This new volume of course includes stories from some of Robert E. Howard’s lesser known (at least in comparison to Conan) characters, such as Solomon Kane, Kull, Bran Mak Morn, Black Turlogh, and others. While the characters may be lesser known, the quality of writing is still there, and characters such as Solomon Kane, as well as stories such as The Dark Man, are among some of my most favorite of all of Howard’s writings.

Here’s a listing of the stories included:

In addition to that, the volume features some top notch illustrations provided by illustrator of the first volume, Les Edwards, as you can see here:

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.

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.
 
 
 
 
 
 

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

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.

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.

I’m not here to give you a biography of the man though… far from it. There are  much more accomplished writers better suited to that task, such as Mark Finn, who wrote an exceptional Robert E. Howard biography, which any fan of fantasy should certainly read.

No, I’m just here to say thanks to Howard, who created characters and settings that have provided inspiration to me and a place for my mind to wonder for over two-and-a-half decades.

I am reminded today of a great line from Beyond the Black River:

“He was a man,” said Conan. “I drink to his shade…”

Raise a glass to Howard then, and drink with me to honor the man that gives us all a gift every time we take the opportunity to crack open a book and read one of his yarns.

Happy birthday Bob.

Kevin has this Sonja piece for sale. Contact him through his gallery if you’re interested in it.

“Arthur: The Legend Continues” brings the legend of King Arthur to a post-apocalyptic future. Issue 1 takes the legendary king from his “death” on an ancient battlefield to a village on the brink of destruction hundreds of years in our future.

The interior art is provided by Cristhian “Crizam” Zamora and the cover art is provided by none other than Atula Siriwardane, who of course is making multiple contributions to BorderKingdom, including Kushite Warrior, which is already posted in the gallery.

Congratulations to Comic Times on their new series, and to Atula on a fine cover!

Miguel, Conan and Howard fan, has some excellent illustrations of grim and gritty Hyborian Age stuff; just the way I like it.  Of course, after taking a look at some of his illustrations, I hastily contacted him about doing a full illustration for the gallery… he accepted!
I’m now anxiously awaiting to see what Migue comes up with for the gallery.

Here’s another recent illustration that Migue posted over at his blog Creative Viking. Take a minute and visit his blog and click his thumbnails to see the larger versions… it’s certainly worth it!

**UPDATE** So I was taking my own advice and going and checking out Miguel’s blog. I’ve clicked on all his images before, but I guess I never noticed what was at the BOTTOM of one of his pictures. The “ghostly” (for lack of better descriptive words) picture is awesome by itself, but it’s the bottom of the picture, and then the connection of WHO the ghosts are that make this image SOOO much cooler! An awesome picture in my opinion. Well done Miguel!

I loveto watch that part. That description is so real that it nearly has me tasting blood in my own mouth after I watch it. There is another part in the movie as well, where Novalyne and Bob are discussing the topics in which they like to write about, and Bob mentions that he wants to write about “another age, another way of life” , and “man struggling to survive”, and that that kind of writing is ‘his formula’. That’s exactly how I like my Hyborian age; grim, brutal, survival of the fittest, and so in-your-face it’s nearly tangible.

Oftentimes when I’m soliciting artwork for my hyborian art gallery, I try to scare up some reference photos to complement the descriptions I give the artists. That way, the artist has a general idea of what I’m thinking about the project beforehand; whether they choose to follow that vision or not is entirely up to them.

The image I most often send to artists though, is one I always hope the artist will consider in the atmosphere of the commission. I send it for nearly every piece commissioned, regardless of what it is I’m requesting to have drawn. That piece of art is an illustration of Conan by the late Darren Goodacre. Here it is:

Without a doubt, Darren’s illustration here is one of my all time favorite Conan inks, and every time I see the movie the Whole Wide World, and hear Vincent’s description of Conan, I am reminded of this piece, which I think encapsulates that description perfectly. Likewise, every time I see this image (and I look at it daily pretty much), I am reminded of that passage in the movie. Listen to the audio clip above while you’re looking at the Darren’s illustration, and I think you’ll see what I mean.

