Today we’re revealing the cover for Demo Reels and Arthouse Madness the poetry collection from Vince A. Liaguno. This is a heavily themed collection so we wanted to choose an artist in line with those themes and one who could bring Liaguno’s vision to life. Although we haven’t worked with Scott Cole before he seemed like the perfect choice. As Liaguno puts it, “Sometimes you cross paths with someone, creatively, and it’s pure kismet. That’s how it felt working with Scott. When we were first introduced, I shared with him that I had a concept [for the cover] stuck in my head from about the midway point on the project—but, being respectful of another artist’s process, I was hesitant to share. Eventually, I found out that, like me, he’s a big horror movie fan and that older slashers are one of his favorite subgenres. At that point, it just felt like the perfect chemistry.”

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Creating a cover is tricky, you want to make sure you’re expressing the concepts but it also has to look good. Liaguno explains, “The original concept in my head: Film reels. Lots of them. Stacks of them. Old film canisters, bits of film strips hanging out of them. Center, running through these layers and layers of film reels and canisters, a strip of film with a close-up of a screaming mouth, five or six successive images within each frame showing the progression of the scream. But the scream is more madness mingled with terror versus pure terror. Maybe the color palette is more sepia tone?” The final result that Cole created hits all those points but mixes it up a bit, organizing the image into one that captures the attention. As an added bonus stacks of old film canisters are featured on the back.

About the Artist

Scott Cole is the author of Headless, Triple Axe, Slices, and several other novellas and short story collections. His work has been praised within the pages of Rue Morgue and Scream magazines, and his stories have appeared in multiple Bram Stoker Award-nominated anthologies. He is also an artist and graphic designer, with a deep love for horror, science fiction, and the Classic Weird. Find him on social media, behind you in the mirror, or at 13visions.com.