Frank Frazetta Art Gallery

Frazetta obviously took a tremendous amount of pride in his paintings for the Conan books and the appreciation he received from Lancer spurred him to new levels of excellence. "Although I have enjoyed illustrating the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, I find them a bit slow and Victorian and the fans are too prone to condemn the artist if he hasn't been faithful to the text. I much prefer illustrating the tales of Robert E. Howard. They are much stronger in mood and narration than those of Burroughs and allow a wider range of illustrative interpretations. As St. John is remembered for ERB and Tarzan, I would like to be remembered for REH and Conan. I feel a certain sense of loss that Howard isn't alive to appreciate what I've done with Conan." Unwarranted sniping from jealous editors would eventually sour Frank's feelings about Howard's work, but there's little doubt of the enormous impact these images had on the readers, the publishers, and the artistic community alike.

Frazetta painted another masterful cover. Realizing that he had very little illustratable material to work with, Frank ignored the novel entirely and created a scene of carnage which summed up his feelings for the character. Dissatisfied with Conan's face and helmet in the version published on the paperback cover, he subsequently tinkered with the painting in his spare time over several months, polishing and improving it. Still sensing that something wasn't quite right, he decided to repaint the entire figure. Despite the dominant, dramatic pose, Frazetta felt that Conan was somehow separated from the surrounding action. His reworked version is more intimate and more personal, a much more deadly depiction of combat. Horrifying in its viciousness yet fascinating in its intensity, this work clearly transcended its subject matter.

Frank recalls, "I remember fans would approach me at conventions and say" ' what a fabulous cover. I read the entire book awaiting to read about the scene on the cover and never found it. So I read it again thinking I missed it, but no luck." With a smile, Frank states "Never judge a book by its cover."

Conan the Adventurer was the first book published in the series in 1966 (although based on the "history" established by the editors it was chronologically out of sequence) and it was an immediate success. Frazetta's portrait of Howard's character was menacingly unique, a composition that snarled its animal magnetism and an audience accustomed to sterile Steve Reeves-flavored interpretations of sword and sorcery characters. With a single painting Frazetta defined the look for an entire genre. Lancer's future, for awhile at least, was assured by the bestseller-status achieved by the Conan books. And while the series' editors (de Camp and Lin Carter) were dismissive when discussing the correlation between the covers and the revived popularity of Howard's work–complaining that Conan needed a haircut or that he wasn't very handsome.

Frank Frazetta working on "Chained" the cover to Conan the Usurper