Foreword

I never knew Conan. Oh, I saw the movies and studied the paintings and thought I knew all about Conan’s character. Then I read the stories presented here.

I knew next to nothing until then. And neither does anyone else who hasn’t read Howard. Because locked within these flights of fury, these vaults of untamed male fantasy, is the actual persona of the character so many have captured on canvas.

And now it was my turn and I leapt at the chance. I believed that the real character would come to life in my mind’s eye in a different way than what I had been exposed to. Intuitively, I knew I was not understanding the full picture.

I began reading with the daunting task before me of trying to capture a view of Conan that was entirely my own approach. As I read I was struck by Howard’s wordsmithing. The words with which he chose to describe certain passages were themselves descriptive and visual. It sent me running for the dictionary.

The farther I read, the more I realized that these stories were becoming classic in a broader sense than the pulp genre. I viewed them in a way that N. C. Wyeth may have absorbed Treasure Island or Mead Schaeffer visualized Lorna Doone. A grand adventure scale with all the seriousness that the Golden Age illustrators embued their pictures. A classic illustrated adventure book. I wanted to own Conan the way those guys owned their presentations of beloved characters.

There was so much to choose from. The images were cascading and overlapping in waves of postures, lighting, and movement. As I sketched away into many nights, out came the Conan bouldering through a creek bed, on his way to or from so many of the actions in this collection. It became the slipcase, presenting Conan’s essential portrait. Alert, confident, and solitary.

I wanted a range of his emotions. The next painting to appear stemmed from my desire to portray the stealthy, panther-like side of the Cimmerian. And so he strides atop the wall at night in The Man-Eaters of Zamboula, on a mission to educate someone about the way the world works. I added another night scene because I wanted to see those streets in Zamboula and find Conan rescuing Nafertari, sneaking about, ever watchful for dangerous cannibals.

Then the pirate story. As adventurous and mythical as Sabatini’s Captain Blood, Conan steps into the story of The Black Stranger in full-on pirate gear. I had to show him as no one is likely to have seen him portrayed. Finest pirate regalia, as if Howard had just discovered an old trunk of his grandfather’s in the dusty attic. The portrait of Black Sarono is in the Golden Age mode of limited colors: red, black, and white, and executed with the same spirit. Each black-and-white chapter painting was an excuse to capture my chance of illustrating an old pirate tale. And I reveled in it.

I also knew that I had to present Conan as the flat out, berserker warrior that instantly comes to mind at the mention of the stories. I wasn’t against showing him this way, indeed, I had to find my particular point of view for the battle madness. It came as two pieces. One was Conan one on one with an equally corded Pict. This became the dustjacket. I wanted to show a bit of tension in the exchange, not a clear view of Conan conquering. And I needed to present his dynamic physique. This led to the second battle scene with Conan surrounded and exploding into a killing machine. The bodies work as a swirling, upward element toward Conan, captured in mid-flash of some offstage lightning. I added the background bolt to charge the scene and the sharpness of the melee. Another chance to capture Conan’s great musculature came in The Servants of Bit-Yakin. I could see him rushing up those stairs for Muriela, light glistening off his sweaty back, so many archways to race over.

Beyond the Black River was especially visual in a classic Conan way, but again I chose a night scene of warriors in a stealth assault mode. I was there on the hillside as those malevolent mercenaries, like black ops of today, climbed the embankment on their mission of mayhem. In contrast, I chose a bright and sunny day to see the Picts getting pelted with anything that would fit in a catapult. It seemed ironic tragedy to be killed on such a beautiful day.

Red Nails could be painted over and over again. (And I hope it will be by many others!) But even though I steered away from showing too many monsters for fear of taking away from the readers’ own exaggerated manifestation, I just had to see that decrepit old man and his bizarre instrument of death. Besides, it was an excuse to paint that babe, Tascela.

I saved the final piece for the title page. I wanted it to be an icon of the character of Conan the Cimmerian: adventurer, warrior, and explorer of the weird ways of Hyperboria. Several influences of mine cried out, but I listened to a particular voice from Leyendecker and proceeded to design with his efficiency in mind. It was a fun and fitting way for me to indulge my heroes and end my own adventure into Howard’s world.

Gregory Manchess
2005