Custodian & Illustrator for the Gardner Francis Fox Library

3/30/2021

Since 2015, I have been collecting the vintage paperbacks and pulps written by Gardner Francis Fox. Mr. Fox is best known as the comic book writer for such DC characters as The Flash, Hawkman, and Justice League. He was a very prolific writer. I have brought together all 156 original paperbacks for the Gardner Francis Fox Library. The Library’s primary mission is to keep Mr. Fox’s writing from falling into obscurity.

As the custodian, I am responsible for transcribing all of his paperbacks and pulps to be redistributed digitally. Currently, The Library is offering MOBI eBooks, New Edition rePrints, as well as Audiobooks.

I am absolutely captivated by the stories of not only Mr. Fox’s works but in the whole of what the vintage Paperback industry had produced. I am inspired by the cover art and interior illustrations created during these years. They had to be so much more imaginative back then. They had to be since they were the ones responsible for inventing most of what we consume in the way of fantasy entertainment today.

As an illustrator, I am working on bringing back some of the imaginativeness that the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s had to offer. Taking much of my motivation from these eras, I have been reconstituting Mr. Fox’s writing with my scratchboard illustrations.

My desire to want to work more closely with Mr. Fox’s work came when I was researching for a sword and sorcery character in the public domain. I found Crom the Barbarian, the first recognized sword and sorcery character created for comic books back in 1950.

Once I found Crom I wanted to create new comic book stories for him and his world. I ended up doing four new stories and put them all together in a collection with the first three original Fox and John Guinta stories.

After that, I wanted to work on something more substantial. It was at this time I started to collect Mr. Fox’s paperbacks and pulps. I was more interested in writing stories about Crom that were in Mr. Fox’s voice than just appropriating the character for my own whims. I felt the best way was to take his older works and re-work them into “newer” stories.

I found that after reading Mr. Fox’s The Warlock of Sharrador, originally published in Planet Stories, March 1953, that if the technology was flipped to be more like sorcery then I would have a new Crom the Barbarian story.

Crom and the Warlock of Sharrador was published in 2015 with 12 new illustrations originally in pencil and later done in scratchboard.

Currently, I am working on completing the transcription of all 156 original paperbacks. As of this date, I have less than thirty books to transcribe.

I am doing a 6x6 inch scratchboard art illustration for each new book release. I have taken on the “Pretty Face” theme. Challenging myself to interpret each story into a female face.

I have ninety-six completed so far. The first 78 of 156 (being halfway there) has been collected into an art book.

My goal is to have all 156 original paperback stories transcribed and released by the end of this year 2021. From there, I will look to start diving deeper into Mr. Fox’s stories and create my own illustrations to accompany them.

All of this in the hopes to help promote Mr. Fox’s writing legacy.

If you are a fan of retro style reading, please check The www.gardnerfrancisfoxlibrary.com