Monday, March 16, 2015

Danilo of Darkover


This nice little piece of fan art was done for my show at DarkoverCon, back when this convention was flourishing and had a good art show. Marion Zimmer Bradley, the creator of Darkover, always attended and held court among her adoring fans. In those days I actually made money at that convention, targeting things like this character portrait towards people who liked and identified with that character.

Danilo appears in many Darkover books especially "The Heritage of Hastur" where he is involved in a gay relationship with a nobleman, Regis. This book inspired a lot of Darkover fans who were struggling with their own gay-ness and needed a sympathetic treatment of this theme in fiction. Darkover was set in a kind of Renaissance world using magic instead of modern technology, until modern space explorers find them as a "lost" human space colony. So you get some science fiction with your fantasy, and a serious gay story as well. 

Ink on illustration board, about 5 1/2" x 7 1/2", fall 1980.

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