162. THE STORM KING - A black ink and gray color pencil drawing on an 11 x 14 size vellum paper. It is a double page drawing for the story titled, "The Storm King," by Joan D. Vinge, in the April, 1980 issue of, "Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine".

While drawing this picture I thought about all the science fiction magazine titles of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. They are all gone now, a wonderful part of the nostalgic past. I turned around in my swivel chair to look at my collection of those old pulps and realized how fortunate I was to own so many of them . . .

And how unfortunate that here, in 1980, I was illustrating stories for the the few SF magazines that were still being published, but were destined to die soon for lack of sales; "If Worlds of SF," "Galaxy," "Amazing," "Fantastic". . .

I wondered, how much longer could I survive as an illustrator . . .

And then the telephone rang. I picked it up and heard a woman say, "Hi, my name is Peggy Cooper, I'm an editor at TSR. Do you have time to do some illustrations for me? And I said " yes," and she said "good," and for the next ten years Peggy sent me high paying assignments that removed any worries I had about surviving.

Somehow, when I needed them, miracles came to me.