When I walked into the Huckster's Room at the ECOF in the summer of 2019 at Chicago, one of the first tables I visited was that of my friend and fellow author and Edgar Rice Burroughs fan, Gary Buckingham.  In short order, Gary introduced me to a guy set up near him--a jovial and loquacious fellow by the name of Bob Garcia.  In short order Bob was lauding the virtues of his wares (as might any good vendor).  I can tell you, his expositions fell on willing ears when he immediately began telling me about a book of which he had but a few Publisher Copies (PC) remaining which contained examples of the works of a man I greatly admire, that being the immortal Virgil Finlay.

Now, there have been many various editions over the years of the works of Virgil Finlay… but none, my friends, precisely like this one.  The original idea for this book was spawned from the discussions of collectors Douglas Ellis and Robert Weinberg.  When they discussed the idea with their mutual friend, Bob Garcia, at the World Fantasy Convention where Virgil's daughter, Lail, was being honored, the project took wings.  And it flew.

Out of the conversation I had with Garcia came an understanding of just how daunting a task this project was to bring to fruition.  Virgil's stippling and line work is so fine that much of it was lost when it originally went to print in the pulp magazines.  This was an issue, as Bob explained it to me, that even today was difficult to circumvent.

One would think that in today's day and age this would be a simple matter.  Scan.  Print.  Done.

But it wasn't that easy.

As the work fell upon Bob Garcia to produce these high quality scans, he found he must experiment until it was discovered exactly the right machines and settings that must be employed to bring Finlay's works to the waiting world in a manner as closely approximating seeing the works in real life as possible.  Ah, but the Devil is always in the details!

Before I get ahead of myself, it must be explained that The Collectors' Book of Virgil Finlay is a compilation of the collections of more than one collector.  Hence, Collectors' in the title.

The Collectors' Book of Virgil Finlay is a pictorial tour de force of the collections of four individuals, these being Robert Weinberg, Doug Ellis, Glynn Crain and Robert Weiner.  So many Bobs!  I don't know how they kept up with who was who when they were corresponding.  We have Bob, Bob, Bob, Doug and Glynn.  I bet Doug and Glynn were glad they were easily singled-out, so they knew who was being spoken to.  Or maybe they weren't!  They didn’t have the option of playing dumb, for sure.  Not that they would.  These guys--heart and soul--were solidly behind this project.  Thank goodness they were.

It must also be pointed out that this book was made possible by a Kickstarter campaign.  Kickstarter is awesome--I've taken part in a couple of them, the most recent being The Edgar Rice Burroughs 100 Year Art Chronology (or Chrononogy if you have the first edition).

I mentioned the stippling Virgil employed for his many black and white illustrations--the sheer detail that he imbued that proved so difficult to capture.  It was a shame to read in the text of the Collectors' Book of how Virgil was forced, due to a changing market insisting on both speedily expediting the required work and a decrease in the payment for each piece by as much as half, that he was forced to reduce his level of detail to meet said demand.  A shame.  As an artist myself, I can realize how cutting that must have been to him personally--to have to cut your quality to meet a deadline, knowing an inferior work must live on after you are gone, with some of those who happen upon it not understanding the reason behind it.

Not only was Virgil forced to reduce his quality in his later years, but the prices for original art had never quite risen to the level of the products for which it was produced.  Luckily for Vigil, he was always insistent--where many were not--upon his art being returned to him by the publishers after they were through with it.  This stood him in good stead when he later became ill and began selling off these prized pieces.  Still, he wasn't realizing the prices his works of art were worth.  No where near it.

Can you imagine buying this piece above for a mere $7?

Yet it happened (or at least, for ones like it).  According to Robert Weinberg, after he fell ill with cancer, Virgil began selling off the many hundreds of original sketches and oils he had accumulated throughout his career, with 52 of them being offered for sale for a mere pittance to pay for medical bills in an August 1969.  Many more sales followed.  Gods, what a shame.  But at the time folks were more interested in the actual publications, not the pieces of art that adorned them.  Luckily, it's not quite the same today.

Look at all those dots in this piece.  Finlay became probably the world master of stippling, re-sharpening his pens and applying one dot at a time at the height of his mastercraft. 

Which brings us to a question: exactly how did Bob Garcia manage to reproduce these original pieces in such crisp detail?  In his notes, Bob goes into quite a bit of detail about the reproducing of these pieces for publication.  Line work was scanned at a whopping 2400 dpi to ensure crispness of detail.  The grayscale pieces were scanned on Epson equipment at 600 dpi, while the color pieces were scanned at a 500-600 dpi setting.  That's extraordinarily fine, for those who don't know.  300 dpi is considered high resolution, by comparison.

By the way, most of these pieces, a possible true first as it were in regard to collections of Finlay's works, are reproduced at a 1:1 scale in this book.  In layman's terms, that means the original is the same size as what you see reproduced in this high quality book.  I haven't made mention at this point of the sheer quality of this piece (I use the term piece when I refer to a book that is, in my estimation, of borderline museum quality).  Even down to the image on the cover (which is Lail Finlay, by the way, who posed for many of her father's pieces) the artwork is simply superb.  And the pages are thick!  This book just exudes quality and would be considered a fine investment in any collection.

Virgil is famous for his bubbles and stars keeping it PG13.  In the one above he went with butterflies!  In others I've seen him use flowers.  Always amazing, no matter what ornament he chose to adorn his beauties.

The inking (and possibly the noticeable lack of stippling and linework for shadows) causes this piece to remind me of a Hannes Bok. 

You've seen so far a sampling of the black and whites that make up the first part of the book.  What of the colors?  Virgil did some amazing oil works that went on to adorn some classic covers of many now renowned magazines.

How about this piece to start?  Absolutely stunning.

Above is a trio of famous pieces one comes across frequently when looking at Virgil's work--the most famous perhaps being his cover piece for A. Merritt's The Metal Monster (pictured in the middle).

It was difficult, believe me, deciding which pieces to photograph for this article.  I'll close with this one below. There are many that I didn’t include in the article that are--and justifiably so--more famous.  But I wished to bring to you some you may not have seen before.  I hope I did.  Those that I've included are a mere sampling of what this killer book includes should you pursue obtaining a copy. 

Lastly, these photos that I've taken of my own personal copy of this book can't faithfully reproduce the lush detail of the artwork.  There is bandwidth to consider, so I've had to greatly reduce the photos in size.  Just like when these are seen in the old pulp magazines, they're not as good as the originals.  But Garcia's book comes close.  Astronomically close.

About Chris L Adams

I spent years playing guitar, in and out of bands, and during that time was more of a voracious reader than a writer.  After that last band collapsed, I turned from writing songs to writing stories, eventually turning out a half million-word Barsoom series as a tribute to Edgar Rice Burroughs and a host of self-published short stories and poems.  Something inside drives me to create, and so together with writing stories and playing guitar, I also dabble in painting.

You may find me on my website, www.ChrisLAdamsBizarreTales.com.  There, you’ll find any pertinent links, information on available stories, and other things you might find of interest.  I love talking about favorite authors, writing and collecting books so if you can't find what you're looking for, shoot me an email.