This was a really fun cover to do. Richard Quinney wanted to publish a paperback version of a book we did for Borderland Books a few years ago. He also wanted to jazz up the look of this version and thought we could use an illustration Steve Chappell had created for the hard cover, but never got used. I modified the illustration a little to remove some of the foreground to make room for the title and changed the type font to match the style of the illustration. Richard also asked me to simplify the frontispiece illustration. Andrews was born and grew up in Beloit, Wisconsin.
From the back cover: “‘Under a Lucky Star’ is the autobiography of the explorer Roy Chapman Andrews (1884-1960). Adored by the public and pursued by the press, Andrews came as close to superstar status as any explorer in the twentieth century. Much of Under a Lucky Star focuses on his grandest adventure, the legendary Central Asiatic Expeditions. This series of five daring journeys into uncharted expanses of the Gobi Desert produced a previously unsuspected treasure trove of dinosaur remains.
In the course of their travels the explorers confronted raging sandstorms, extremes of heat and cold, political unrest, and marauding bandits, among other hazards. In retrospect, the Central Asiatic Expeditions constituted one of the truly innovative episodes in the annals of scientific discovery.”
Ken Crocker Artist 