A Tribute to my Friend and Colleague, Jackson Smith

I was a week into writing “The Cursed Kingdom of Oz” when news broke of the untimely passing of my good friend and colleague Jackson Smith, who drew all the artwork for the first three novels of this series. Though we hadn’t talked in a few weeks, in part because he was working through some personal struggles, he was on my mind a great deal. I was visually conceptualizing what sort of work he could do for the array of situations and characters I was beginning to explore in the newest yarn, which I hoped would become our professional reunion after he had not been available for collaboration on the fourth volume of this series.

 

I had made a point to draft a few texts, to check on him and see how he was progressing in his journey back to good health, but I never got the chance to send them. Nor, for that matter, did I get to say to him all the things that I wanted to about his incredibly distinct vision in a time when so much art is disrespected, overlooked or buried in the muck of senseless online algorithms. His was a talent that was rare among this world, and in many of the conversations we shared he often talked about how nervous he was each time another drawing assignment arrived for our stories, as if doubting I would approve of what he would come to me with. That is the mark of a genuine artist: someone who is uncertain of their own skill but risks the entirety of it because of how much he loves doing it.

 

In truth, much of what he did informed the direction of these stories. The anatomy of the monster that served as the antagonist of “A Nightmare in Oz,” for instance, came to be precisely because of the idea he used for the book cover. So, too, did he breathe exciting new life into the faces of an array of characters whose last visual representation had been featured in books published a hundred years prior. The Leopard King of Gugu. Sir Hokus. Old Mombi. Kabumpo, the Elegant Elephant. As you look at each of his pieces, you gain a sense of the same sophisticated eye that expects more from modern stories than just a flyweight trip through magical kingdoms or enchanted forests – the same eye, of course, that I use in my own trek through the fabled lands of Oz. He knew exactly what I was going for, and words cannot describe just how pertinent he was in evolving and shaping the direction of these stories.

 

Now I am here, releasing a fifth book without his guidance or his input, and the territory ahead feels frighteningly unrealized. What would he have done to interpret some of the exciting new characters of this tome? Captain Fyter? The Pearlfolk? The Violet Knight? Hyland of Pumperdink? The Witherwalkers? These are beings who now seem destined to eternally walk across his unfinished canvas.

 

Nonetheless, we must let our minds drift in wonder. Think of his striking aesthetic as you come to join the quest in the following pages. Imagine the images he would have come up with for the Kingdom of Pumperdink. For the magic of the Stormweaver. For the attack of the frightening pumpkin army as it emerges from a dark forest to stomp out those who seek to restore order in a forgotten land. For the climactic battle between the spirit of a cursed knight against a corrupted king. And for a small, precious feline who comes to possess a great power, only to find it less potent than the purity of her enormous heart.

 

All these situations, behaviors and themes were written entirely with Jackson in mind, in the paradoxical hope that somewhere, somehow, I have provided him with some small morsel of inspiration to continue engaging in the talent on the other side that he loved so much in life.

 

This book is lovingly dedicated to his memory.