Enrique Alcatena is my first pick for black & white Conan artists beyond Barry Smith and John Buscema. When readers talk Conan comics, it is these two giants who dominate the conversation. Smith deserves this because he was a pioneer. Buscema does as well for drawing literally hundreds of issues of Conan the Barbarian and Savage Sword of Conan. But with Smith the talk usually goes to how much he improved between Conan the Barbarian #1 and his later work. With Big John, it is usually a discussion of who his best inker was: Alcala, Chan or DeZuniga.
We are going side-step all of that. Let’s ask a new question: what other Conan artists were great in the black & white medium? Because there is a difference between b&w and color comics. The hues and tints of color can carry artwork that is only so-so. But in black & white you have no such wiggle room. The line, contrast, and movement of the work must be strong. (I looked at some of my favorites in The Barbarian and the Line.)
The first artist I am going to showcase is Enrique Alcatena (1957-). He dominated the short-lived Conan the Savage. This Argentine has a style so robust it screams barbaric fury. He reminds me a little of Simon Bisley for sheer magnitude but also has the controlled detail of John and Marie Severin. His fantastic scenery harkens back to the great French comic artist, Philippe Druillet. In the 1970s Alcatena drew for the British comic, Starblazer, and you can feel his love of grand mechanical structures. He later worked for all the big companies: Marvel, DC and Dark Horse. Outside of Sword & Sorcery, he has also done some wonderful Lovecraftian pieces. You can feel that here too with all the tentacles and teeth.
The fact that Alcatena did not become the number one artist in Marvel’s Conan factory is not a mystery. Conan the Savage was a revival attempt in 1995-96. It failed to capture the old Savage Sword crowd. His artwork has a fierceness to it that I love but the opportunity to shine simply wasn’t there. Alcatena moved onto comics like Aliens and Judge Dredd for which he was perfectly suited. His black & white Conan is an example of what Conan comics could have been.
I know this will be heretical to most, but I dislike Buscema’s Conan. Barry Windsor-Smith was simply incredible: Buscema was a huge let-down.
Based on the above samples, I’d put Alcatena well above Buscema.
I can’t really agree. I think John was the man who shaped so much of Conan’s comic reality. But having done so much I grew tired of his amazing work.
John Buscema at his best, when inking himself, was very good. His comic book version of the 1st film was the first thing I had of him; in black & white, in paperback. Buscema at his worst was awful, like the work he did Conan the Savage.
Conan the Savage was not as much a revival of SSoC, as it was a disguised ‘shrinkflation’; It went back from 72 pages to 48, but for the same price; with its Bisley cover, and a (somewhat) different tone of artwork they tried to appeal to the ’90s Liefeld crowd. I guess SSoC had been dying, and this was a last ditch attempt to keep a mag going. And it didn’t work out, of course.