Darrell K. Sweet has passed away

[michael.clinton83]

Sorry to hear about anyone dying, and it's sad that the entire series had one artist for all except the last book. I hope for the sake of continuity whoever does the art has a very similar style.

 

With all of that said, I've always thought the cover art was terrible. The eBook covers are light years better.

 

I also think in comparison to other mainstream fantasy worlds (stories, video games, etc) I have to say WoT is severely lacking in quality fan art, or I'm looking in all the wrong places.

[LeeM.Erickson]

Heard about this yesterday and it's a shame. My condolences to his family. I was never the biggest fan of all of his WoT covers, but there are some I really like. EotW and PoD come to mind. Also, I always had a little theory about some of the inaccuracies in the WoT covers. I always wondered if maybe some of it was intentional, since a big theme of the series is how stories change over time. Like maybe these are supposed to represent paintings from some later Age depicting things that happened in the series, and there's little details that are different. It just always struck me as odd that someone like Jordan who is obviously such a stickler for details would put art on his books that didn't accurately represent things in the series unless he had a reason.

 

I hope some form of his AMoL artwork makes it onto the cover. Even as someone who has criticized his covers in the past, I consider them quintessentially part of WoT, and always anticipated what the next one would be, and trying to decipher whatever I could from about the book once the cover art was released. It would just be jarring to see the final book without it. That would be like changing the font or not having the little oval that says "Book whatever of The Wheel of Time"!

 

Also, Sanderson has a nice little blog post about Mr. Sweet's unfortunate passing:

 

http://brandonsanderson.com/blog/1039/Darrell-Sweet

[michael.clinton83]

I always had a little theory about some of the inaccuracies in the WoT covers. I always wondered if maybe some of it was intentional, since a big theme of the series is how stories change over time. Like maybe these are supposed to represent paintings from some later Age depicting things that happened in the series, and there's little details that are different. It just always struck me as odd that someone like Jordan who is obviously such a stickler for details would put art on his books that didn't accurately represent things in the series unless he had a reason.

 

Is there a post about these on the forums? I just did a search with no luck, and I have never noticed any errors before.

[JenniferL]

Posts deleted. Frost Wynters, don't post in this thread again.

[kirkgray]

I owe my long love of The Wheel of Time to Darrell Sweet.

 

I was visiting my parents many years ago when I mother handed me a book. (Books have a long tradition as a "just because" gift in our family.) "It looked like one of those books you like," she said. It was a new release by an author I'd never heard of, The Eye of the World. Thanks Mom.

 

And thank you Mr. Sweet.

[ironisles]

First time I read LotR his art was on the covers. Will always remember it. He did a huge amount of work and I dare say half or more of the books I read back in the 80's and 90's had his art on the covers. I can't say I liked all of his WoT work, but that has in no way lessened my respect for this giant of the fantasy/scifi world. RIP sir you will be sorely missed.

[Dwynwen]

I'm shocked and sad to hear this. RIP, Mr. Sweet.

[LeeM.Erickson]

Is there a post about these on the forums? I just did a search with no luck, and I have never noticed any errors before.

 

It's not usually anything too major. Perrin has a round shield on the cover of TDR...the most glaring one I can think of off hand was the way the Tower of Ghenji looked on the cover for ToM. It's described in the series as being totally smooth metal, where on the cover it seems made of stones.

[capuga]

Is there a post about these on the forums? I just did a search with no luck, and I have never noticed any errors before.

 

It's not usually anything too major. Perrin has a round shield on the cover of TDR...the most glaring one I can think of off hand was the way the Tower of Ghenji looked on the cover for ToM. It's described in the series as being totally smooth metal, where on the cover it seems made of stones.

 

There's a fairly long list. But there's other threads for this, this thread is meant to be respectful.

 

Sorry to hear this news and hope his family is doing OK. It's too bad that the entire series won't have a consistent artistic look.

[Senexx]

First the Creator and now this

[MauricXe]

Sad news. I really enjoyed his cover art for the WoT. I have them on my computer's wallpaper rotation

[Gon]

Rest in peace, darrell. You will be missed.

[Vicious Circle]

Ba'alzamon on the spine of The Dragon Reborn gave me the shivers, so I had to read the series. Thank you for all the conversation and controversy your art has brought to my life, Mr. Sweet, I am in your debt.

[Entreri]

RIP.

 

EoTW cover also got me hooked as a child, decades ago. I was hoping he would do the AMOL cover, I liked his unique art style.

[Sharaman]

I really liked the Xanth covers as well. Sweet's style is very distinctive and at the same time, it's obviously heavily influenced by the early SFF mag tradition. In that sense, he was a throwback. Wonder if he'd done some stuff for AMoL before he passed on. That would be nice.

[Byzantine279]

RIP, and as much as we bagged on the covers, they were perfectly fine and we all know it :).