In honor of the legendary Jim Steranko’s eighty-eighth birthday, I’m going to look back at one of his projects that has fascinated and haunted me for six decades. I’m referring, of course, to Talon—the coolest sword-and-sorcery hero that never (quite) was.
Read MoreKen Barr was a mainstay on the comic and paperback covers of the 1970s. His paintings were in the tradition of pulp greats like Walt Baumhofer and Earl Norem, but Barr brought their lurid dynamism to another level.
Read MoreRobert McGinnis, legendary artist and national treasure, died a year ago today. He spent his life painting ruined castles, sexy women and dangerous men. However, he never painted a single Sword-and-Sorcery cover. In this post, we look at what might have been.
Read MoreRoy Thomas was instrumental in bringing Howardian and Lovecraftian concepts and characters to Marvel Comics during the early 1970s. Far lesser-known are his efforts to get the word out about Clark Ashton Smith in the mid-1990s by way of Marvel’s Conan comics.
Read MoreMike Grell’s The Warlord was one of the great Sword-and-Sorcery comics of the 1970s. Its second issue was a particular stand-out and my introduction to the character.
Read MoreThe birthday of the mighty Jim Steranko has rolled around again. A living legend of pop culture, I’ve written previously about Mr. Steranko. This time, I’m gonna look specifically at Jim’s awesome legacy of Sword-and-Sorcery/S&S-adjacent art.
Read MoreA reader asked me a great question the other day. He asked: If you could only have one book to sum up the superstars of the [S&S] genre, which one would you pick?
Read MoreNow our art is threatened not by derivative authors, but by machines capable of turning it out in choking quantities. What happens if an AI-generated story is good? Can we read and enjoy it? Should we?
Read MoreFrom my perspective, sword and sorcery is not power-fantasy; it is barbarian-fantasy: the longing to return to the primitive, the past, the preindustrial, the raw of terrestrial nature, the simple.
Read MoreJoe Kubert passed on ten years ago today. An absolute legend in the comic book industry, Kubert's career spanned an astounding seventy-five years. Joe was one of the few comics giants to be admitted to various comic book halls of fame as a writer, artist and inker. In Comic Book Valhalla, Joe Kubert sits at the high table.
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