Conan the Barbarian variant covers by Frank Frazetta

Conan the Barbarian is back in the cultural zeitgeist due to Marvel's 2019 relaunch. The first issue had quite a few variant covers. Here are some mockups of cool variants that a fan named James Hanson shared on Facebook.

Frank Frazetta's famous paperback cover paintings, repurposed as Marvel Comics covers!

Dark Horse did a Frazetta cover series a few years ago, but somehow these look much cooler with the classic Marvel masthead.

The next two are placed on other classic issues of Conan...

The Frost Giant's Daughter.

Rogues in the House.

The last one here is not by Frazetta but by...

... Berni Wrightson! Nuff Said.

Flash Gordon masterpiece by Al Williamson

Check out this wonderful illustration by Al Williamson on Flash Gordon...

Awesome! Nuff Said.

Barry Smith: Bran Mak Morn and Belit

A couple of classic prints from Barry Smith that I stumbled across, featuring his incredible line work.

Bran Mak Morn print/poster from 1975.  One of Robert E Howard's many creations, he was in a classic Savage Sword of Conan two parter.  My recollection was that Smith began the story with a few pencilled pages and Conrad finished it?



Belit from Howard's Queen of the Black Coast story featuring Conan.  When we saw Belit in the color Conan comic she was drawn by John Buscema, wearing what looked like a fur bikini!  I always wondered how Barry Smith would have depicted this character - and you can see how from this print.  She is still not wearing much but does look more like a pirate.

I am mostly on Tumblr these days, but still will come back here occasionally, please follow me there!  Nuff Said.

Doc Savage Dynamite Covers by Alex Ross

I read some news on Facebook (via Sal Abbinanti) that Dynamite will be publishing a Doc Savage comic at the end of this year!  Makes sense as they already publish The Shadow.

Alex Ross is doing the covers!  I think this is the greatest part of the announcement.  The cover for the first issue has Doc Savage in a classic pose with montages of his gang around him -- you can see the Fabulous Five and Pat Savage.  The arrangement of this cover reminded me of Steranko's cover for SHIELD #4...and now I see that Ross signed this one "after Steranko".

Doc Savage #2 sports a cover that is a direct homage to one of James Bama's paperback paintings.  I like how Dynamite created the logo and cover lettering to resemble one of the old Bantam paperbacks.

After a little investigative research (Google searching) I found a nifty Pinterest board for James Bama artwork.  The Bama cover that inspired Ross must have been this cover to Doc Savage paperback #38, Red Snow.  I remember buying this one for 60 cents!  It was a terrifying image with Doc standing stoicly in front of the red haze.  Look at the face and compare some of the details to the face on Ross' painting -- I am pretty sure he was looking at this for inspiration.

No idea what to expect from the story, this article on CBR has a small interview with the writer, Chris Roberson.  Robeson plans to start the story in the 30s and bring Doc into the present day?  Doc would have to be over 100 years old!  There would have to be an "Infinity Formula" keeping him alive or else time travel -- something that I think DC Comics tried in their revival decades ago.  Nuff Said!

Doc Savage Marvel Slurpee Cup

I've been displaying some of my Marvel Slurpee cups over on Giant-Size Marvel.  Here's one from the Marvel 1975 Slurpee set but it features a character who belongs to Pulp Fiction forever...Doc Savage!

The Doc Savage Slurpee features the Man of Bronze racing off into action.  It may be hard to place the source of this illustration at first.  When Marvel published the Doc Savage color comic, the artwork was by Ross Andru, and this definitely is not an Andru drawing.

The source was from the first page of a novel length story in Doc Savage Magazine #1 in 1975.  Black and white, written by Doug Moench and drawn by John Buscema and Tony DeZuniga.  It was more of a pinup than part of the story, but they certainly got Savage fans going with the the subtitle "A Return to Greatness!"  By which I suppose they meant this version of Doc Savage was going to be closer to the original pulps by Kenneth Robeson (Lester Dent) than Marvel's previous attempt.  I thought the magazine was very good indeed at the time.

The back of the cup usually gives readers a glimpse into the hero...in this case spouting Doc's credo to fight for justice.  I think writing these blurbs was the hardest part of making these Slurpee cups.  You would hope that non-fans would be intrigued enough to buy Doc Savage Magazine.  Instead he comes across as a generic good guy.  He couldn't say, "I'm as rich as Howard Hughes and I live on top of the Empire State Building.  My crime fighting team consists of my golden sexy cousin Pat, a Ham lawyer and an ape-like Monk."

