Paul Kidby
Paul Kidby is an English artist, best known as Terry Pratchett's illustrator of choice for the Discworld. His previous career included paintings for videogame magazines and retail products, and is documented (briefly) in Designing Terry Pratchett’s Discworld.
As also recounted in that book, Kidby did several illustrations of Discworld characters and sent them to Pratchett before he received permission to paint officially licensed prints of the characters. After working on several other projects with Pratchett, he took over as the primary cover artist for the Discworld Books following the death of Josh Kirby in 2001, beginning with Night Watch.
Books
Prior to Night Watch, Kidby produced the art books The Pratchett Porfolio and The Art of Discworld, and worked with Pratchett on the illustrated "Discworld fable" The Last Hero. Kidby began painting covers for the Discworld series with the hardcover edition of Night Watch, and continued to paint covers for Pratchett's Discworld novels until the end. Some later editions of Pratchett's other books also have Kidby covers, though the chidren's books in particular often have covers in other styles by other artists.
Many of Kidby's covers and more famous Discworld illustrations are detailed parodies of works of classical art. The most famous is the cover of Night Watch, which is based on Rembrandt's The Night Watch. The original includes a character supposed to be a self-portrait; instead of himself, Kidby put Josh Kirby in Rembrandt's place by way of tribute. (You can see him right at the back, peeking over the shoulder of a soldier next to Reg Shoe.)
Discworld novels
- The Last Hero (also interior illustrations)
- Night Watch
- The Wee Free Men
- Monstrous Regiment
- A Hat Full of Sky
- Going Postal
- Thud!
- Wintersmith
- Making Money
- Unseen Academicals
- I Shall Wear Midnight
- Snuff
- Raising Steam
- The Shepherd's Crown
While Kidby has never painted covers for the earlier novels, the new Penguin paperbacks released between 2022 and 2024 incorporate his artwork of various characters. Those covers are designed by Leo Nickolls.
Other Books
- The Pratchett Porfolio
- The Art of Discworld
- The Science of Discworld
- The Science of Discworld II: The Globe
- The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch
- The Science of Discworld IV: Judgement Day
- The Folklore of Discworld
- Dodger
- The New Discworld Companion
- Turtle Recall
- The Ultimate Discworld Companion
- Tiffany Aching’s Guide to Being a Witch
- Designing Terry Pratchett’s Discworld
- The Discworld Bestiary
More to be added.
Podcast episodes
We're not aware of any podcast interviews with Paul Kidby. If you know of any - even radio interviews still publicly available - let us know!
External links
- paulkidby.com - official website
- Paul Kidby on the L-Space Wiki
- Paul Kidby on Wikipedia