I’ve been working on several writeups for the existing art I have, and I haven’t completed them yet. As such, the addition to the gallery that I had hoped would be up this week, probably won’t be up until next week. That’s ok though, because I have something that should tickle your fancy. After viewing Edbon Sevilleno’s fantasy art gallery, I contacted him about doing a few commissions for the Hyborian Age Gallery. He agreed, and his enthusiasm for the project was certainly noticeable just from the quantity of concept art he kept sending me. With Edbon’s permission, I’ve decided to share it with you. It’s certainly interesting to see all the individual elements Edbon drew before ultimately combining them into one finished picture.
 
Here are some of the other elements:

 

 
Ultimately, all these individual elements were combined into one final piece,representing a Turanian/Iranistani souk. Here’s the concept art for that:

Still, we needed a central figure to pull together and round out the drawing. Edbon came up with this nice illustration of a Turanian Bedouin. I thought his concept art was perfect:

And that’s it! The finished product, which I’ll be posting directly to the gallery later, combines all of these elements into a finely detailed illustration of a Turanai/Iranistani Souk. Ultimately we discussed a few commissions, so I’ll end this post with some concept art from the additional ones he was working on:

Congratulations to Michael Phelps, for overcoming the odds and achieving what many thought was impossible! Eight gold medals in a single Olympics!
 
 
I have to admit though… after I saw this picture that at first glance appeared to be Phelps wearing a fancy dress, I just about passed him over for the award. Thankfully it’s just Phelps wearing all the loot he plundered at the expense of the French. Kudos to you Michael Phelps, you’re one of life’s winners.
 
 
 
 
Runner Up
Runner up for this edition of the Barbarian Award is Senator John Edwards, for displaying the truly barbaric behavior of pillaging his interns while raiding. When the cat’s away (or terminally ill), the mice will play, eh John?

Before getting into what comics I have enjoyed the most over the last 18 months, I should put a disclaimer out there that I am not an avid collector of comics. In the 80s and 90s the only titles I collected were The Savage Sword of Conan and Conan Saga, anything outside of those typically didn’t hold my interest. Largely this was because I’ve never really had an interest in “super heroes”, which seemed to be the main things going at the time, and most of the story lines I considered predictable if not juvenile, even as an early teenager.

With the release of the new Conan comic by Dark Horse some years ago, I of course began picking up all things Conan again (the main title, the spinoffs, the one shots, etc), and eventually began to dabble into other comics as well.  I currently collect around 10-20 titles…small potatoes no doubt.  Having said that, my reviews probably lose some cred with those avid collectors, given my relative newness into collecting, and the size of my stash.  Really, my only criteria for my “best” picks, were:

1. Did I enjoy the story
2. Did I enjoy the art

Personally, I don’t think that those two criteria should be difficult to meet for “professional” artists and writers, especially when you consider that the average story is probably only 20-30 pages long, and mostly art (as opposed to a novel of hundreds of pages, with no art).  Is it really that hard to keep a readers attention over such a short period… for a “professional”? Stupid question no doubt, I’m sure it’s very hard… in fact it must be terribly difficult, because a large percentage of the comics I receive are pretty close to crap.

Every month I’m continually reminded of how poorly the comic industry has done in maturing with its readers.  Half the books I read are dumbed-down, poorly-written tripe.  The comic industry has failed to mature at the same rate that their readers have.  The success of the new Batman movie illustrates this point more than I ever could with words.  Those same small boys that collected books in the 70s-90s are all grown up now, and interested in comics that are much more mature (e.g. The Dark Knight), yet comic book publishers continue to publish material that would make an 10 year old smack the cover shut saying, “I’m too old for this”. I just don’t get that… anyway, here are the comics I enjoyed (or am currently enjoying) the most out of my stack.