I don't think there was ever a Slurpee cup of The Shadow, was there?  I did a search and saw there was a Tarzan cup.  Nuff Said.

Gil Kane & Alex Toth on Johnny Thunder original art cover

Alex Toth fans are probably well aware of his work on DC's Johnny Thunder character in the 1950s.  I am not that familiar with DC's western heroes, outside of Tomahawk and Super Chief.  But here is a unique cover featuring both Gil Kane and Toth on the inks.

All Star Western #122, published in 1951.  A real Zorro vibe to this cover.  On the surface, it looks like Toth did the whole thing.  You've got to want to buy this comic just based on the cover, a cowboy like Johnny Thunder using a fencing sword instead of a gun to rescue that girl behind him.

I recently found the cover pencils on Heritage Comics.  Here you can see it was a fully pencilled Gil Kane cover.  This is interesting in a number of ways.  You can see early on in his career, Kane was really all about drawing action in a very fluid manner, a trademark of his style that lasted decades.  Now I am wondering, was he influenced in this style by Toth?  Also, note the way he added the shadows with very detailed pencils, something that I don't recall seeing in Kane's 70s covers.

After Toth added the inks, the faces of the figures were transformed into his signature look.    I wonder if these two worked on other western covers?

I did a quick search to see what history these men had together, and from what I read on Comic Book Resources forum, it wasn't an easy relationship.  Nuff Said!

Lee Weeks Commissions: Rocketeer, Captain Marvel, Space Girl

I love the artwork of Lee Weeks, just can't get enough of it and the fact he isn't on a regular title is a big letdown.  Fortunately, Lee Weeks has a Facebook page where he shares a lot of commission work.  Here are three new ones that I thought were great.

The Rocketeer.  Hard to imagine anyone but Dave Stevens drawing the character, but I think Lee nailed this character.

Captain Marvel, the World's Mightiest Mortal, the Big Red Cheese.  Or as DC now calls him: SHAZAM!  Do you see a bit of Fred MacMurray on Cap's face?

An original character we can call Space Girl.  According to Lee:  Tried to do something a little tougher than cheesecake, but still Space Girl...a little less rough than Ripley from Aliens.  I think this character is elegantly conceived, I get a Garcia-Lopez vibe from it.

Please visit Lee Weeks on Facebook for more great stuff including convention appearances!  Nuff Said.

Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja by Neal Adams

I saw this Neal Adams illustration on Facebook the other day, a 1970s piece featuring Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja on a battlefield.

I was certain this had been used on an early issue of the Savage Sword of Conan magazine by Marvel. But after double checking the first few years of that mag, it wasn't there.  This piece appeared on the cover of the 1978 Cartoonists and Illustrators Portfolio, published by Supergraphics (Steranko's company). 

A fine piece, makes me wish we had seen Adams illustrate more Conan comics.  Nuff Said!

The Shadow by Mike Mayhew

Mike Mayhew captures The Shadow perfectly in this great painting--love the angle looking up and his red eyes.  Check out his deviantART page here!  Nuff Said.

The Shadow #1 original art cover by Michael Kaluta

I am sure all Silver Age fans remember Kaluta's famous 1973 cover to The Shadow #1.  I always found the texture and shading on that piece to be different than any other cover I had seen up to that point.

The original cover art to this piece, which looks even better in black and white than full color!  The Shadow is rendered with tones, a grey ink wash perhaps?  The train and city skyline draw your attention to the figure in the center. 

Here is a DC house ad from House of Mystery 217, announcing the forthcoming arrival of The Shadow in July 1973.  Doc Savage was already being published by Marvel and Steranko had brought these pulp heroes back into the spotlight from his History of Comics.  Nuff Said!

John Carter of Mars by Alan Davis

I just discovered that Marvel released a John Carter of Mars Omnibus featuring all the comics they published in the 1970s.

Here is cover and as you could expect, Davis does a superb job capturing Carter, Tars Tarkas, and Barsoom.  Notice that Dejah Thoris here doesn't match the version in the Marvel Comics tales. 

Here is the pencil version of this artwork.  I am not quite sure but I believe that Davis drew this a while back even before the current JC mania in advance of the movie.  Alan writes on his website that "ERB's Mars books have been a favourite for many years and I have often thought about how I might handle the stories. This was one attempt to come up with a slightly different look from the usual comic book versions of the characters."

