Does anybody ever really know what day it is? Does anybody really care?

Well, you would… if you had an official SONG OF ICE AND FIRE CALENDAR.

Reports are in on the 2011 calendar, with Ted Nasmith’s gorgeous castle paintings. Looks like it did quite nicely, thank you. If you missed the chance to pick up one of these… well, hey, you can still pick up one on Amazon, I think. And it’s only March! Still lots of months left!

Meanwhile, John Picacio continues to paint up a storm on the 2012 calendar. At last report he had completed eight of the twelve paintings, with two more very close to completion and the last two roughed out. John’s approach is very different from Ted’s — characters rather than castles — but just as spectacular, I think.

The 2012 calendar should debut at the San Diego Comicon in July, but it is already available for preorder on Amazon. Check it out.

Random House and I share the same hope for these calendars: we want to make them an annual event, like the long-running Tolkien calendar, with each year featuring a new take on Westeros and its peoples by one of the world’s leading fantasy artists.

And with that in mind, we’re pleased to announce that we’re signed the artist for the 2013 calendar — the wonderful MARC SIMONETTI. Marc first came to our attention when he painted four stunning covers for the recent French reissues of the series from J’ai Lu, covers that have also been seen on the Brazilian editions. Here’s a look:

I hope you are all as excited as I am to see Marc return to the Seven Kingdoms with twelve new and original paintings. He’s already sent us his first color sketch, and it’s a stunner.

For more information about our amazing artists, I encourage you to visit their respective websites… and don’t forget Michael Komarck, who did the FIRST Ice & Fire calendar, the ill-fated 2009 calendar, which was (through no fault of Michael’s) gorgeous but cursed.

TED NASMITH: http://www.tednasmith.com/
JOHN PICACIO: http://www.johnpicacio.com/
MARC SIMONETTI: http://marcsimonetti.artworkfolio.com/
MICHAEL KOMARCK: http://www.komarckart.com/

I feel privileged to have my world brought to life by all these guys… and I hope we can keep doing calendars for twenty more years, since there’s a lot of other artists I’d love to turn loose on Westeros. (Yes, in case you haven’t guessed, I love great SF and fantasy art)

Oh… and I should also mention that there is a possibility that HBO may put out their own calendar as well. Nothing definite on that front yet, but it’s being talked about. If it does happen, of course, it will feature photographs of the actors, characters, and scenes from the television series, quite different from the “art” calendars Random House is doing.

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