Joe Kubert would've turned ninety-five today. Beloved all across the comics spectrum both for his artwork and personality, Joe was also a landmark figure in the history of sword-and-sorcery in comics.

Joe’s self-portrait from his final decade.

Having done the chronological math, it would appear that Joe Kubert was the one who set me on the path of S&S fandom. I'll go deeper into that in a future post. For today, let's look at all Kubert did for sword-and-sorcery, as well as S&S-adjacent comics.

While Gardner Fox's 'Crom the Barbarian' can claim the laurels for the first S&S comic, Kubert's 'Viking Prince' in The Brave and the Bold was the first to feature a heroic fantasy character on the cover and 'Viking Prince' enjoyed a much longer run than Fox's Crom. 'Viking Prince' truly set the stage for all S&S comics to come, especially Roy Thomas' excellent series, Arak.

Kubert was DC's ramrod when the company bought the rights to Edgar Rice Burroughs' intellectual properties from Gold Key. To this day, Joe's rendition of Tarzan is acclaimed by fans of the Lord of the Jungle. Kubert also did covers for the Korak, Son of Tarzan comic, which featured the talents of Mike Kaluta and Frank Thorne. That is where I came in.

Meanwhile, Roy Thomas was scripting Marvel's best-selling comic, Conan the Barbarian. DC wanted a piece of the action. Mike Grell's legendary series, The Warlord, was one result. Claw the Unconquered was another. Claw lasted longer than most DC sword-and-sorcery comics. That said, its popularity waned quickly. David Michelinie simply was not Roy Thomas. The honchos at DC brought in Joe to add some cover art magic. After all, Kubert was one of the idols of John Buscema. Kubert did three published covers along with two that stayed in limbo due to Claw's cancellation.

Fast forward three decades. Dark Horse Comics was looking to launch new REH comics along with a new arc for their popular Conan comic. They brought in Joe Kubert, who rendered a triptych of Conan, Kull and Solomon Kane, which could then be split into three covers. Joe also did a seven page tale of Conan for Conan the Cimmerian #14.

It was not the best Conan comics yarn Tim Truman ever wrote, but it gave Joe a chance to take a stab at the Cimmerian. Kubert's teenaged Conan is more Apollonian than Herculean, which is exactly as it should be.

Feel free to check out the Joe Kubert gallery below.

A latter-days commission of the Viking Prince by Joe.

This is the cover that started me on the road to sword-and-sorcery.

Kubert’s rendition of a young Conan from Conan the Cimmerian #14.

Happy birthday, Joe. Major props to one of the founders of S&S comics.