For more Marvel Comics with John Carter, check out my article on Giant-Size Marvel titled Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum on John Carter Warlord of Mars.  Nuff Said!

Neal Adams and John Carter of Mars

I am eagerly awaiting the John Carter movie coming out next month.  I read the first three novels last year and liked them a lot; the first novel in particular was quite amazing for having been written in 1911.  I read the Marvel Comics adaptions in the 1970s and liked those, too.  I always wondered what an artist like Neal Adams would do with the John Carter material.  There following illustrations give us all a clue as to what that would have been like.

These illustrations come from Heritage Magazine from the 1970s.  Was this a preview of a longer story planned for a future issue?  Or a graphic album for a publisher?  Not sure at all!  But the first illustration shows the crash of a spacecraft on Mars.  I read that this fellow is Flash Gordon--didn't get that right away but it makes sense.

Second illustration shows Flash getting saved from a sneaky Red Martian.  His savior is none other than John Carter of Mars!  But wait, what is in that container that Flash is standing over?

It turns out the none other than Tarzan of the Apes is somewhat comatose inside that container!  What an awesome team-up adventure this would have been, if Neal Adams had drawn that at the height of his artistic ability!

Questions: do any super-fans out there know why Neal Adams had created these illustrations and what his ultimate plan was?  Have John Carter of Mars and Tarzan ever met in any work of fiction?  (I know that Philip Jose Farmer had his Tarzan and Doc Savage analogs meet in A Feast Unknown.)  Please let me know!  Nuff Said.

Movie Posters: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai

Last week I found Phantom City Creative among a new batch of Planet of the Apes movie posters.  PCC also did an amazing job on this poster for the Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai!

Amazing job, right down to the electric logo and the likenesses of all the movie actors.  John Lithgow's expression is priceless.  Peter Weller looks geeky, even though we all know Weller as a tough guy now from his recent roles on Dexter and Fringe.

Here is the theatrical movie poster from 1984 when the movie was released.  Everything about that jacket and tie on Peter Weller screams the 1980s.  They dressed Robocop like he was Madonna's boy toy.

Buckaroo Banzai was sort of like an American Doctor Who combined with the pulp sense of Doc Savage.  He didn't have just five amazing guys but a large team of geeks and freaks.  Motifake's poster with Team Banzai is a perfect example.  Nuff Said!

The Shadow "Lamont Cranston & Margo Lane" poster by Michael Kaluta

I recently came across this gem that was published as a poster in 1976.

Lamont Cranston (aka The Shadow) and Margo Lane enjoying a night out on the town, with his alter ego hanging over them in the painting.  I remember this one fondly as I painstakingly tried to copy this in pencil for a high school art class.  I could not match the mastery of Michael Kaluta!  Nuff Said.

Ace Paperback Covers: Conan of Cimmeria by Frazetta and This Immortal by Gray Morrow

A few years ago, I started reading electronic books on various devices.  Today, I hardly read any physical book, except for comic books and highly technical subjects.  I’m avidly following the e-book industry and fascinated by how quickly it is growing.  At the same time, I’m feeling pangs of nostalgia for old paperbacks from my youth!



Case in point, this Ace paperback, Robert E. Howard’s Conan of Cimmeria.  I found this at Half Price Books the other day, in great condition, even poly-bagged, for a mere $2.  Frank Frazetta’s paintings on these books set the world on fire and helped sell millions of Conan books all over the world.  This collection of stories contains The Frost Giant’s Daughter, which is portrayed to great effect by Frazetta.  Who couldn’t help but picture Frazetta’s creations in their mind while reading Howard’s purple prose?



Frazetta’s full cover painting for this scene is even more glorious.  There were several different editions of the these Conan paperbacks.  The one I just bought definitely is published by “Ace” and the back cover is just Frazetta’s painting, sans any cover copy.  It was published in 1983 and also contains some interior illustrations by Esteban Moroto. 

Lancer published the original paperback series in the 1970s with a different cover treatment.  Gary Romeo has a terrific article titled Defending the Lancers on his website, with a review for each Conan paperback and a gallery of each cover.



