Conan Art

I found out today that Dave Simons, Conan art gallery contributor, artist extraordinaire, and all around nice guy, passed away last night due to complications from pnemonia… of course a relatively recent resurgence of his fight against cancer didn’t help matters either. He was 54.

I never met Dave personally, but can attest to other people’s claims of him being a genuinely nice guy just from the few emails we exchanged. I received two commissions from him last year for my Images of the Hyborian Age project, and Dave approached them both with wild enthusiasm. He went far above and beyond on his pieces than the commission rate warranted. In addition to the quality of work he yielded, he made numerous observations and suggestions to refine the project and his pieces to keep with the original spirit of the project, which is honoring Robert E. Howard and his Hyborian Age. We had plans to do a third, and had the economy not taken a dive, certainly would have.

When I was a kid, I wasn’t much of a collector of numerous comic titles like my friends were. The only titles I had any interest in where the Savage Sword of Conan, and Conan Saga. I didn’t care about Spider Man, Hulk, or Batman, I just wanted to see who the Cimmerian was going to kick the hell out of that month. Guys like Roy Thomas, John Buscema, Tony De Zuniga, Alfredo Alcala, Armando Gil, Barry Smith, Earl Norem, Joe Jusko, Ernie Chan, and of course Dave Simons (among countless others, too many to mention here), were the rock stars of my 8-year-old imagination, taking me to creative places I didn’t know could even exist. I laugh at it now, but I was even naive enough at that age to think that ol’ Roy might actually kill Conan off… every issue could be the last one!

Here’s to Dave Simons, friend to imagination and creativity, all around good guy, and inherently notable (at least in my world), for the last 20+ years.

Dave’s second commission for me was of Thoth Amon, the wizard nemesis that appears in Howard’s story, The Phoenix on the Sword. I’ve posted it to the gallery.

Take some time to visit Liam Sharp’s Deviant Art gallery and you won’t be disappointed.  This guy has some of the coolest Conan, Red Sonya, and overall comic illustrations out there, including these two pieces, which are some of my favorites that he’s done.

Liam is currently illustrating the Gears of War series, based of course on the popular video game of the same name.

I hope to one day have a Sharp in the Images of the Hyborian Age project.
 
 
 
 
 
 

This has made the rounds a time or two in the Conan circuit. None the less, I think the Onion did a pretty good job on this article.  Obviously they’re referencing an article that came out a few weeks ago where President Obama professed to collecting Conan and Spider man comics.

If you’re a Conan fan, and you’re familiar with the Howard stories, then I think you’ll enjoy the read:

Obama Disappointed Cabinet Failed To Understand His Reference To ‘Savage Sword Of Conan’ #24

If you haven’t read any of Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane tales, then you’re missing out on what I consider to be some of his best stories.  Solomon Kane is also the figurehead of what I  consider Howard’s best poem, The One Black Stain, a splendid speciman of treachery, murder, and revenge.

In 2004, Del Ray published all the Kane tales in a single volume titled, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane.  Nearly the equal of the excellent yarns within the card-stock covers, are the fantastic ink illustrations provided to us from Gary Gianni.  Included within these  is this illustration, which is favorite Solomon Kane illustration of all time.

Gianni has also illustration a number of other Howard characters as well, including Bran Mak Morn, and Conan himself. Make sure you check out Gary Gianni’s gallery, it’s worth your time.

I approached Conan art gallery contributor Benito Gallego a few weeks ago about potentially doing a header for Border Kingdom, and he was happy to oblige the request. I had had the former “work in progress” banner up there far too long, and the old size of the blog just wasn’t accommodating to some of the features I want to add on the site in the future. A few days ago, I received Benito’s final product, and I think it looks great!

Benito touts the painting as “Buscema-inspired”, and I think it’s easy to see many great elements of Buscema’s work within all of Benito’s art, including this painting, and particularly in his gallery contributions. This is particularly pleasing to me, given I’m a huge fan of the old Savage Sword of Conan days, and Buscema is certainly one of my favorite artists that worked on that title.

Thanks to Benito for putting the extra effort into making the piece really standout.

You can view the original image in his comic art fans gallery page located here.

And you can view his entire comic art fan gallery here.