Over at “Not a Blog”, George R.R. Martin reveals that the success of the 2013 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar, and the very promising work in Gary Gianni’s 2014 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar (Pre-order) , has led Bantam to contract the amazing Donato Giancola to illustrate a 2015 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar. One of the foremost artists working in SF/F, he has won multiple Chesley and Hugo Awards for his artwork.

We’ve always hoped Donato would illustrate characters and scenes from the novels in a more substantial body of work than he has previously—his Melisandre painting (Melisandre painting for the cover of Dragon Magazine2 #307 has been his lone piece of ASoIaF art for far too long. Finally, that’s being rectified. We’ve been fans of his work since his gorgeous “Joan of Arc” painting was used for the cover of Mary Gentle’s Ash: A Secret History (a fantasy series we very much recommend to fans of ASoIaF, by the way).