When I made the switch to reading e-books, I was also getting ready to move to a new house.  I had tons of physical books that I dreaded moving.  I sold stuff to a used bookstore and donated the rest to a local library.  But there were a few special books that I just couldn’t let go.  One of them was the 1965 Ace paperback edition of Roger Zelazny’s This Immortal.  I haven’t read this novel in decades, but I love the cover, even if it has little to do with the story inside.  The cover painting was by Gray Morrow, a very talented artist who also drew comics for Marvel and DC, including the very first Man-Thing solo story.  You couldn’t help but have this cover strike out at you on the newsstand from any direction.  That red landscape, with the moon hovering impossibly close by in the background, is pure SF pulpy goodness!  Zelazny has always been one of my top favorite SF writers, his Amber series is something I can re-read every few years, as well as Doorways in the Sand.

I looked to see if I could find a scan of this painting in original form, and came up empty.  Instead I discovered a very nice article on Gray Morrow on the Bronze Age of Blogs.  I had completely forgotten that Morrow had also worked on The Illustrated Roger Zelazny, a special album that he produced for Byron Preiss.  It was sad to read that Morrow committed suicide in 2001.  He was a very unique artist with an unmistakable style that I’ll never forget.  Nuff Said.

Tarzan by Archie Goodwin and Gil Kane

I’ve been reading comics for a long time and my knowledge of the mainstream is pretty deep.  Yet every once in a while I stumble upon something old that is new.  A perfect example is this, Tarzan Sunday newspaper strips by Archie Goodwin and Gil Kane—I had no idea that they ever worked on this character!  The strip above, from July 1979, kicked off a storyline titled The Runaway, about a spoiled brat who gets lost in the jungle.  It’s up to Tarzan to save his butt and teach him a few valuable lessons about life.



The strips all have storylines that played out over a few months of Sundays.  The other storyline I read, titled Zugor the Ape, features Tarzan in New York City.  I was blown away by the craftsmanship of these strips.  The stories by Goodwin are well paced and suited for an all ages audience.  The artwork by Gil Kane plays to his strengths, giving him a chance to draw plenty of action from interesting perspectives.  Take a look at the bridge sequence here, very smart use of angle shots in small panels.  Click on the link below for more Tarzan strips.  Nuff Said!

Link: Gil Kane Unchained page on Facebook

Neal Adams Tarzan Paperback Covers

If you were around in the 1970s, you might remember the Great Paperback Resurgence of the Pulp Heroes.  This happened early in the decade with the return of Conan and Doc Savage, followed by the Avenger, the Shadow, and then Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan novels.  The covers to the Tarzan novels were beautifully illustrated by Neal Adams.  In 1978, Sal Quartuccio released several Neal Adams portfolios containing these cover images.



This image was used as the cover The Beasts of Tarzan, showing the Jungle Lord’s companions coming out of the jungle to rescue him.  I like the look in Tarzan’s eyes—he can’t wait to unleash those beasts on his captors!



The original paperback cover, courtesy of the Dark Worlds blog.  I collected these paperbacks just for the covers alone, because I was such a fan of Neal Adams.



Looking at these illustrations, you can get a taste of the entire mythology that Burroughs had created for Tarzan.  The movie adaptations that have been make little headway beyond the origin story.  Nuff Said!

Link:  Dark Worlds Blog – lots of Pulpy Goodness.
Link:  Cap’N’s Comics Blog

Jim Steranko Knows The Shadow: Two Paintings from MediaScene in 1975

Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men?  The Shadow Knows.  And who knows the Shadow?  Jim Steranko!

In the 1970s, a lot of material from the pulp magazines were re-published as paperback books.  Conan and Doc Savage were the two most popular pulp heroes that found a new audience.  The Shadow followed, with a paperback series that featured some great Steranko covers.


You can find some of those Steranko covers on the Internet, but I will wager that many people haven't seen this fantastic Shadow cover from MediaScene #14.  Published by Steranko's SuperGraphics company in 1975, this issue was chock full of Shadow news and features.



The biggest news was a new fan club that Steranko announced, The Shadow Secret Society.  Similar to the fan club for Marvel (FOOM) that Steranko also launched, the SSS membership kit included an illustrated envelope, a pin, a membership card, newsletter, etc.  Looking back, I don't think any of that stuff was as exciting as these two paintings that Steranko produced for MediaScene.

Steranko's enthusiasm for the pulp magazines infected everyone who read his great History of Comics.  He made the connection between the pulps and the birth of comics, and introduced a new generation to Doc Savage, The Avenger, The Spider, etc.  Nuff Said!