Taral Wayne

Taral Wayne, (born 1951 in Toronto), is one of Canada's best known science fiction fan artists, and has been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist eleven times, from 1987-2012. In October 2008, it was announced that Taral was the recipient of the annual Rotsler Award. In recognition of his contributions to science fiction fandom, particularly Canadian fandom, Taral was named Fan Guest of Honour by the 2009 Worldcon, Anticipation.

The pen name Taral originated from a fictional synthetic language, Siroihin, that he described in one of his early science fiction fanzines.

Career
Taral began his involvement in science fiction fandom in 1971 when he joined the local Ontario Science Fiction Club (OSFiC). Over the years he contributed art and writing to a wide variety of amateur and semi-professional fanzines, as well as publishing his own -- Red Shift, Delta Psi, Synapse, New Toy and others. In the late 1980s he made the jump to professional illustration, by necessity working mainly outside the science fiction genre. A west coast American magazine called Ruralite was his main client at that time.

During the 1990s Taral focused more on comic book work. His major achievement was the Furry comic title Tales of Beatrix (Mu Press & Vision Comics). Created by Steve Gallacci, the stories were a collaborative effort - drawn by Taral, co-written by creator and artist. Due to generally poor sales in the entire comics industry at the time of the Marvel Comics bankruptcy, the series was dropped after only a few issues. Thereafter the artist contributed short pieces to other comics as time and inclination permitted. Taral also created many back covers for Gremlin Trouble, a comic published by AB Pixilations.

Significant work he has done within the SF genre includes the illustration of Rudy Rucker's novel Spaceland (Tor, 2002), restoration of Vaughn Bodé art appearing in fanzines for Rare & Well Done Bode, research and illustration for John Robert Colombo's book Years of Light (Hounslow Press, 1982). He has also made contributions to The Fantasy Showcase Tarot Deck (Bruce Pelz, 1980) and Tank Vixens Card Game (United Publications, 2004).

In addition to his art, Taral has sold a small number of articles and short stories, worked on TV and cartoon presentations, produced several CDs of art and fan writing, sold tee-shirts, and even designed a postal cancellation for the 1978 Worldcon. The bulk of Taral's career, though, has been the creation of art for private commissions, numbering more than 3,000 inked, coloured, or penciled works to date. He is currently working on private commissions and developing his writing as "retirement" looms.

Taral currently resides in the Parkdale district of Toronto. While still possessing close ties to science fiction fandom, he is rather an outsider in the comics community.