In 2002 Charles Vess won a second Will Eisner award, this time as Best Painter for his work on Rose, a 130-page epic fantasy saga written by Cartoon Books' Jeff Smith.
The year continued to be busy for Charles Vess with the publication of Seven Wild Sisters (Subterranean Press) and The Green Man, Tales from the Mythic Forest
both utilizing cover art and interior b/w illustrations by the artist, and both making the 2003 American Library Association's list for Best Books for Young Adults!

By the end of the year he had completed 28 paintings for his first children's picture book,
A Circle of Cats, done in collaboration with writer Charles de Lint (Viking).
This cover art won the Gold Award for Best Book Art in the 10th annual "Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art" even before it was officially published.
A new edition of Peter Pan (Tor/Starscape) featuringa cover as well as over 30 b/w interior illustrations by Vess was released this past Fall.
Another collaboration with de Lint, Medicine Road (Subterranean Press) and the YA anthology,The Faery Reel (Viking ) will be arriving this Spring and he is currently hard at work producing drawings for several new books, including, A Storm of Swords (MeishaMerlin), the 25th anniversary edition of Moonheart (Subterranean Press) and a graphic novel collection of his ballads material for Tor.