good at that.
He began, as many artists do, as a boy constantly drawing and doodling whenever he had the chance. At the age of twelve, producing his own versions of the characters imagined by Edgar Rice Burroughs, for instance. His mother, a skilled water colour artist, encouraged him. As fate would have it, G.W. Thomas, the publisher of this book, was his best buddy back in his formative years. They made 8mm sf films, put out fanzines, debated the movies they saw. Typical SF nerds of the day but destined to be creators rather than passive observers.
Though there are a number of B&W drawings included in this book, I don’t think any of them constitute the true juvenilia with which he learned his craft. Such art is usually best kept on the pages of the notebooks in question. Given that many of the mature works feature barbarian princesses and warriors, I can’t help but wonder, during his awakening as a young artist, how many girls he managed to get to pose for him. Girls are attracted to genuine talent, after all. And it is obvious he knows his way around the female form. I attempted something similar with my stick figures, but alas to no avail. No one willing to pose. Not a one. Sigh.
This book is primarily devoted to the cover art Jackson created for books and magazines. It is a survey of his mature work. As such it is divided into sections dictated by the particular market he was aiming at. This makes a lot of sense and makes it easy to grasp the nature of his career as it evolved.
The first 15 full-page reproductions are a wide variety of early pieces, including a cover for G.W. Thomas’ novel “The Black Sun,” pieces for websites, and personal works to fill out his portfolio in the hope of appealing to this or that market. A piece depicting Robot Warriors in the Warhammer miniatures series. Commissioned works for novels which fell through. Most remarkable of all, three examples from his “Hookers Dressed as Comic Book Women Series.” Tight-fitting costumes to be sure, but the jaded, somewhat defiant facial expressions faithfully reflecting the reality of street life beyond comic book level. Very mature work indeed. Character studies which inundate the viewer with the tragedy of their lives. Superficially, yet another vision of long-legged bimbos so common to the SF genre, but in reality, because of the haunting look in their eyes, a vivid commentary on the immorality of the objectivization of women purely as sex objects and nothing else. Powerful.
Then a section of 6 pictures devoted to “The Weird Worlds of Joel Jenkins,” an author for whom Jackson created nearly forty book and magazine covers. A prolific writer makes for a prolific artist’s output. These particular pieces are not simply characters posing for their portrait. There is a great deal of tension in each scene, courtesy of facial expression and stance. It’s obvious they are about to spring into violent action. This is eminently suitable for Jenkin’s exotic pulp crossover books, be it in the genres “Skateboard and Zombies,” “Guns and Guitars,” or “Weird West.” Excites the imagination and makes you want to read the book.
There follows 10 cover art pieces Jackson did for author Jack Mackenzie with whom he has a particularly tight working relationship. They easily bring out the best in each other as they collaborate to produce art to complete mutual satisfaction. Every author deserves an artist partner of this calibre. Alas, so often even prominent authors don’t get to choose the cover art or the artist. Bean counters usually insist that is the publisher’s prerogative. Fortunately, that is not the case here. Mackenzie writes in a wide variety of Pulp SF&F genres. As revealed in his notes accompanying each piece, Jackson works very hard to come up with a visual style appropriate to each work. For example, for the novel “The Deadly Mr. Punch,” Jackson went with one colour, red, in homage to “the Bantam Doc Savage paperbacks which famously featured a series of striking monochromatic paintings by artist James Bama.” Jackson puts a great deal of thought into his work.
(Dang. I used to have the complete set of Doc Savage” paperbacks. Bought them as they were published. Lost over many moves. Likewise, my complete set of “Man from Uncle” paperbacks. Oh, well.)
Five more portfolio pieces, including a couple which graced the cover of “Darkworlds Quarterly.” I particularly like the one titled “Harbinger” which features a young woman, hair and rags rippling in a strong wind, against a red mist background in which massive dark tentacles appear to writhe. Very Lovecraftian.
The next section offers some 14 pieces, both sketches and colour covers, Jackson has done for “Amazing Stories Magazine,” from 2018 on. Most famously, for the “Captain Future” stories by Allan Steele that are inspired by the original “Captain Future” novels of Edmond Hamilton back in the 1940s. Fantastic ongoing opportunity for an artist, to be tied so closely to the modern version of the first magazine ever to be entirely devoted to science fiction (thanks to good old Hugo Gernsback). Of particular interest, the Summer 2021 issue of “Amazing” was “an all-Canadian effort.” Jackson was offered the role of art director for that issue. He brought in “some absolutely amazing Canadian artists” but made sure to offer some of his own work, such as illustrating “The Walker of the Shifting Borderland” by Douglas Smith.
A few more miscellaneous pieces, including the cover Jackson did for David Gerrold’s story collection “Adrift on the Sea of Souls.” Plus a sketch he did for the same book, Gerrold contemplating one of the critters he created in his Star Trek episode “The Trouble with Tribbles.” As Jackson writes, “It ended up in the book and I was never more proud of anything in my life!” Quite a coup.
Then comes my favourite section, 6 of the covers M.D. Jackson did for my magazine “Polar Borealis,” plus the cover (which also appears as the cover for this art collection) which Rhea E. Rose, Editor of “Polar Starlight Magazine,” commissioned for the cover of “Stellar Evolutions, The Best Short Stories and Poems of Polar Borealis Magazine’s First Fifteen Issues.” It has become a tradition between us that Jackson creates at least one cover piece a year for “Polar Borealis.” He knows I am very fond of retro fifties SF illustrations and designs his work accordingly. I am willing to publish a wide variety of cover art, including both surreal and metaphorical, but I do love a solid homage to our foundational traditions, especially the sort I imprinted on in my youth.
Something evident in the work he did for me, and scattered throughout his work in general, is a sense of poignancy that adds to the nostalgia pieces to be sure but is also useful for subtly adding tension to a given scene. Something is not quite right. Something is about to happen. It’s almost as if the characters regret what they are about to do. Jackson is very good at stirring the emotions of the readers looking at his artwork. In fact he is excellent at stirring the reader’s sense of wonder. I can’t think of higher praise than that.
Not included is the wonderful cover he did for my novel “Shatter Dark.” It was fantastic to work with him. The back and forth over the underlying concepts to be plainly demonstrated by the art underwent rapid evolution till a striking visual image strongly indicating the essential conundrum of the book proved to be exactly what I had in mind, though I didn’t know it till I saw the finished result. A godsend to work with so talented and sensitive an artist.
Alas, competition from AI art and increased focus on other aspects of his professional life has caused M.D. Jackson to cut back on his art productivity. Not completely, in that he is still open to doing work for his “regulars,” but I am the under the impression he no longer seeks “new” customers. I mention this as an example of a professional artist who is already aware that the modern trend, if only for financial reasons, is to abandon human artists as “too expensive,” such that soon it will be virtually impossible to make a living creating visual art.
I, for one, refuse to make use of AI art. I want human artists to do all my covers for my magazines and books. That be my publishing policy. I prefer to believe there will always be a niche for 100% human-derived writing and art. We haven’t made ourselves obsolete yet. I think. I hope.
At any rate, I trust I can count on M.D. Jackson for further covers in the years ahead. I would be most grateful.
CONCLUSION:
This is a wonderful book filled with wonderful art. Well worth buying if you are a lover of quality SF art and illustration.
Check it out at: < Worlds Dark and Dangerous >
