Paul Davey's "Lights Please" and "Nothing Left To Say"

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Will Focus' "Haki" and "Arisen"

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Geneva Benton's Giraffe and Ursa Minor

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Kalifa Damani's "Mermaid" and "Caribbean Airlines"

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Will Focus' "Angelic" and "Hip Hop"

Paul Davey's "Pacifics" and "Think Twice"

"Kim Skyboarder" and "Voltaire" by EmmShin

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Christine Knopp's "Desert Heat" and "Purrmaid Fishing"

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Minix's "Lately" and "Celestial Fruit"

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Dennis Liu's "Raising Dion"

“Have you ever wondered what it’s like to raise a superhero?How do you give him a normal childhood? How do you protect him from the world?”

Written by Dennis Liu and illustrated by Jason Piperberg,  the "Raising Dion" comic series addresses these questions from the perspective of Nicole, a widowed African American mother raising a 7 year old whose talents of invisibility, plasma powers, and telekinesis are becoming increasingly powerful and attracting the attention of mysterious men.

Paul Davey's "BreakaDawn" and "Do You Dig?"

Click thumbnails to view images in Paul Davey's deviantart gallery.

Kip Omolade's Expecting

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"Expecting" was selected for Spectrum 11: The Best In Contemporary Fantastic Art.

Fasole's "Cyperpunk Samurai"

Snow Crash fanart by Fasole (paradanmellow). Click thumbnail to view larger image in artist's gallery. Finally, a quality Hiro portrait that actually respects the author's character description. ;-) (Snow Crash is a cyperpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. The protagonist is of African American and Korean descent.)

Has anyone noticed that most of the official Snow Crash covers with Hiro on them show either a silhouette or back view? And the few covers that have Hiro in profile or three-quarter view portray him with Caucasian features. One Hiro illustration, which made it into Spectrum some years ago,  didn't even get the hair right. (That particular illustrator portrayed Hiro as someone with white skin, European features and lank hair.)

This isn't an issue unique to Snow Crash covers. Another example is the treatment of Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea books. As the author herself describes in Slate article A Whitewashed Earthsea, publishers seem to go out of their way to avoid showing non-white faces on book covers, out of fear that doing so might hurt sales.

Paul Davey's "Wild Remote" and "Thieves in the Night"

Click on thumbnails to view images in illustrator's deviantart gallery.

John Jude Palencar's cover art for Octavia Butler's Patternist series

Mass market paperback covers:

Wild Seed (1999) and Mind of my Mind (1994). (click thumbnails to view larger images on on artist's site)

Clay's Ark (1996) and Patternmaster (1995), Click thumbnails to view larger images on on ifsdb.com.

Leo and Diane Dillon's African American folkltale illustrations

Three illustrations from supernatural tales in Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales, a beautifully illustrated collection of stories:

Click on thumbnail to visit "The Art of Leo and Diane Dillon" blog for a larger view of these illustrations and other fantastical illustrations from the same book.

Leo and Diane Dillon's African American mermaid illustrations

Two mermaid illustrations from Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales, a beautifully illustrated collection of stories:

Illustration from the story 'Mary Belle and the Mermaid'.

Click on thumbnail to visit "The Art of Leo and Diane Dillon" blog for a larger view of this illustration and other fantastical illustrations from the same book.

Illustration from the story 'The Mer-Woman Out of the Sea'.

Click on thumbnail to visit "The Art of Leo and Diane Dillon" blog for a larger view of this illustration and other fantastical illustrations from the same book.

Jeremy Love's Bayou

A graphic novel set in 1930s Mississippi, Bayou is an American fairytale that is equal parts history and fantasy. The child heroine Lee watches in horror as a monster rising from the swamp kidnaps her white friend. Lee's innocent father is then accused of murdering the missing white girl.

To clear her father's name and save his life, Lee sets out on a fantastical journey to rescue her friend, journeying through a landscape populated by supernatural creatures based on Southern cultural archetypes - Br'er Rabbit,  lynching victims metamorphosed into winged fairies, and Bayou, the mighty green swamp dwelling creature who becomes Lee's guide. [Image on left is from Bayou Volume 1]

John Jude Palencar's cover art for Octavia Butler's Earthseed series

The 1995 February mass-market cover for Parable of the Sower.

For cover image and more information on this edition, click thumbnail to go to publication listing on Internet Speculative Fiction Database.

The 2001 November mass-market cover for Parable of the Talents.

For cover image and more information on this edition, click thumbnail to go to publication listing on Internet Speculative Fiction Database.

Suggested by Queena Deboever.

Thomas Blackshear's "The Watcher" and Ebony Visions angel figurines

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View more angel figurines in Blackshear's Ebony Visions.