[Dr. Atomic]

You're certainly welcome to your opinion, but I've got to respectfully disagree. Since posting this scan, I've had a number of professional artists and academics say that they think it's a sketch by someone who knew what he was doing. They point to the nature of the line work, the layering of colors, and the general composition as evidence.

(Please keep in mind, the scan doesn't really do the piece justice... ALSO, and this is important -- it's the size of a post card. There's not a lot of room for detail when you're painting small. The magazine cover was probably painted much larger than the cover itself, allowing for a lot more expression and depth.)

I've also had three or four experts in science fiction art agree on the Malcom Smith ID. These are people who've been studying, collecting, and writing about science fiction artwork for over 40 years. They definitely know what they're talking about.

In all of the above cases, I never mentioned my own suspicions and instead sent the scans, or showed the painting directly, without injecting any bias.

So while arguments could certainly be made that it's not his, and that it is fan art -- my initial thought, by the way -- people with more solidly based opinions than mine have taken those arguments into account and still think that it's probably Smith's work. So until I get some more definite proof one way or the other, I'm going to err on the side of the experts. (Which isn't to say you might not be an expert -- but I've had MORE experts tell me it's likely Smith than experts who've told me it's not.)