Every Valentine’s Day, House of Anansi Press likes to give something sweet to its mailing list. This year, the Toronto publisher commissioned an e-story from Lynn Crosbie – author of Where Did You Sleep Last Night – titled “Kurt Cobain will be Fifty in the Year 2017,” with a cover illustrated by artist Patrick Gray.

According to Anansi marketing director Carolyn McNeillie, Gray expected to receive a draft of the story by Feb. 1, “but of course things don’t always go as planned.” And so Gray created several mock-ups using just a brief plot description. When the finished story arrived at the last minute, “we realized his guess was a little wide of the mark,” says McNeillie. Gray quickly reworked the illustration to better represent Crosbie’s vision.

Here is the final cover (top image), along with three of Gray’s mock-ups. Copies of the e-story are available until the end of February by signing up for Anansi’s newsletter.

The final cover

Draft

Draft

Draft