This is a previously unseen cover from an unpublished proof version of DANNY from the early days of Poison Pixie. Because of the size of DANNY, our original thinking was to bring Volume 1 out as three parts, or "Bites", and this is a printer's proof for Part One, or "The First Bite". As you can see, they didn't make much of a job of it, having left a white border round the cover art instead of taking it edge to edge.

This cover was a real exercise in problem-solving for me, as Chancery had expressed the wish to have an erect penis on the front of the book, and I had to do a lot of thinking about how to portray this without getting the book banned or landing up in jail.

In the end I stumbled on the solution at a friend's house. He was proudly showing off a piece of cheap clip art software he'd bought called Photo Objects and I saw the phallic screw image and immediately had the idea for the cover. On its own the screw was too ordinary, but by colouring it an 'erect' or inflamed red, and tilting it at just the right angle, it soon had the desired effect.

It's always been a regret of mine that this cover never saw print.

ART TRIVIA: The main lettering for the word DANNY on this cover uses a photograph of raw meat.