Jack of Harts

The story of the art I used for the cover of Rebirth is literally older than the story itself. Way back in the 1990s, not long after Fort Max died in the comics, I had this story pop up in my head of Fort Max being rebuilt and fighting the Cybertronians. The story that would become The Rebirth came to me three decades ago. And it was big enough in my mind that I found an artist who did fan art of Transformers back then and paid him to draw that scene. Fort Max standing on a vanquished Cybertronian, with fortress mode and Cerebrus standing in the background. Because… why not?

I paid him, he did the drawing, and he sent it to me. The physical piece of art that I scanned this image from is hanging in my house, and I don’t even know who did it. He did it 1998 and he signed his art with an M. That’s all I can you tell you now, after three decades. I wish I could tell you who he was, because that piece of art is why I’m writing The Rebirth now. Because for three decades, I’ve walked by this piece of art and remembered the scene I imagined in my mind so long ago. The scene I still haven’t written to this day. He made the scene real and visceral, and something I’ve never given up on putting to paper.

And now I will. I don’t know how long it will take. I don’t know how many parts there will before this scene happens. But everything I’m writing leads this scene. And I hope I can do this art justice when it comes time to write it. Because it has been in my mind as I’ve walked past it for almost thirty years. It is the story I’ve never been able to fully walk away from, even as I did other things with my life. And one day it will be told. Because of this art.

They say that images speak a thousand words, and they are right. They can also speak for many decades.

And recently, for fun, I put it into Grok Imagine and asked it for a series of scenes based on the image and the story I wanted to tell. Head on over to my substack to see one of the examples that came out, and the one I thought best caught the idea of what I was going for. Fort Max standing and delivering as explosions go off behind him. It did a good job, and I liked it enough to share it all with you.

https://jackofharts.substack.com/p/the-rebirth-art

Here come the monsters! Fanged and hungry! Featuring creatures both predatory and silly! Relive the nostalgic days of your whimsical monstrous youth! Find it all in Creature Feature!

I completely missed Columbus Day this year. I blame it on Middle East Peace and me being excited about the stories I’m writing. You could also blame it on a news media that wants to forget Europeans ever ventured out of Europe to explore the world unless it is to say how many innocent peaceful natives we killed when we did it. Me, I like to celebrate the greatness of man and what we have accomplished.

When Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred ninety two, he opened up a new world to all of us. Was he the first? No. Was the second? Also no. But the Spanish Empire followed the path he found to build many of the places we live in right now. Even us Americans. Never forget that the Spanish colonized the American Southwest first, long before we expanded into those areas and brought our version of civilization to them. His voyage is one of the most famous voyages of the Age of Discovery when Europe stretched out to sail the ocean blues and find faster routes to places all around the world.

We built the world we live on based on voyages like these, and we should never forget to remember and celebrate them.