My Best Picks (In no particular order)

The Other Side

Jason Aaron / Cameron Stewart

The Other Side was a short run comic portraying the Vietnam war from both the perspective of an American and Vietnamese soldier.  The art was well done, but the script, which switches back and forth from the G.I. to the V.C. was the carrier of this series.  Highly graphic, and suggested for mature readers, it was one of my favorites of 2007, I’ve gone back to read this one a few times, which is not something I will typically do.
 
 

Various Roy Thomas Adaptations

Roy Thomas et al.

I like Roy Thomas’ writing. I consider his The Ultimate Guide to the World’s Most Savage Barbarian one of the coolest non Howard Conan books that I own. As I mentioned above, in the 80s and 90s I enjoyed the Savage Sword comics a lot. His recent adaptations of Treasure Island, The Last of the Mohicans, and The Man in the Iron Mask I thought were first rate.  The art was well presented in these series as well, especially on the covers.  Of course, everyone should read the originals of these as well.
 
 

Conan

Tim Truman, Kurt Busiek, Tomas Giorello, Cary Nord, et al

There have been too many names working on the Conan title to list them all, but overall, the comic, and most of the spin offs have been very good in terms of meeting the two criteria of being entertaining, and having quality art. Truman and Giorello have really taken this title to the next level with the relaunch of Conan The Cimmerian a few months ago. It’s gritty, people die, and the art is knockout. Of course that’s not to say that the Busiek/Nord combo didn’t do a splendid job as well, as Nord draws some of my favorite Conan sketches ever (… must get him to do a gallery picture for us).
 
 

LoveLess

Brian Azzarello

Loveless was by far one of my most favorite titles of 2007, exceeding even Conan some months in my anticipation to receive and tear through the title. Well written with plenty of engaging events and cliff hangers, it was a great addition to Western comics. The art could occasionally be difficult to determine which character was which, but overall a very strong title. Unfortunately it was canceled a few months ago which hurt my already dwindling pile of quality monthly reads.
 
 

Jonah Hex

Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray

Jonah Hex is a title that I always look forward to. It has on occasion had issues were the art was a near miss for me, but overall the title is still strong. Jonah will generally take an ass whoopin’ just about every issue before he pays someone back. A recent issue featuring the art of Rafa Garres was exceptionally nice and I hope to see more of his work on future Hex titles, and other titles as well (and add a commission from him to the Images of the Hyborian Age gallery).
 
 

Fear Agent

Rick Remender & Tony Moore

I’m not much of a sci-fi fan.. aliens and laser guns never did do much for me…. but shotguns do… and Fear Agent has to be one of the top titles of last year. Surprisingly serious when it needs to be, while still having enough humor and wit to not take itself too seriously and to laugh-out-loud about… it’s the perfect mix of a flawed hero kicking some alien ass. The art isn’t half bad either.
 
 

The Lone Ranger

Brett Matthews & Sergio Carriello

I didn’t have high hopes for The Lone Ranger, but I gave it a shot, and so far, I’m glad I did. The story has matured substantially over what you might remember from the old T.V. show, making it into a strong contender as a comic featured in the Old West. This is an engaging comic suited for people that don’t prefer their heroes and villains to be black and white.
 
 
 

Northlanders

Brian Wood & David Gianfelice

NORTHLANDERS! Probably my favorite comic right now. Northlanders is the perfect mix of a great story coupled with nice art and tailor made for comic readers looking for a mature read. Lots of sword swinging, it’s Conan 9000 years later. Tough to put down, the covers and interiors are are always very nice.
 
 
My worst picks later.
 

But the other night after a bath, as he was crying after being taken out of his warm water, I was reminded of a fantastic cover illustration done by Greg Ruth for Dark Horse’s Conan comic.  I had the wife indulge me a bit and help me recreate the piece with a modern approach (curtains in the background).

Mr. Ruth, in my opinion, did fantastic work on the covers and interiors of that Dark Horse spin off.  Others enjoyed his work as well, as can be seen in this conan.com thread where, among those that contributed so far, each has listed one of Mr. Ruth’s covers as a particular favorite, among all the covers.

