An Interview with Cover Designer Randy McWilson

So, you are the man behind the design of the cover of Building Red: Mission Mars. What was your inspiration to get started in graphic design and video media?

Apparently my love of art goes back to my earliest days. In kindergarten, I refused to draw lollipop trees, flat houses, and a blue sky at the top of my paper. My parents have told me that I drew buildings in 3D, and that the sky reached the ground. Recognizing my interest in media, they enrolled me in a specialized art school in Santa Cruz, California. I was introduced to a variety of styles and even experimented with 16mm animation. This love of artistic expression has followed me like a faithful puppy throughout my life's journey. Eventually it migrated over into the digital realm throughout the late 1980s. I received my BA degree in Media from Southeast Missouri State University in 1991. I started teaching Digital Media at a technical school in 2000 and I have never looked back.

What are your favorite interests and hobbies outside of design work?

I have enjoyed geology (rockhounding) since my childhood in California. I also immerse myself in reading, writing, theology/Biblical studies, philosophy, and scientific studies. I love water sports, including the liquid and frozen form. Summertime weekends used to always find me on a slalom ski and winters found me irregularly hitting the slopes riding on two. As a fan of the arts, I have had an on-again, off-again affair with comic book collecting (Jack Kirby and John Byrne are my heroes in that pursuit).

If you were able to go to Mars, which four people would you want to take with you and what five items would think would be absolutely necessary?

Living or dead people? Well, hmmm. I do have a wife and three children, so any other answer to the former question could get me in quite a pickle. Five items: Laptop with my entire book/movie/photo collection, video/photo camera, 3D printer, 1986 Buick Regal Grand National (black), and 10 years worth of microwave popcorn (I'm going to bet that someone else will have the microwave...I will exchange rides in my Buick for microwave privileges. I assume that it will take about 10 years for microwave popcorn to be a regular commodity on Mars).

I hear you published one novel last year and just recently published another in the series. What are they about? Aren't they based on a TV script you're trying to sell in Hollywood?

About four years ago a friend and I were pitching ideas back and forth about new movie concepts. We settled on an intriguing concept concerning a group of unwilling time jumpers that found themselves transported back to the late 1940s and early 1950s. These jumpers were from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and beyond, and were from various racial, gender, and socioeconomic backgrounds. This motley band of time travelers have all mysteriously arrived in the town of Normal, Illinois, and they are being hunted by both the CIA and a KGB assassin. It involves a new look at Cold War history, with a new twist on everything from the Roswell Incident to Area 51 and beyond. It started out as a single screenplay, but I couldn't get the storyline to fit neatly into standard three-act structure. I backburnered it for several months before reviving it as a potential new episodic television series called Back to Normal. I wrote a pilot script plus two additional episodes and began pitching it to interested parties in Los Angeles early last year. One remark I kept hearing was "This is a great idea, why haven't you written the book series yet?" After about the third of fourth time getting hit with that prompting, I decided to make my break into the world of fiction novel authorship. I plan for this to be a four-book series, and the first two books are already out and doing well on Amazon. They are Paradigm Rift (book one) and Tradecraft (book two). Proximity and Crossover should be out in late Fall 2015 and early Spring 2016, respectively.

What advice do you have for authors?

The obvious answer is to READ. But beyond that, find your own voice/style, and then surround yourself with a group of people who neither fear your wrath nor need your money. Have them critique and edit your material, and then be willing to listen to them. Writing is art, but even art needs boundaries and feedback. I once said that my editor is someone who "holding a scalpel in one hand, and duct tape in the other, hacks, and hones, and heals...without respect to my feelings, yet with great respect to my work."