Pete Lyon!

Welcome to a SPECIAL EDITION of the Piece of Advice Newsletter!

Good Morning! Today we are looking into the first ever cover illustrator of the beloved Redwall books by Brian Jacques, Pete Lyon! He is one of my favorite illustrators of all time and I was even lucky enough to ask him a few questions!

Few fantasy worlds are remembered as vividly by their covers as the ones imagined by Brian Jacques. Before a reader ever stepped into Mossflower Wood or Redwall Abbey, it was often Pete Lyon who opened the door. His cover illustrations for the beloved “Redwall” books didn’t just decorate the stories; they defined how generations of readers pictured them. With rich color, dramatic lighting, and an almost cinematic sense of motion, Lyon’s work captured the spirit of adventure that pulsed through Jacques’ tales of mice, badgers, and foxes.

Lyon had a way of treating these small, woodland characters like they belonged in an epic. He didn’t flatten them into something cute or overly simple. Instead, he gave them weight. Fur caught the light, metal felt cold, and the world around them; stone walls, trees, open sky; felt lived in. His lighting did a lot of the storytelling. Warm highlights suggested hope or courage, while deeper shadows hinted at threats just out of view. It made each cover feel like a paused moment from a much larger story, not just a summary of it.

At the same time, his work carried a kind of consistency that helped define the series as a whole. You could spot a “Redwall” book from across a room and know exactly what it was, even before reading the title. But he didn’t fall into repetition. Each cover had its own mood. Some felt tense and immediate, others quieter, almost reflective. That balance helped mirror the tone of Jacques’ writing, which could shift from battle to feast, from danger to warmth, sometimes within the same chapter.

Looking back, it’s hard to separate the stories from the images. For a lot of readers, Lyon’s covers weren’t just introductions; they became part of the memory of reading itself. They shaped how those characters looked in your mind long before your imagination had a chance to fill in the gaps. It makes you wonder how much of the worlds we carry with us from childhood were built entirely from words; and how much were guided, quietly and carefully, by an artist we may not have noticed at the time.

Bonus Questions:

Giancarlo: Who was your favorite author growing up?

Pete: When I was very young it would have to be Enid Blyton. Her books had a fantasy/adventure element which became more apparent in the various book franchises targeted older the age range. But I also read Andrew Lang's 'coloured' Fairy Books, Mythology and C.S Lewis.

Later on it was classic SF writers like Asimov, Clarke, Pohl &etc. eventually settling on Phillip K. Dick and general classic and modern literature as I progressed into my teens.

Giancarlo: Which of the projects you’ve worked on are you the most proud of?

Pete: Not really proud of anything, as much of it was done on a commercial basis and usually involved fairly conventional, cliched imagery. I'm most proud of my work in the last decade or so, but I refuse to exhibit or promote the works as I remain, (rightly or wrongly) self critical and dissatisfied.

Giancarlo: What was your favorite aspect about illustrating the world of “Redwall”?

Pete: The fleeting delusion of feeling like a proper illustrator as I was wined and dined by the charming Editors.

Piece Of Advice:

Giancarlo: What is this best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Pete: Fuck Off.

Please check out his work: https://www.petelyon.com/

Thank you for reading! Have an amazing day and we will catch you again soon!

-Giancarlo