More art coming
In the weeks that I haven’t posted, I’ve received a lot of art, that I’m just itching to share with you. Contributions from Luis Sierra, Jed Raven (who puts a spin on Conan and Red SonJa that we haven’t seen before, but that’s really really good), and Edbon Sevilleno as newcomers as well as additional submissions from some that have already contributed, including Atula Siriwardane illustrating Conan during his pirating years, Benito Gallego illustrating The Frost Giants Daughter, and Dave Simons giving us a particularly nice piece that illustrates Thoth Amon. Look for the first of those pieces to show up starting next week. For now though, I’ll leave you with a little teaser that Edbon sent me as concept art for his commission. It was never named, but it reminded me when I saw it of a Hyrkanian/Khitian general.. a real treat:

Staz is one of a few artists that I stumbled on after they posted in the conan.com forums with samples of their Conan illustrations. In fact, Staz has, in my opinion, one of the coolest sketches of Conan I’ve ever seen. You can see it here: Staz Johnson Conan. If not the coolest ink sketch, it has to take the cake for the coolest sharpie sketch.

Staz cites in his bio at www.stazjohnson.com that as a kid he was a big fan of Conan and John Buscema… aren’t we all. It’s amazing the influence that John Buscema has had.

Marvel Madness

Staz’s stint in comics has been really impressive, and he’s drawn some of the cream-of-the-crop when it comes characters we all love to read about. Spider-man, Batman, Avengers, Wolverine, X-Men, Fantastic Four, etc. Staz is not to be trifle with when it comes to illustration.

Staz has some sweet artwork available in his Staz Johnson art gallery , including individual galleries of his work for DC and Marvel .

More Stazzines

Staz is currently working for Marvel. He’s also apparently working on a Dracula comic adaptation .

Staz maintains a blog at blogspot, which I routinely see him update with new art all the time.

Staz is unloading art hand-over-fist on ebay. He announces new pieces for sale on his blog. This is high quality stuff from Staz, on main characters like Spider-man and X-men. Check out his ebay auctions for more information on those.

Final Words On Staz

Staz was awesome to work with. His art is detailed and complex and really a treat to own and to look at. Staz’s contribution to the gallery is one of my favorites to go back to and look at.

Make sure you check out Staz’s website for more cool art, and his profile here at borderkingdom.com for more info on him.

Winston Blakely was one of half-a-billion artists (that’s right, half-a-billion) that responded to a want-ad that I posted a few months ago in some comic groups. I posted a few ads, and the next thing I knew my inbox was full of artists requesting to be apart of the project. It was fantastic, if not unexpected.

Winston was part of the initial group of artist’s that didn’t receive multiple descriptions to choose from when I originally requested the piece from him. I suppose the process was a little more akin to a normal commission solicitation in that I just told Winston what I wanted him to draw, and that’s what he drew (spot on, and great I might add). There really wasn’t any avenue of choice for him to select a particular description that he may have preferred. I’ve revised that process now because I like the idea of artist’s choosing from the descriptions more than me telling artists what to draw, I think multiple choices makes us both feel like their contribution to the project is more personal, and not just some ink on a paper that someone told them to put there.

Winston’s piece is great. I love the creativity in the frame, the footprints left on the ground from the stalked, and of course heads on pikes always do wonders to make a Hyborian Age picture just that much better (i.e. see the header in progress above )

Upcoming Projects and the Art of Winston Blakely

Winston has some nice art online for viewing. You can see a number of his samples at Winston’s Serendipity Art Gallery . His gallery contains several panels, including some rather urm… risque images that we all appreciate from time to time. When I was reviewing Winston’s sample images he sent me, it was actually his work on Little Miss Strange , the world’s first black alien sorceress, that caught my eye the most. Winston teamed up with Luis Sierra (another upcoming contributor to the Images of Hyboria gallery) for a graphic novel of Little Miss Strange that you can find for sale at lulu.com .

