Over at “Not a Blog”, George R.R. Martin discusses various calendars, including Marc Simonetti’s 2013 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar, 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar artist’s John Picacio’s own calendar, and the Literary Pin-up Calendar featuring literary characters from a number of fantasy novels, including ASoIaF.
And then, the real treat: the first look at the cover of the 2014 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar (Pre-order: Amazon US) with art by the award-winning Gary Gianni. Depicted on that cover is a scene from a later novel in the series, and we’ll just leave it at that for those spoiler averse… but see below for what we think it is. As GRRM notes, it won’t be available until July of next year, but we’re eagerly anticipating this. Gianni’s a fantastic artist, and if something of its style seems just a littlest bit familiar, bear in mind that Gianni drew the Prince Valiant comic strip for eight years. Some of the armor designs and poses very much evoke Hal Foster’s great medieval adventure series.
Though one might be inclined to thinking it’s a depiction of the Battle of the Blackwater and Ser Balon Swann charging out into the fray… you’ll notice he’s riding into the castle. This is, in fact, a depiction of Ser Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers, leading storming of Dragonstone as recounted in A Feast for Crows, his morningstar swinging, “slaying left and right”. Very cool.