Michael Wm. Kaluta - Books of magic novel cover prelim

I got this from a friend where I live. He had got it from Kaluta years ago and couldn’t remember what it was for. So I reached out to Mr. Kaluta to see if he had any info about it and it turned out he totally remembered it and what it was for. He also sent me pictures of the finished product that was never used. Here’s what he told me: Yes, Billy… that is one of several rough ideas to show to the editors so they may understand what I’d like the cover to look like. Your sketch is the idea agreed upon between me and a publishing company, in this case NOT DC Comics Vertigo, but a well-know paperback publisher, like ‘Random House’ or similar. At the point this was sketched I was the paperback editors choice for painting the cover of their first Books of Magic novel: Words Only, no comics. There was a painting generated from this sketch, but never used. At the ‘eleventh hour’ management had the editors chose another cover artist. The novel was published, my original cover never printed (as far as I know… I’ll search my Hard Drives for a jepg of the completed art and send you a copy (if found…my filing system is a swamp, esp for unpublished ideas). If I come across the several other ideas I put forward for the paperback cover, I’ll get those images to you, too. Of the several sketched ideas, this is my favorite: it presents Tim Hunter, suggested he was in a situation where Time was ‘of the essence’, and the surrounding ‘mysterious’ faces added an unseen, unidentified threat. I forget the reason for those letter forms floating back behind the strangers…