PixelStrips also hosts a number of the characters Winston has worked on, including the previously talked about Little Miss Sunshine, as well as other characters like the Sword and Sorcery Kotas the Dragon , which will be featured in an upcoming anthology by Winston, and another story inspired by Jack Kirby called Pozitron .

Another Round of Winston Please

Winston was an all around great guy to work with, and one of the timeliest as well in terms of how quick he was able to complete the project from start to finish. The range of characters that he illustrates and writes for makes his art fun to follow and dynamic. More importantly than that he hosts a lot of his characters online which really makes his work accessible; which I think is a big bonus for attracting fans to your work and continuing to gain exposure.

Winston has agreed to do another piece for the gallery, this time I think I’ll let him choose what he wants to draw and we’ll see what he comes up with.

Check out Winston’s Hyrkanian Tracker in the Images of Hyboria Gallery .

Read Winston’s profile as well, he has some great info in there and it’s always interesting to see how these artists started out in the business.

But enough about my man-crush on Dave… lets talk about his picture. First off, one of the reasons Dave is so awesome is that he immediately volunteered to tackle what I felt was the hardest description to date: the infamous Maul from Robert E. Howard’s story The Tower of the Elephant.

Most of the descriptions I’ve sent artists so far have involved 1-2 character layouts with a little bit of background. That’s what I request at least. Luckily the quality of the artists that have thus far participated, and their desire to produce a fantastic piece coupled with their interest in the subject matter have really yielded pieces far beyond what I’ve requested; nice full backgrounds, lots of detail, and lots of “ooh’s” and “ahhs” for us.

Coupled in with those 1-2 character requests was a description and art request for the Maul; the only description I included at the time that was a specific setting in Hyboria. But no one bit. Now granted, the artists solicited at the time didn’t know me or my project from Adam. There really wasn’t any incentive to tackle what was by far the hardest of the descriptions. But Dave did it… no coaxing, no buttering him up.. he just volunteered, and he knew going in that a scene like the Maul required a little bit more to pull off than the other descriptions: A nice background bar scene, maybe some dancing wenches, and a host of ruffians and thugs therein.

That’s the first reason Dave is awesome just a desire to contribute a quality piece to the project for fans to enjoy regardless of what’s required to do it right.

The second reason Dave is awesome is simply the quality of the picture. Read the first few pages of The Tower of the Elephant, and I think you’ll agree that Dave really tried to capture in ink the atmosphere that Howard created with his words. Perhaps the greatest compliment any Howard fan can pay an illustrator is that the artwork is worthy of representing the story. And this one fits the bill.

There’s yet another reason Dave is awesome though too. Dave is working on two commissions for me, and on both, he requested passages from Howard to help set the tone of his pictures. I’ve allowed enough creative freedom in this project that I want the artist’s interpretation, but it’s refreshing to know that the artist cares enough about the source material to at least consult it for inspiration.
Dave Simons’ Conan Resume.

Those of you astute followers of comic art of course probably recognize Dave Simons from his other work including a personal favorite of mine, The Savage Sword of Conan , which was the medium that first introduced me to the Hyborian Age so many years ago as a youngster. Dave’s visited the Hyborian Age a couple of times though, illustrating Conan and King Conan. He also has dabbled in Red Sonja, and even cowrote a Savage Sword of Conan . In issue #95, Dave lays down some airbrush for us in the short story The Hill of Horror . Man.. those comics take me back.

What I Didn’t Expect
What I didn’t expect when I started this project was artists from the days of SSoC (like Dave) being interested in contributing. I’m sure they all have a particular fondness for the barbarian – even moreso than myself – but how do you ask someone that has already made their mark in the Conan world to contribute even more? Well I was wrong about that thought. Dave was interested in the project, took the hardest description of all, and knocked it out of the park. Not only that, but he may not be the only former Conan artist to do so! Stay tuned for more details on that.

