Frontispieces From Savage Sword of Conan

This post is brought to you by Swords of Fire 3, our latest anthology of Sword & Sorcery novellas. These anthologies sport illustrations for each story by the wonderful M. D. Jackson. Like this one for my story “The Rise of Bane-Blood”, which opens with “Raven’s Gold”, the first story of Malis of the Black Blade. She is hired to take a sorcerer into the north to find a legendary magical bone. To do this, she must kill a troll composed of multiple ravens. That was the image MDJ chose.

For me half the fun of creating a book is the artwork that accompanies the stories. My love of such art comes from a youth spent reading comic books like The Savage Sword of Conan. Much of the best came from the frontispieces in those black & white magazines. I used to love these single images of heroic daring-do. When I drew pictures it was always with that inner cover in mind. Not the comics, not the covers which were splendid in their own way, but the frontispieces.

It is only long after I realized that Roy Thomas and the others who put this magazine together used these images, usually taken from portfolios sent by artists wanting work, to fill space. Much of what appeared in Savage Sword was filler. But what wonderful filler for a fan of Robert E. Howard and heroic fantasy! The articles by Fred Blosser and Lin Carter were some of the first good criticism on the fiction. These were often accompanied by more artwork. And then there was the portfolios. The first of these was a collection of Ronald Kline’s work in SSOC #5. The next, and even better, was a gathering of Stephen Fabian art in #9. These galleries deserve their own posts, so I will set them aside for now.

Here are the first twelve frontispieces 9with two extras). With hindsight, it is easy to see who went on to work at SSOC and who didn’t. Not for lack of talent, for all of these artist did some work in Sword & Sorcery comics. Among those who didn’t do much at Savage Sword are Richard Corben, who produced many independent pieces of Fantasy, some for Warren, Mike Zeck who worked in Horror and superheroes but did some Solomon Kane stuff, Jeff Jones, who drew a number of pieces for early independents, and Don Newton who did some fantasy at Charlton and DC.

The first frontispiece was actually in Savage Tales #4 (May 1974) which featured a poster that covered both inner covers. Before this the space was used for advertising. This poster image was one by a young P. Craig Russell who would go onto elevate Fantasy comics to the highest level with his retelling of the Nibelungenlied.

Savage Tales #5 (July 1974) gave us one more image before the magazine turned into a jungle book for Ka-Zar. The frontispieces continued but they were dinosaurs and skin bikinis. Steve Gan’s work may be the most reprinted of all frontispieces, appearing three times. Steve would ink occasional art in Savage Sword as well as adapt John Jakes’s Brak the Barbarian for Savage Tales.

Savage Sword of Conan #1 (August 1974) Esteban Maroto is a giant in the field of heroic fantasy art. He was quickly appreciated at Marvel but did more work for Warren.

Savage Sword of Conan #2 (October 1974)

Savage Sword of Conan #3 (December 1974) Alfred Alcala would become one the top inkers for Savage Sword though John Buscema didn’t like his work much.

Savage Sword of Conan #4 (February 1975)

Savage Sword of Conan #5 (April 1975)

Savage Sword of Conan #6 (June 1975)

Savage Sword of Conan #7 (August 1975) Vicente Alazar would not do much for SSOC but he did draw some S&S for Marvel with Larry Niven’s  “Not Long Before the End”. The designer experimented with boxes around the art. Not a fan.

Savage Sword of Conan #8 (October 1975) Tony de Zuniga would also become a top inker for John Buscema.

Savage Sword of Conan #9 (December 1975) Tim Conrad had four frontispieces around this time. His work reminds one of Barry Windsor-Smith so I think the editors wanted some of that old feel. Conrad’s “Cimmeria” for Savage Tales #2, October 1973 was classic. He would later ink Barry Windsor-Smith’s “The Worms of the Earth” and do Almuric for Epic Illustrated.

Savage Sword of Conan #10 (February 1976)

Savage Sword of Conan #11 (April 1976) featured a re-run of sorts from the cover for Savage Sword of Conan #9 (December 1975) This one is intriguing. I assume the ink sketch was the proposed cover that Boris painted. The changes to note: the villain raising his hand. Boris did many of his famous early paintings for SSOC covers. I had a tee-shirt with one of them.

Savage Sword of Conan #12 (June 1976)

Conclusion

You might wonder why the editors of Savage Sword continued using frontispieces perhaps when they need not have. In these early days, it was a scramble to find enough material to fill a bi-monthly magazine. But I think the response to the art, from readers like me, was that the images had become part of the program. The effect of a single image can be huge. Take for example Esteban Maroto’s Red Sonja image used in the first issue of SSOC (not as the frontispiece which was a different Maroto image). The steel bikini of Maroto’s Red completely re-designed that character (for better or worse, is a matter of opinion.) The power of one picture is clearly seen here. Fans liked it (Maroto had sent as an introduction to his work) and the rest is as they say…history.

Sword & Sorcery from RAGE machine Books