This is the sort of thing I'm talking about. These examples are actually larger than they are in the books. They are just small little pics to indicate a scene change or POV change.
I took the JPEGs into PaintShop, moved them from the background to Layer 1, deleted the background, deleted the white around them, and saved them as GIFs. The files
do have transparency around them. Until they get into the Fire -- then they go back to ugly white boxes.