Where To See More
You can see more of Dave here at Border Kingdom of course, as he’s doing another one for us that will hopefully be completed and posted within the next few weeks. Dave also maintains a small gallery over at comicartfans, (Dave Simons Comic Art ). He has some really nice panels in that gallery that are just recently posted for fans of the Hulk. You can see a lot of his Conan examples at his Comic art Commissions gallery, including that second one from the top, which is Conan at his best; wenching.

Not just Conan though, for fans of other genres of comics check out Dave’s other drawings on Citizen , Captain America, Punisher, and of course Spider-Man.

Dave maintains his own website as well at Dave Simons Art, and he’s currently working on a show called Maya and Miguel, which airs on PBS.

He’s also started a new blog, with one of his first posts talking about John Buscema. Check out Simon Sez to read that, it’s always fun to read about other artists thoughts on Buscema.

Don’t miss the larger version of his interpretation of the Maul in the gallery, either. In fact, this piece has enough detail that it can’t be properly illustrated within the confines of what the gallery will hold. As such, make sure you check the first comment in the messages in his gallery for a link to an even bigger version.

Read Dave Simons’ profile and check out some of his other art as well.

Anyway, back to what I was saying… the piece looked fantastic via e-mail, but when you’re holding a nice 11×17 paper inked to the borders that illustrates something you’ve come to love in your life, well… it’s different when the intangible e-mail becomes the tangible new piece of art hanging on your wall… it’s special.

Benito’s Streets of Shadizar was all about mood to me. The picture needed to convey the dangerous atmosphere of walking the streets at night in a city of thieves. In writing the description, I was reminded of a brief passage Howard used in The Tower of the Elephant to describe the natives of Zamora (though I believe that story takes place in Arenjun, also in Zamora):

"Native rogues were the dominant element – dark-skinned, dark-eyed Zamorians, with daggers at their girdles and guile in their hearts."

Benito’s piece is of course excellent. He cites in his profile that John Buscema is a chief influence for him, and I think that’s easy to see in his piece. To get the full-featured effect of this picture, make sure you check out the larger version in the gallery here: Benito Gallego: Streets of Shadizar .

Background

When I was originally perusing comic forums and art gallery Web sites looking for artists that I wanted to have contribute to the project, I stumbled across one of Benito’s inks titled very simply, Conan in the rain . You can see it here in Benito Gallego’s comicartfans.com gallery . If that one didn’t get me hot and bothered by itself, his other piece Red Warrior did me in. You can see Benito’s Red Warrior in his comicartfans.com gallery, or in Benito’s Images of Hyboria profile .

Other Works from Benito

Benito has worked on some cool projects, and has some really nice illustrations under his belt, many of them centering around the Sword and Sorcery/Fantasy genre. His scenery is great, and like Streets of Shadizar above, really helps set the mood in his pictures. Check out this , and this , and this to get an idea of what I’m talking about.

Benito’s Dreamers Gallery is excellent, a particular favorite of mine being an illustration he did of The Tower of the Elephant . You’ll find that gallery peppered with images of Conan, a Red Sonja, and even a really nice Tarzan in there.

Haven’t seen enough of Benito’s Conan yet? Me neither. Benito also did some illustrations for an online Conan comic called La Muerte de Conan . Benito hails from Spain, so I can’t read the story, but I flipped through the comic half dozen times to enjoy the illustrations.

Benito also illustrates for Sword magazine in Spain. Their website has some sample interior art that he did that is just great, including this piece, which reminds me of a scene right from The Maul.

Images of Hyboria Gallery: Even more Benito

Many of the artists that are contributing to the Images of Hyboria Project are doing multiple submissions, including Benito. Benito’s second piece should be finished in a few short weeks, so his second appearance in the gallery should follow that up directly… if we’re lucky, I’ll be able to coax 3 out of him…

Conclusion

It really was a pleasure working with Benito. In addition to being friendly and timely, I love it when an artist is passionate about producing a quality piece, and really takes off and runs with the idea. Leave some feedback for Benito and let him know you like his stuff. Benito’s art gallery at comicartfans.com is absolutely worth a visit, and Benito’s profile has some other info and links to interesting information and good art including a piece straight from the Howard story, A Witch Shall Be Born .

