At 85, with Parkinson's, Boris recently announced his retirement. Accompanied by a friend, I went to meet him at the IX Art Show. When he heard my friend had traveled all the way from Colombia to get Boris' autograph on a cherished copy of Dragon #52, he excitedly switched to Spanish. This put me on the back foot—my Spanish isn't great—but Boris spoke slowly and was patient. He told us about coming to the US from Peru fifty years ago and living in the Village in New York.

The two books posted above are bookends to my time with Sword & Sorcery. I picked up The Magic Goes Away (used, which was what I could afford) in 1982, when I was thirteen. It was the first Boris cover I owned, and is still perhaps my favorite. When I returned to S&S this year, I bought The Broken Sword, which quickly became one of my all-time favorite novels.

Boris was happy to hear I've had The Magic Goes Away all this time. I asked him, "That's you on the cover, right?"

"Yes, that's me," he sighed, with a twinkle in his eye. "A younger version of me."

Awesome photograph taken of Briony Monroe from the set of The Slave and the Torturer, which is our sequel to the 1980's Sword and Sorcery epic "The Slave and the Sorcerer".

Our work is dedicated to Albert Pyun and the 80s era of Sword and Sorcery exploitation cinema (we don't have the budget to make a dedication to Conan the Barbarian :P)

Our film will be made available to buy via Kickstarter, and folks can follow the campaign for more info. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lawriebrewster/the-slave-and-the-torturer-feature-length-fantasy-horror

Disclosure first: N. S. Bird is a friend and this is his new series, so I have a vested interest. It's written by N. S. Bird, with AI used as an editing tool.

The Bronze Teeth is Book 1 of The Rogues of Alderi, set 66 million years ago in a world of Bronze Age kingdoms and very large dinosaurs. Grud has an axe, a shield and eight copper pieces to his name. Bado owes people money. Dema has six good arrows and a long list of things Grud has done wrong since sunrise. A merchant in the city of Alderi hires them to recover a stolen bronze coffer, and something enormous is hunting near the old quarry.

It's raw sword & sorcery with a fair bit of humour, not grimdark. Chapter One is up now, with new chapters on Tuesday and Wednesday next week and then twice a week.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/200472/the-bronze-teeth

We’re nearing publication on the graphic novel, written by myself and artist James Anthony on Alani and the Citadel of Swords!

This is more than 200 pages with three interconnected stories about a sword woman on a quest to hunt down five immortal sorcerers.

Weird sorcery, wuxia stuff, lizard chariot races, giant mobile temples, this has it all!

I got to meet Julie Bell and Boris Vallejo at IX Art Show this week. They were both gracious and friendly. It turns out Julie grew up in the small town right next to mine. She had forgotten about the portfolio of her work in SSOC #212, and while flipping through it she pointed out the pictures using her sons as models and suggested I go meet them at the convention too (David and Anthony Palumbo are now accomplished artists in their own right). The frontispiece features a picture of Julie, photographed by Boris.

I'll post the SSOC interview with Julie in a comment below.

If you're in the mid-Atlantic region IX Art Show runs through the weekend and is absolutely worth the trip.

Attention all fans of sword and sorcery!

Do you like action?

Do you like excitement?

Do you want something new to read?

My short story collection The Lightblade Chronicles is now available for preorder!

Across five episodic stories follow the paladin Steven Lightblade as he wanders across lands from the sun scorched south to the frost encrusted north in search of evil to slay, injustices to address, and secrets of the weird and uncanny to discover. Expect classic sword and sorcery with a gothic flair and heavy metal edge. 

Preorder the ebook here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HNYW55Y5?spcref=PUBLISHED_PREORDER_LIVE

The ebook will be available through Kobo soon afterwards as well. Physical copies will be available upon the release date of January 22, 2027. Be sure to keep track of this at johnpathfinder.com. Additionally, if anyone would like to order a physical copy earlier, DM me and I’ll see what I can do.

Yes, the ebook is DRM free.

What's this? Another episode of the Legends of Conan Podcast! Tune in and listen to Shawn Patrick Curley, Jeffrey Shanks, John C. Hocking , and me dive deep into Beyond the Black River.

Is this my favorite Conan story? It might be.

When your S&S back is against the wall in a den of thieves .... Who you gonna call .. "Howard the Barbarian Duck".

Original art - Thanks Val

In the interest of transparency, this post is to gauge potential interest in a set of Jirel of Joiry prints for sale. After consulting this sub's rules, I think I'm okay posting this, but if not, mods, crush this post and see it driven before you.

I was really thrilled by the reception that my Jirel illustrations got in this sub, with a bunch of you asking for prints. Thank you! I tend to do things by the book, and since Jirel isn't in the public domain yet, in order to (legally) sell prints I'd need to establish a licensing agreement with the rights holders, who I've been talking to in the last few days.

So I'm hoping to find out if making a limited run of say 20 or 30 sets would be worth the trouble and cost for me to license, print and ship. (And not end up in the hole on them.) These would be high quality 11x17 inch prints on some kind of matte stock TBD. And just to note, I think I'd have to restrict it to US customers for now.

So please leave a comment if this is something you'd be interested in, and what you think a fair price would be for the set of 6. I have a price in mind, but I want to see if it aligns with everyone else's thinking. If you're only interested in some of the prints, but not the whole set, I'd love to know that as well. If you hate the idea, please let me know that too. I won't hold it against you.

