When cover artist Bob Eggleton of Warwick first got interested in art and started sketching nightmarish creatures, he recalls, an aunt asked him, “What’s drawing a monster gonna get you in life?”
He’s spent the last forty-three years showing her, along with the rest of the world.
Between 1994 and 2004, he won the Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist eight times, and another Hugo for Best Related Book in 2001 for his Greetings from Earth: The Art of Bob Eggleton. On top of that, he garnered a noteworthy 32 Hugo nominations from 1998 to 2012.
His artwork was showcased in the 1995 book Alien Horizons: The Fantastic Art of Bob Eggleton. That same year, he painted the cover for Cthulhu 2000: A Lovecraftian Anthology. More recently, he did a painting of Cthulhu for the Norman Rockwell Museum’s 2021 exhibition Enchanted: A History of Fantasy Illustration.
When working, Eggleton says he listens to all kinds of music, such as progressive rock and even bubblegum tunes, listing ABBA, Led Zeppelin, and Rush among his favorites. So it should come as no surprise that he’s also done an album cover.
“I drew a snake-like skull monster menacing a woman,” he relates, for the 2020 speed metal release of Black Majik Terror by the New Zealand-based band Stälker.
Eggleton has a deep affinity for monsters, it must be said.
“I’m attracted to monsters because they’re trapped in a world they never made. These creatures are misunderstood. They look different, they look weird,” he explains.
Take Godzilla. “This giant animal was born out of radiation” from the testing of atom bombs in the ocean, he says of the King of Monsters, adding, “He’s a product of our own folly.”
In the Japanese movies of the 1950s, such other monsters as Rodan and Varan the Unbelievable emerged like deadly forces of nature to wreck havoc on cities and the countryside.
“There were strange legends on how they were born. But we don’t really know where they came from,” Eggleton remarks.
He says the two giant pteranodons in Rodan were imbued with a sense of personality, and of life. In the heartbreaking ending of the movie, one of the pteranodons falls into the lava of a volcanic eruption. Refusing to live without its mate, the second pteranodon swoops into the lava to perish alongside it.
“When creatures die in Japanese movies, the filmmakers convey an incredible respect for their life,” Eggleton comments.
Last month, the artist participated in G-Fest 2026 in Chicago, IL, billed as the largest gathering of Godzilla and Japanese monster fans in the world. As he’s done at other conventions, Eggleton did some speaking, sold some prints of his artwork, and met fellow fans.
In contrast to Japan’s monsters, Lovecraft’s creatures like Cthulhu and Dagon “come from very dark origins,” Eggleton says. “They’re evil. It’s what they do.”
For the cover of the August Motif, whose themes are Necronomicon and Elections, Eggleton drew two taloned hands of a Lovecraftian creature emerging from the waters to hover over the RI State House. “The arms can represent any party you want them to represent,” he says.
Ironically, the cover will be the only piece of Eggleton at NecronomiCon Providence 2026 in mid-August. That’s because he’ll be at Kaiju Go! in Dallas, TX. “I’ll be presenting Godzilla vs the Smog Monster. The movie was released in 1972, and is a fun environmental flick, very much a product of its time.”
Eggleton has done a bunch of what he calls fun projects with character actor Todd Stashwick, who played Captain Liam Shaw in the final season of Star Trek: Picard.
Stashwick, who has appeared in about 135 TV shows and movies, is also a big D&D guy, and creates role-playing games, according to Eggleton. “I’m working with Todd on ProgCore Fantasy. I designed a dragon for him, and we’re putting together a book for the project.”
Eggleton is his own worst enemy when it comes to leisure time. “I try to relax, maybe go out with friends,” he says. “But when I’m not working, I sit there thinking I need to get working.” In no time, he’s started on another illustration or project.
He says his artistic style is simply wanting to do something that hasn’t been done before in the realm of terrifying creatures.
“I’m just a big monster guy,” he concludes.
–John Picinich
Eggleton’s artwork can be viewed on Instagram @bobeggleton and at fb.com/bob.eggleton.