Since the time that this piece was originally commissioned, the process of how I solicit art from artists has changed rather significantly. When Atula was commissioned, the project was really in its infancy. I gave a brief 1-2 sentence description of what I wanted drawn, with no visual samples for Atula to refer to, and really no direction after that. Now that the project has evolved a bit, artists are now given 3-4 descriptions of what I’d like them to draw, including multiple character, geographic, cultural, and background settings, and then provided some sample images that hopefully set the mood for the vision that’s in my head. The artist gets to choose from among the descriptions and draw whatever appeals to them the most. I was very pleased with the direction Atula took, and I think his ability to be creative in his interpretation is a great asset and a significant compliment to his art.

The quality of this particular piece, which I’ve called Kushite Warrior , I think speaks for itself, and really demonstrates how serious Atula approaches doing a commission from a client. But aside from the quality, Atula is simply fun to work with. We have a few other projects in the works right now, including a real treat larger in scope than one of these regular gallery commissions, which I’m sure any fan of Conan and Hyboria is simply going to love. Although I’m bursting at the seams to talk about it, I’m going to hold off until I have some sample art available for everyone to look at.

In addition to this fine specimen of a Kushite warrior about to become lunch, and the secret project I hinted at above, Atula is doing the oil painting header for the borderkingdom blog. The current header you see above is the concept art that Atula put together a few weeks ago. It was so good, I thought I’d leave it up until the main header is completed, just to give you a taste.

Background

I first found out about Atula by him posting sample pictures of his drawings on the Conan forums. You can see a few of them in this thread , and a few more really good Conan pieces in Atula’s comicartfans.com gallery . Don’t limit yourself to viewing just the Conan pieces in his gallery either, or you’ll be depriving yourself of some really good art. Atula’s whole gallery is really good to look at, and something to be admired by anyone who appreciates good art.

Not surprisingly, the Conan forums are peppered with talented artists. In fact more than a few of the upcoming Image of Hyboria contributions you’ll see are from artists whose work I had never even seen until they posted it in the Conan forums, including Staz Johnson and Edbon Sevilleno .

Atula hails from Sri Lanka and is really a versatile artist. He’s done everything from children’s book illustrations to landscape illustration. He’s got a fine eye for layout too I might add, and gave some great suggestions for the layout of this Web site.

Upcoming Projects from Atula

Atula has a couple of upcoming projects, one in particular that I think any fan of the Sword and Sorcery genre will be interested in. Taryn is a Sword and Sorcery heroine created in collaboration with Paul Monsky of VaVaVaVoom comics. Taryn will make her appearance in VaVaVavoom #2. Check out some Taryn art , it really has a nice Red Sonja feel to it.

Atula’s first comic book for the USA audience, “Brawn” is also now available after several years in development. The quality of the interior art is great, and the comic features a cover by Anthony Rezendes. Atula has some art samples from Brawn here .

Images of Hyboria Gallery: Even more Atula

Atula will have a number of pieces in the Images of Hyboria gallery when all is said and done, including a second piece scheduled to be included into the gallery in the next few weeks. You can view Atula’s contributions here . Also, be sure to check out Atula’s gallery profile which includes links to his site, his other galleries, and samples of his other artwork, including a great drawing of Bran. If you’re a fan of comic art, Atula is an artist you’re going to want to follow over the next few years.

Conclusion

If you like the Kushite Warrior piece that Atula did for the Images of Hyboria gallery, please leave some feedback for him! He really went above and beyond to give Howard fans a treat to enjoy. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.

If you’re interested in securing a commission for a character in the future, you should seriously consider Atula for the job. If you check out Atula’s art gallery at comicartfans.com you’ll see an incredible amount of diversity in his work and you can rest assured you’ll be getting a really really fine piece of art.