It's a fantasy fan's dream: from a sexy female Rincewind to a sizzling Lady Amalthea, a series of reimagined fantasy characters from the pens of authors including George RR Martin and Terry Pratchett will be making up a "literary pin-ups" calendar for 2013.
Artist Lee Moyer, backed by fantasy author Patrick Rothfuss's charity Worldbuilders, published his first literary pin-ups calendar last year, featuring takes on the works of Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
This year, Moyer decided that "instead of deceased authors who couldn't fight back", he'd ask 12 fantasy writers to take part, and major names in the genre such as Neil Gaiman, Jim Butcher and Patricia Briggs have all given him the go-ahead.
January will see Moyer's take on Peter S Beagle's Lady Amalthea, the last unicorn. "There's a strange integrity to properly told tales, and to their tellers. Peter is an original – a marvellous person who writes of marvels, but never took on airs of the high-falutin'," said Moyer, who signed the author up to the calendar after "various calls, notes, and emails with Peter in several different locations about the country".
Pratchett, meanwhile, signed off on Moyer's unusual version of Rincewind, a far cry from the author's description of the character in The Colour of Magic as "scrawny, like most wizards". According to The Huffington Post, Gaiman's musician wife Amanda Palmer agreed to model for the calendar as one of her husband's characters, and Martin has signed off on his own pin-up page.
Moyer said that he was "inspired by the idea of strength and competence with beauty, brains, and a whole lot of muscle" for his illustration of Mercy Thompson, from Briggs' bestselling paranormal series. "This is a girl who can take care of herself, and you'd be lucky to have her working on your car. It was a delight to paint her. And moreover to create an old-school garage calendar – not only matching the format of those classic pieces as best I could, but riffing on the style of pin-up great George Petty."
Other characters in the calendar will be from the authors Ray Bradbury, Jacqueline Carey, Charlaine Harris, Robin Hobb, NK Jemisin and Rothfuss himself. Rothfuss's literary charity Worldbuilders partnered with Moyer to publish the calendar, with profits to go to the charity Heifer International.
