Pin-ups (or mere filler) aren’t unique to Sword & Sorcery’s most famous magazine, Marvel’s Savage Sword of Conan. That black&white publication offered multiple portfolios and single illustrations as inside covers or five page fillers. As a young reader/artist, I loved them. And calling them “mere filler” is a tad naive. Red Sonja got her metal bikini because of one of those “mere fillers”. Esteban Maroto sent Marvel an example of his work that ended up the inside cover for SSOC#1 (August 1974). And ever after…she was that warrior lady in the metal bikini. One incidental drawing changed an entire sub-genre of heroic fantasy. (Not necessarily for the better.)
Well, Savage Sword of Conan wasn’t the only one using single pagers. The Spanish version of Metal Hurlant/Heavy Metal was called Zona 84. The contents is quite international with Americans like Jeff Jones, Howard Chaykin, Richard Corben and Al Williamson along with Europeans like Jordi Bernet, Mirko Ilić, Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri, José Ortiz and many others. And for eight issues they had Galería de personajes fantásticos or “The Gallery of Fantastic Characters” by Fernando Fernández, spreading out his portfolio one page at a time.
Fernando Fernández’s background is solidly in the Spanish school of fantastic drawing like Esteban Maroto, Sanjulian and Enrich. Like these men, Fernandez did cover art for the American paperbacks including Robert E. Vardeman and Victor Milan’s War of Powers series of Sword & Sorcery novels.
Fernando Fernández spent the 1960s working for Selecciones Ilustradas producing comics for the British market. In 1973, he began working for Warren Publications in the US. His work appeared in Creepy, Vampirella and Eerie. Later he would appear in Heavy Metal with “Zora”. Fernando did not draw Sword & Sorcery for Warren and leaned in an SF direction for HM. His final works were adaptations of Isaac Asimov.
His work in the US may have been Horror and SF, but here are Fernandez’s original one-pagers from Zona 84 for you to enjoy.
“Kalema” (Zona 84 #33, February 1987)
“Asturga” (Zona 84 #34 March 1987)
“Batrax” (Zona 84 #35 April 1987)
“Aidsor ” (Zona 84 #36 May 1987)
“Karbujan VI” (Zona 84 #37 June 1987)
(Zona 84 #39 August 1987)
“Ndjurr” (Zona 84 #40 September 1987)
“Zavarius Thud” (Zona 84 #41 October 1987)
Conclusion
The Spanish School of artists gave much to American Sword & Sorcery comics. US comics were dominated by John Buscema and Conan the Barbarian, with John’s action-oriented/superhero-descended work. The Spanish artists like Jaime Brocal Remohi, Vicente Alcazar, Ricardo Villamonte, Jose Ortiz, Victor de la Fuente, and, of course, Esteban Maroto, gave Sword & Sorcery an exotic feel that it lacked. Like the great Filipino artists to follow, Alfred Alcala, Alex Nino, Nester Redondo and others, line and atmosphere were as important as action and story. It is no surprise that Jim Warren grabbed onto the artists he did, with work that jumped off the page in black&white. And that was another important factor. Marvel, until it created The Savage Sword of Conan in 1974, was a color comic business. Stan Lee and the editors at Marvel saw what Jim Warren was doing, and had to try for that market. All their B&W mags dwindled and fell away except for SSOC. Sword & Sorcery looks great in black&white.
