Description

This was the Arbor House cover for J. Barrington Bailey's novel "The Rod of Light," the sequel to his 1974 book "The Soul of the Robot." The story recounts the conflict between Jasperodus (the bronze of my title) and Gargan, a super-intelligent robot trying to manufacture his own soul. For inspiration I chose the Greek sculpture "Laocoön," attributed to three sculptors: Agesander, Athenodoros and Polydorus. Laocoön has been called, "the prototypical icon of human agony in Western art," so it seemed a fitting model for humanoid robot agony. In the sculpture, Laocoön and his sons are being attacked by serpents. In my painting, Jasperodus is being attacked by the multi-limbed Gargan. The ziggurat in the background is surrounded by the junked detritus of civilization.