Comic Artist - Volume 3 2016

Conan for book and comic

covers. Bright and fanciful,

her work brought with it a

special technique. “I was

excited to do the Marvel

covers where they wanted action,” says

Julie. “They wanted me to use the ‘metal

f lesh’ look that I was becoming known for

and had painted in Heavy Metal covers.”

FEEDING IMAGINATIONS

Marvel’s Conan fed the imaginations of

teenage boys for three decades, but it’s

worth noting that Robert E Howard

actually wrote only 21 stories featuring the

character, though five further incomplete

me,” he recalls. “Most people, especially

males, like the simple concept of a guy who

can take care of himself and defeat any foe.”

Perhaps it’s the oils and the Renaissance-

inspired technique that gave covers by these

artists such a visceral feel. Sometimes they

show Conan suffering in biblical fashion.

In one famous Frank Frazetta work he’s

chained to two columns – like Samson

• and faces a giant serpent. For issue 5 of
  The Savage Sword of Conan, Boris painted
  him crucified in the desert to accompany
  the classic story “A Witch Shall Be Born.”
  It was through his work that Boris met
  his future wife Julie Bell, another painter,
  who later became the first woman to paint

agile feline, and a strong warrior
with big muscles.”
During the same era, another breed of
artist was helping define Conan’s image.
While those pencilling the comics told of
a world of weapons, women, warriors and
wonder, oil painters like Frank Frazetta,
Boris Vallejo and Ken Kelly showed us
Conan’s battle rage on the canvas. Their
paintings appeared on book and comic
covers in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, and their
vision was of a single-minded warrior
capable of great strength and brutality.
Boris Vallejo painted the very first cover
of Savage Sword of Conan in 1974, then
published by the Marvel imprint Curtis.
“I was very much into
bodybuilding and muscular
warriors, so painting covers
for the Conan comics and
books was very appealing to

It’d lost all connection to the source

material. I remember seeing him drawn

with ridiculous giant battle axes

GOLDEN GANESH

Julie Bell’s impressive

“metal flesh” technique

appeared on the cover of

Savage Sword of Conan.

PROTECTOR

Boris Vallejo loved

painting a mighty,

muscular Conan

defending a sexy woman.

CRUCIFIED

This classic Conan

image by Boris Vallejo

appeared on issue 5 of

Savage Sword of Conan.

Texan writer Robert

E Howard’s first Conan

story, The Phoenix

on the Sword, appears

in the December

1932 issue of pulp

magazine Weird Tales

with cover art by

J Allen St John.

Weird Tales carried its

last Robert E Howard

story – Red Nails – in

July, a month after the

author’s suicide in

Cross Plains, Texas.

This time the cover

was painted by

Margaret Brundage.

1932 1936

Some of the

barbarian’s

highlights,

beginning with

his pulp days right

through to the

21st century slayer

Feature

THE CONAN

COMIC

TIMELINE