Sword & Sorcery comics, especially long-running ones like Conan the Barbarian, will eventually take their cast to the frozen North. When they do it is inevitable that they will end up meeting the fauna of these cold locales. Like the Pulps of old, three classic cover scenarios happen. The encounter with a bear, surrounded by wolves and the girl who runs with the wolves.
Tarzan is not Sword & Sorcery but some critics (Ron Goulart and Don Hutchison) see Conan as the offspring of the apeman. On a superficial level (ie: a superman) I agree but Howard was inspired by so much more than Edgar Rice Burroughs it strikes me as a little glib to write Conan off as a Tarzan clone. Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp used the wolf chase at the beginning of “The Thing in the Crypt” (1967) that made it into the opening of the Conan the Barbarian movie (1982).
Always influential on Sword & Sorcery after 1965 was frank Frazetta. Frank also embraced these Pulp scenarios for three of his best paintings.
For Michael Moorcock’s The Eternal Champion (1972) and the side of every van in the 1970s.
For Ted White’s Phoenix Prime (1966).
For Jane Gaskell’s Atlan (1968).
