Glenn Chadbourne is an artist best known for his work in the horror and fantasy genres, having created covers and illustrated books and magazines for publishers such as Cemetery Dance Publications, Subterranean Press, and Earthling Publications. Here he describes the evolution of his monster packed cover for the new novel co-written by James A. Moore and Jeff Strand, The Haunted Forest Tour:

"The Haunted Forest Tour" was one of my favorite projects of 2007. Paul at Earthling pub' always does a fabulous job with things. He's a true pro, and an all around great lad in my book.

The cover (covers, I should say, because there are a couple of 'em) took on a kind of metamorphoses in itself. I work a little differently than many of my comrades in the biz. What happens for me is, I get a general idea of where I'm headed on a given project then I simply start to paint stuff; I don't do any preliminary drawings etc, I just brew a pot of coffee, grab some paint, crank up some tunes and let things drip from my noggin onto the page.

In the case of The Haunted Forest Tour, the gist of the cover design was to showcase a shit load of monsters attacking some folks who were trapped in the Haunted Forest after their tram crashes into a giant's head that's blocked the track. So, I figured monsters, monsters, monsters. I was told to just go insane with monster designs so that's what I did.

Then, however, which is often the case with me, after painting a variety of different scenes, the thing just wasn't looking right to me; the concept wasn't jelling. I didn't feel there was enough chaos, and not nearly enough creatures, so I made a copy of what I'd painted thus far and reduced it to half its size, then I re-painted what I'd come up with and went from there, tying everything together with an additional stewpot of creepy images.

I threw in an eerie twilight sky and was at last satisfied. Working the way I do is often a "one step forward, three steps back" process, but in the end it works for me, and it's the way I've always done things since I was a kid. It's tough to teach an old dog new tricks. At any rate, I hope everyone enjoys the Haunted Forest Tour artwork. It's a fantastic &^%$#@!ng book and I hope I've added a little stock to the pot with my scribblings.