Reading from the Del Rey edition, illustrated by Mark Schultz.

Since the 1960s—and going back to the 1930s—fantasy artists have very often chosen Howard’s Conan stories to ply their trade. Today Howard’s work is largely kept alive by the comic industry, and I know two independent artists who feature Conan illustrations and paintings in their portfolio. As a boy this factor just wowed me and convinced me to purchase the books. As a man I can see that Howard struck a primal chord among the male readership across numerous generations, and has disproportionately inspired painters and illustrators.

As a writer and reviewer what do I now appreciate about this phenomenon as I look over Schultz’s four black & whites for The Vale of Lost Women?

The first piece has Livia, a beautiful, soft [a trifle plump by modern standards], civilized, blonde, cringing on her knees and heels as Conan, a monstrous, leering savage, clutches her wrist with one cruel hand, looking like a cross between Tarzan and Michael Myers from the Halloween horror franchise as recently depicted by psycho-director Rob Zombie-a rape in progress before a pile of bleached skulls in a tropical hut…

The second piece has Livia escaping naked from the fiendish barbarian and his savage black henchmen—naked and pale in the night—on the back of a black horse.

The third piece has a great bat-like creature engulfing Conan.

The fourth piece has Livia alone in a star bright glade, garlanded with white flowers she has plucked for herself, as three devilish night-haired women slink toward her.

The final piece is an illustrative bookend, a savage crest of spear and shield garlanded with flowers—the flowers dominant.

I really wanted to give Mark his due credit for the wonderful work he did for this story. I also thought that my brief and rather ignorant [I don’t even know how these guys buy their ink] summary of his work might make the point better than a simple statement, that Howard wrote horror when he had Conan on the page. I don’t know who came up with ‘the sword and sorcery’ sub-genre to describe his work. It was not necessary. Conan, as a character, is more a vehicle for multi-layered horror stories than a male fantasy: the horror of battle; the horror of social inequity; the horror of the hideous unknown; and in this tale, the horror that is Conan. Apparently, Howard, two years into writing Conan, took a step back and said to himself, “He may be my penny per word hero, but he would stride horrifically into any civilized life.”

In the following volumes of A Well of Heroes, I will interview artists as to their impressions of Conan and other Howard characters as a subject of their art.