2010 Fantasy Art Review Archives

January 2010

Conan vs. The Devourer of Souls by Erin Chan
SCOTT'S REVIEW This month’s FAR is a drawing that when I was growing up and looking for those artistic inspirations that I would find myself instead of looking at the classics of Michelangelo or Picasso, I would find myself paging through the old Savage Sword of Conan magazine. Erin Chan was a penciler that had a unique style that filled the page of many comic books and graphic novels in the 70’s and 80’s. His bold line design made a 2D drawing seem to come alive. And for a newbie artist it was all that I needed to fill my head with ideas and technique. But the story line was a great read with wonderful artwork. A little history on the battle of these two: Massive demonic entity who is one of Conan's most powerful and most terrifying of enemies. He is both a master swordsman and a practitioner of the dark arts, but his most terrible power is to consume souls. The Devourer of Souls was one of the baddest. He was nigh-immortal, had magical abilities and was a master schemer. He rode a carnivorous horse with batwings. He turned himself into a human, seduced a woman, and managed to father his own reincarnation. Conan was a guy who could best any living enemy in a fight, yet Wrarrl always gave him huge trouble. But in the end Conan destroyed the Jewel to prevent the Devourer from ever returning to earth again….or so we think. So grab a SSofC and a immerse yourself in a forgotten classic of art.
SEAN'S REVIEW I managed to make it nearly thirty years on the planet blissfully ignorant that a magazine called the Savage Sword of Conan ever existed, my image of evil in the publishing world was pretty much restricted to O Magazine or Highlights. Sadly those days were brought suddenly to an end when Scott brought this piece to me. Did these people completely miss the point of fantasy art? I'm sure most of you that have been following along with us will recognize immediately that there are no tits, sex, creatures or robots in this month's subject. I guess I'll try to look past that and come to some conclusions about this misguided effort. First of all lets take a look at the background. Based on the lighting it would seem that the artist has attempted to capture simultaneous nuclear blasts in the sky and on the horizon. Slightly odd for a medieval setting, but Mr. Chan had his vision. The tentacles are an interesting feature too, there is absolutely no indication as to what they are attached to or whether they are taking sides in the battle or are simply innocent bystanders. Perhaps Mr. Chan had been practicing tentacles a lot that week and hated to see all that go to waste. The Devourer is a pretty sad figure with his tattered clothes and cape, a helmet with some sort of crossbred batwings and antlers and what appears to be an incredibly advanced dental malady. Conan isn't exactly at his finest here either. I realize near naked is how he rolls, but I'm a little confused by his depiction with a battle axe in a magazine entitled the Savage Sword of Conan. I guess when it comes right down to it a couple better choices early on and I think Mr. Chan could have really had something here. Maybe instead of everyone fighting on a bed of tentacles you have a hot Medusa, he still gets to draw his tentacles and we have something nice to look at. Come to think of it you could probably just knock the Devourer out of this thing and maybe Conan and Medusa are just going at it like there's no tomorrow, which there probably isn't due to the nuclear disaster going on in the background. There should probably be some kind of doomsday robot way in the background to explain the nuclear explosions too. Yeah, that sounds more like it.

Conan vs. The Devourer of Souls by Erin Chan

SCOTT'S REVIEW

This month’s FAR is a drawing that when I was growing up and looking for those artistic inspirations that I would find myself instead of looking at the classics of Michelangelo or Picasso, I would find myself paging through the old Savage Sword of Conan magazine. Erin Chan was a penciler that had a unique style that filled the page of many comic books and graphic novels in the 70’s and 80’s. His bold line design made a 2D drawing seem to come alive. And for a newbie artist it was all that I needed to fill my head with ideas and technique. But the story line was a great read with wonderful artwork.

A little history on the battle of these two:

Massive demonic entity who is one of Conan's most powerful and most terrifying of enemies. He is both a master swordsman and a practitioner of the dark arts, but his most terrible power is to consume souls. The Devourer of Souls was one of the baddest. He was nigh-immortal, had magical abilities and was a master schemer. He rode a carnivorous horse with batwings. He turned himself into a human, seduced a woman, and managed to father his own reincarnation. Conan was a guy who could best any living enemy in a fight, yet Wrarrl always gave him huge trouble. But in the end Conan destroyed the Jewel to prevent the Devourer from ever returning to earth again….or so we think.

So grab a SSofC and a immerse yourself in a forgotten classic of art.

SEAN'S REVIEW

I managed to make it nearly thirty years on the planet blissfully ignorant that a magazine called the Savage Sword of Conan ever existed, my image of evil in the publishing world was pretty much restricted to O Magazine or Highlights. Sadly those days were brought suddenly to an end when Scott brought this piece to me.

Did these people completely miss the point of fantasy art? I'm sure most of you that have been following along with us will recognize immediately that there are no tits, sex, creatures or robots in this month's subject.

I guess I'll try to look past that and come to some conclusions about this misguided effort.

First of all lets take a look at the background. Based on the lighting it would seem that the artist has attempted to capture simultaneous nuclear blasts in the sky and on the horizon. Slightly odd for a medieval setting, but Mr. Chan had his vision. The tentacles are an interesting feature too, there is absolutely no indication as to what they are attached to or whether they are taking sides in the battle or are simply innocent bystanders. Perhaps Mr. Chan had been practicing tentacles a lot that week and hated to see all that go to waste.

The Devourer is a pretty sad figure with his tattered clothes and cape, a helmet with some sort of crossbred batwings and antlers and what appears to be an incredibly advanced dental malady. Conan isn't exactly at his finest here either. I realize near naked is how he rolls, but I'm a little confused by his depiction with a battle axe in a magazine entitled the Savage Sword of Conan.

I guess when it comes right down to it a couple better choices early on and I think Mr. Chan could have really had something here. Maybe instead of everyone fighting on a bed of tentacles you have a hot Medusa, he still gets to draw his tentacles and we have something nice to look at. Come to think of it you could probably just knock the Devourer out of this thing and maybe Conan and Medusa are just going at it like there's no tomorrow, which there probably isn't due to the nuclear disaster going on in the background. There should probably be some kind of doomsday robot way in the background to explain the nuclear explosions too. Yeah, that sounds more like it.