One of my responsibilities at Wizards was to help artists negotiate the red tape and legal hurdles that came from dealing with a corporate entity. I took that job very seriously. It was a charge that I held very dear. Helping the artists find ways to work within the contractual agreements, and yet, find ways to promote themselves and profit from the creative expertise that they lent to Wizards was probably my favorite task. Every time I got to see an “art of…” book roll off the presses, I had a great amount of satisfaction in the position I held. Up until the day I left Wizards, I had the distinction of saying that I had been able to help every artist work through the issues and get their book created….with one exception.
I couldn’t make it work for Jeff Easley.
Jeff is one of the kindest and gentlest souls that I know. He has poured his soul into D&D since 1982. The bulk of his professional work was created for D&D, and that was his downfall when we were trying to work out his book deal. Wizards has a corporate policy about art books – only s certain percentage of Wizards work can make up the book. I’m not hear to debate the policy. It is what it is. That’s the rules of the game. We tried all kinds of angles to make the deal work, but we were always stymied by the fact that nearly all of his work was from his time at TSR & Wizards.
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