My Experiences with Fantasy in Story and Art

I Was Born to Read

I think it was inevitable that I would fall into the worlds of fantasy. My mother’s idea of bedtime stories included the works of Poe and Coleridge. She was constantly reading to me herself, and enrolled me in the Dr. Seuss Book Club when I was very little. I started getting books from Scholastic as soon as it was introduced to me in elementary school. I looked forward to those little flyers and the annual Scholastic Book Fair.

I also loved sketching and design. For a while I thought I wanted to be a fashion artist, drawing the pictures for newspaper and magazine ads, or for the front of the Simplicity pattern packages. I drew pictures of my favorite book characters, colorful landscapes, and beautiful girls in pretty clothes.

My History with Fantasy

My love for the worlds of fantasy created by authors like J.R.R. Tolkien, Ursula K. LeGuin, Anne McCaffrey, Roger Zelazny, Tanith Lee, and Mary Stewart started when I picked up my first copy of T.H. White’s The Once and Future King as a young child. It wouldn’t be long before I was reading everything from Tolkien’s The Hobbit to Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man.

I also read a lot of books in other genres, which is probably why I never got into comics and the fabulous art that goes with them back then. I did read Archie comics until I was maybe 11, and when I was 12 or 13, I cut out those newspaper comics that always told us something about what “Love is…;” silly stuff like “Love is…never having to say you’re sorry.” I didn’t discover fantasy comics until I was in my late thirties when ElfQuest came into my life.

Today I still read a lot of books in various genres, but fantasy will always be dear to my heart.

When I was a teen, I knew some people who played Dungeons and Dragons. I always thought it would be fun. Sadly, I didn’t know any girls who played. In fact, during my younger years, I didn’t even know any other girls who read fantasy books or who had fantasy art on their bedroom walls.

I hung out with the D&D guys in one of their basements listening to obscure music and talking about the universe, sometimes lying outside on the grass looking into the skies in wonder. Still, they never asked me to join them for D&D, and it never occurred to me to ask for an invitation.

Most of my teen years I hung out with my younger sister, going to keggers in the woods, roller skating, going to school dances, hanging out at the local bowling alley or visiting the cemetery. I sometimes went on dates, but mostly I stayed home listening to music and reading books.

I wrote stories and I doodled, but I never pursued writing or art in any serious way. I didn’t feel I was good enough at either by then. I daydreamed about things I thought I wanted to do with my life, but skated along the edges as the new girl, always feeling inadequate.

I sought escape and happiness in the many worlds I found in books and the albums I listened to when I read.

Then I met my first real boyfriend. We met when my sister and I were walking across a park near the university in the city where we were living. It was the summer between my junior and senior years. If I had been a fan of fantasy before I met him, I fell even deeper into it when we got together. He was the one who really got me into Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Before him, I had only read The Hobbit. He knew everything about Middle Earth and anything related to it.

It was because of him that my fantasy reading and my real life began to become one. Everything I had read about witchcraft both fact and fiction, the stories of other worlds that I had gotten caught up in, the ethereal and magical music I had been discovering all came together into a sort of spirituality that came to define me.

There is a cozy, deep, meaningful, and inspirational feeling that permeates my experiences with fantasy that is triggered by the sight of good fantasy art. It’s more than make-believe. It’s a doorway to a deep truth as revealed by mythology, storytelling, and archetypes.

Discovering Fantasy Art

In the 1970s I fell in love with the works of the Brothers Hildebrandt, particularly their Lord of the Rings calendar art. Frank Frazetta’s work was on posters everywhere, as was that of Boris Vallejo. These artists brought to life the worlds I read about but could only see in my imagination. I stepped into imaginary worlds when I looked deeply into the posters and album art that permeated my life during those years.

In my early thirties, I had a friend who collected Japanese anime and manga. It wasn’t mainstream then, so the videos he had were all in Japanese, but I could see the attraction of the artistic style. I could see the potential for the fantasy worlds that would one day be a part of my life as I watched anime television shows and films with my children.

Once I discovered ElfQuest, with the art and the written word printed together, my life was changed. Wendy Pini’s characters were more attractive, more exciting, and more real than those of the Archie comics I read as a kid. I developed an appreciation for graphic storytelling I hadn’t had before, and my love for that type of artwork grew.

My Friend Q

Over the years now, I’ve met quite a few excellent artists who do fantasy work. Few have been as famous as those whose posters donned the walls of my teenage years. Of the artists I have known personally, I can think of three whose work fits the genre in different ways. But my friend Quinton is the one whose work was, I believe, in the same category with Frazetta, Vallejo, and even Pini.

I met Quinton Hoover on MySpace. It wasn’t even his art that originally piqued my interest; rather, it was his poetry. He was open and honest about the difficulties he was having in his life at the time, and we connected on different levels. I wish I had saved some of his writings, because when MySpace changed, all of those writings we posted over the years just disappeared.

Not long ago, though, one of Q’s poems appeared on my Facebook memories. I am certain he wouldn’t mind if I share it here.

Railing

copyright 2011, Quinton Hoover (March 22, 2011)

I find myself railing, simply against

I want it to matter, like that train in the distance

Carrying something

That someone needs, that somebody will use

Even if it’s discarded in the end

Stationed.

In its place…

The number’s on the box — it’s not hard to read

And still, a proper delivery’s never a sure thing…stuff gets lost…

It happens — carrying freight is no easy task

And the train keeps a-rollin’, all night long…

Put your ear to that steel, son, and listen…

See if you can tell what’s comin’…

Listen for the wheels

Are they rolling, or raising sparks in the halt?

It kinda matters when your head’s down there, boy…you know it does

But you are young

Funny how rails become, with years, the things we hold onto

To keep from falling

When in our youths, they simply stretched to a horizon

And disappeared into a mystery

We ached and yearned to follow

I long to return to that narrow gauge

To never worry about what’s at the end of the tunnel

To be skinny enough, once more

To let it pass or go over

To be a boy fascinated by the simple machine…

I didn’t know Q was a visual artist when I first started interacting with him, but when I first saw his work, I was floored. It was gorgeous! It turned out that Quinton had been one of the first artists to work on Magic the Gathering. His cards are still popular today. Collectible. I found one person’s collection recorded on a website that you can check out here.

Back in the days when we were in contact regularly, I was able to purchase one item that had Q’s work on it — a pin which displays a portion of his Winter Fairy. I think of her as a version of the Norse goddess Freya. I never could afford an original or even a complete print, but I sure wish I could.

At the time, they weren’t necessarily overly expensive, but affordability is relative. His work pops up on Ebay and other places now, but it’s unlikely I’ll be able to afford it. His talent is such that his artwork is worth every penny to collectors. I would feel blessed just to own a single print.

From my talks with him, his old social media posts, and his writing, I know Quinton had a hard life. Immense talent does not save one from the tribulations of bad relationships, abuse, and depression. In some ways, it seems to put some at further risk of the troubles of life.

A sensitive soul, a caring person, one who listens to others and supports them to the detriment of oneself can be heart-hurt and broken even in the midst of artistic success. Quinton was just that kind of person.

Quinton was only 49 when he died on April 19, 2013. He had been ill for some time, and I seem to recall that the last time I talked to him in 2011 he was not feeling well. There doesn’t seem to be an “official” obituary anywhere that I can find, but I know what I know. Still, it isn’t my place to publicly post something that his family chose not to share. You can read some memorials to Q online here, here, and here.

Quinton Hoover was one of the best friends I ever had that I never got to meet in person.

This story first appeared in Fandom Fanatics on Medium