Robert E. Howard described his most famous character, Conan the Cimmerian, not in minute detail but more like a force of nature. In his first magazine appearance, “The Phoenix on the Sword” (Weird Tales, December 1932) Conan is described thus:
Behind an ivory, gold-inlaid writing-table sat a man whose broad shoulders and sun-browned skin seemed out of place among those luxuriant surroundings. He seemed more a part of the sun and winds and high places of the outlands. His slightest movement spoke of steel-spring muscles knit to a keen brain with the co-ordination of a born fighting-man. There was nothing deliberate or measured about his actions. Either he was perfectly at rest — still as a bronze statue – or else he was in motion, not with the jerky quickness of over-tense nerves, but with a cat-like speed that blurred the sight which tried to follow him…Now he laid down the golden stylus with which he had been laboriously scrawling on waxed papyrus, rested his chin on his fist, and fixed his smouldering blue eyes enviously on the man who stood before him.
What can we take from this: 1) is a big guy with broad shoulders, 2) he’s tanned by the elements, 3) he has a springing cat-like nervousness, 4) he has smouldering blue eyes.
In the second story “The Scarlet Citadel” (Weird Tales, January 1933) we get: “Conan’s dark scarred face was darker yet with passion…” so 5) he has scars.
The many stories that follow don’t add much. Dark hair, perhaps, no beard. None of this necessarily describes him as being much larger than those around him. (We are going to ignore pastiches written by others.)
The first artist to draw him was Jayem Wilcox.
Wilcox dresses him like a Roman, showing a man of action, but again not necessarily a really big guy.
Margaret Brundage did the Conan covers for Weird Tales. Her version is not so much different than Wilcox. More often she focused on the women in the stories.
The artist who drew Conan the most often for Weird Tales was Hugh Rankin.
Now Robert E. Howard was alive when these stories appeared (obviously) so we have his impression of Hugh Rankin’s version. REH felt Rankin drew him to Latinate, for Conan’s people are proto-Celts. Rankin does show him as a muscular warrior but again not really larger than most.
After Howard’s death, after the demise of Weird Tales, it was Ed Emshwiller who rendered Conan next, about the same time that Donald A. Wollheim reprinted the stories in the Avon Fantasy Reader. There it was an artist known only as L. S. who did the portrait. Both versions are similar.
Perhaps the most important images to be created around Conan and Sword & Sorcery were to follow in the 1960s when Lancer reprinted the Gnome Press books with covers by Frank Frazetta. Frazetta’s version of the Cimmerian is not really larger but he is less handsome than these 1950s images. You can see the scars. Of course, Frank modeled the character after himself somewhat.
1970 saw the books become comic books under Marvel’s Roy Thomas. The first artist to establish an iconic comic book version was Barry Windsor-Smith, who drew Conan for twenty-four issues.
Smith was replaced by John Buscema, who drew the character for years with inkers like Ernie Chan, Alfred Alcala, Tony deZuniga and Pablo Marcus. It is “Big John’s” version that seems to have Conan increasing in size. This may have been a Marvel thing, with the Cimmerian becoming a bit more of superhero than Howard imagined.
New painters were following in Frank Frazetta’s footsteps. Boris Vallejo was the first to have as much success as Frazetta, with his images finding their way onto tee-shirts. Many artists have followed including Frank Frazetta’s nephew, Ken Kelly, Joe Jusko, Sanjulian and Cary Nord.
In 1982, Conan came to the big screen and another icon was born: the Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan. A big guy, Arnie was truly Marvel-sized.
In 2010, we got a remake of Conan the Barbarian with Jason Momoa. Not quite as big as Arnie (I think?) Momoa always looked more Conanesque to me. Here we have the smouldering eyes, green not blue. The physique is excellent but more pantherish.
Today Conan, like Tarzan and Doc Savage, has become something of a cliche (call him iconic if you wish to be kinder). Ask anyone what a “barbarian” is and they will give you in a bad Austrian accent “Conan!” And they don’t mean that O’Brien guy. Still, I am always interested in seeing another version of the mighty barbarian, done by an artist who gets what Howard wrote back in 1932.
Very nicely done article!