Having mentioned Russell Mills in the last blog I have now managed to track down seven of his PAN tiles and I’ve also included a few of the ones he produced for the PAN Picador imprint. Russell not only does book covers but also album and CD sleeves plus accompanying booklets and promotional material. His latest exhibition ‘Cargo in the Blood’ opens in Halifax on 22 February and runs to 19 April 2015

I was also in contact with George Sharp this week and he emailed me an interesting story concerning the cover for ‘Testament’;

“I remember ‘First Blood’ vividly because I thought the book was remarkable. I depicted a moment in the writing when the rifle was being raised into the air as the protagonist – soon to become the hugely famous Rambo  emerges from a hideout in the snow. It was the “Okay let’s go get the f**kers!” moment. So I painted the image to be reproduced like this – upside down. But it was not to be. David Larkin, the art director of Pan at the time, liked the work as being an example of how to paint giving the appearance of being very detailed without actually it being painted in a detailed way.”