Rodney Matthews

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Rodney Matthews (born July sixth 1945 in Paulton, North Somerset, England) is a fantasy artist and illustrator.

In 1978, he published "Yendor - The Journey of a Junior Adventurer", a hard-back picture book featuring his distinctive paintings of "The Wild Country", a fantasy world seen through the eyes of young Yendor, named after his son (Yendor is, of course, Rodney backwards). These paintings were accompanied by irreverent and light-hearted text written by Graham Smith, forming an episodic story about Yendor's journey. Despite not featuring any coherent plot structure, this whimsical book achieved cult status amongst fanatics of fantastic art due to Matthew's striking and surreal paintings.

Rodney has worked with a number of bands on album covers, the most notable of which is Birmingham melodic rock band Magnum for whom he designed the art-work for Chase The Dragon, The Eleventh Hour, On A Storyteller's Night and Sleepwalking as well as various compilations and reissues. He also designed album covers for Thin Lizzy, Tygers Of Pan Tang (Crazy Nights), Praying Mantis (Time Tells No Lies), Nazareth (No Mean City) and Scorpions (Lonesome Crow). Most recently he worked on Magnum's latest album, Princess Alice And The Broken Arrow, which was released in March 2007; this is the first Magnum studio album since 1992 to feature his art-work. He has also worked with the rock group Asia.

Alongside his album cover work, he has illustrated a number of books and magazines, primarily fantasy and science fiction. He worked on the covers for the Witch World novels by Andre Norton and many of the novels by Michael Moorcock who introduces a section in "In Search of Forever".

He also designed the logo for the video game studio Traveller's Tales.

Paper Tiger Books have published several art books of Matthews' work, including "In Search of Forever" (1985), "Last Ship Home" (1989) and "Countdown to Millennium" (1997).