You are, of course, most closely associated with Yes. Can you tell us how that came about, and why you believe it turned into such a unique and fruitful collaboration?
I was toting my portfolio around to anyone who would give me 5 minutes and I met Phil Carson who was running Atlantic in England and Europe. He said he really liked my work and wanted me to do a cover, but said that he had only signed two bands: Yes and Led Zep. He said he would show the first of these who needed a cover and it was Yes, and the rest as they say is history. The reason I think it worked with Yes was because they gave me the space to develop my own solutions; there were no professionals who thought they knew best, no art directors.
Your illustrations on the early Yes albums contained an ongoing story about a destroyed planet being relocated. Was it ever your intention to develop this story, perhaps through animation or narrative?
The simple answer is “yes.” From the get-go it was conceived as a narrative which was worked out before I even started sketching, and was fully developed as a story, and, for that matter, as a movie script. It now exists as a story within a story for the movie provisionally titled “Floating Islands,” which is currently in development. It is a full length animated feature film intended for theatre release. See my website www.rogerdean.com for complete details.
Recomiendo leer la entrevista completa, Dean cuenta detalles muy interesantes de su juventud y de su trabajo. La foto del entrevistado ha sido obtenida del sitio GeekSpeak.
Technorati tags: Rock, Progressive rock, Rock progresivo, Illustrators