MILLER, Ian

(1946-)

   UK illustrator. After graduating from St Martin's College of Art, IM became a commercial illustrator in 1970, with both book-cover work and interior ILLUSTRATIONS, some of the latter in David Day's The Tolkien Bestiary (1979). He did highly characteristic work on the backgrounds forRalph Bakshi's Wizards (1977), an animated film with a FAR FUTURE setting. Books of his work are Green Dog Trumpet and Other Stories (graph coll 1978) - the stories being in the form of pictures without accompanying text - Secret Art (1980) and, more recently, Ratspike (1990) with John Blanche. The Luck in the Head (graph 1991) with M. John HARRISON is aGRAPHIC NOVEL with text adapted by Harrison from his 1983 short story of the same name. IM appears in The Guide to Fantasy Art Techniques (1984) ed Martyn Dean. Though he has worked in a commercial vein, he is also knownfor fanciful work at the opposite pole from the airbrushed superrealism that has dominated UK sf/fantasy art for two decades: two of his gloomier modes involve, respectively, detailed fine-lined GOTHIC black-and-white work in ink, almost STEAMPUNK in style, and semi-abstracted deliquescing faces; in Ratspike he classed these as "tight pen" and "asylum images" respectively. IM was art editor for INTERZONE 1983-5. He is a gallery artist as well as an illustrator, his first exhibition having been in 1973.

   PN/JC

   See also: BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION AWARD; GAMES WORKSHOP.