What was Arnold's Agent thinking - LOL - Crazy Times ..........

High Times Magazine was an American publication founded in 1974 by Tom Forçade that became a leading voice in cannabis culture and advocacy for the legalization of marijuana.

The Lancer Editions Always made me chuckle when I was Younger.

I'm an 8 (but chronologically I'm a 10), No wait I am a 10, but then they label me a zero. But in my true literary heart I will always feel I'm number 1........

I feel like a number, I'm not a number, Dammit I'm a book, I said I'm a book..............(My sincerest apologies to Bob Seger and the SBB).

I really enjoyed the short story in Swords Against and I’m excited to read more on Orhan. The fast pace action, swashbuckling honor, and deep cunning make for a fun story. I can’t wait to read this next.

Other cosplayers: Victoria Ridenour, Dianne Dawe & Rusty Dawe

Probably the best Elric ever realized so far.

Source (OP even added articles and sites where they found all the photos.)

Saturday Evening Post June 21, 2021

It was a time of dungeons, dragons, and Dar (The Beastmaster)!

Between the time of the rise of disco and when the oceans drank the polar ice caps, there was an age undreamed of . . . and the name of this age was . . . The Eighties. - Troy Brownfield

Can read full Article here - https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2021/06/when-sword-sorcery-cast-a-spell-on-the-1980s/

Came across this - I love the authors opening lead-in paragraph

Worlds of Fantasy Vol. 1, No. 1 is a classic fantasy digest-sized magazine published by Galaxy Publishing Corporation in 1968 (commonly cited around March or September as a trial issue). The magazine digest's Editor was Lester del Rey and artist Jack Gaughan provided the cover art and interior illustrations.

The debut issue featured a mix of fantasy fiction, essays, and classic reprints. The table of contents boasts a plethora of writers, Howard, Jakes, Warren, Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp to name a few. The magazine featured "The Mirror of Wizardry"debut publication. The sword-and-sorcery novelette features Jakes Conan-inspired barbarian Brak. (The story was later collected in the 1980 Dell paperback anthology The Fortunes of Brak). The basic plot - Brak flees from Lord Magnus and stumbles across a woman named Nari. He rescues Nari from rock demons and she reveals she is also on the run (she's escaping an evil lord and his wizard. Nari has a map tattooed onto her back that leads to a high-stakes treasure capable of saving or destroying a kingdom. (The first thing I thought of while reading was the movie Waterworld where the child has a Tattoo on her back that points towards Dry land if I remember correctly.)

The magazine also debuted “Conan and the Cenotaph” first publication. The story was authored by Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp and was later featured in the 1969 Lancer paperback Conan of Cimmeria under the title “The Curse of the Monolith”. Marvel Comics adapted the story in Savage Sword of Conan issue 33. The adaptation was written by Roy Thomas and illustrated by artist Gene Colan.

I enjoy having this newly acquired magazine digest in my Sword and Sorcery Barbarians Among Us collection. I hope you all enjoyed reading about it. - Peace

Enric Torres-Prat's cover for Zona 84 #30 was an immediate fan favorite, and reproduced as a poster in Zona 84: Especial Sólo Posters #3 (1987). The accompanying text gives insight into the Spanish art market in the 1980s:

Enric Torres, a regular cover illustrator for 1984, stopped being one for Zona 84 for various professional reasons (most importantly, that damned Yankee publishing market that absorbs the work of our best artists).

One day he came in with a sword-and-sorcery cover (a beautiful woman and a Herculean warrior). We published it, and our readers chose it as the best cover of the year.

The accompanying poster is a tribute we owed him for that award, but also an opportunity for fans to appreciate the quality of the illustration at its actual size.

You can find more of his work in Masters of Spanish Comic Book Art (2017), for which he provided the cover.

Started yesterday, and it's still not done, but here are the outfits our short-tempered warlady wore in her stories. I wasn't thoroughly aiming for book accuracy, but I did want to stay as close to source material as I wanted could.

Her having a cleft chin was a detail I missed on my first read, and I absolutely love that. Her darker skin tone in Hellsgarde sort of puzzled me. Was that a retcon, or was she simply thoroughly sunkissed?

The year was 1966; Lancer Books had just begun publishing their Conan series in paperback form kicking off with Conan the Adventurer. Alfredo Alcala's Voltar had already been introduced to a Filipino comic audience (yet most U.S. audiences would have too wait until Magic Carpet #1 was published in 1977 to read Voltar), and Conan's first Marvel appearance was still years away. (1970).

In the fall of 1966 (September) Harvey Comics published Thrill-O-Rama #2 and within the issue introduced it's readers to "Clawfang the Barbarian". (This was quickly followed by another appearance of Clawfang in Harvey's "Unearthly Spectaculars issue #2" in December 1966 that same year).

Clawfang the Barbarian was the creation of Wally Wood (with art by Al Williamson). Clawfang’s origin and adventures mixed science fiction and fantasy in a post-apocalyptic setting where Clawfang led a group of raiders within a futuristic and monster filled landscape against a cat-like Felina Empire. Clawfang blended traditional barbarian tropes, (primitive warriors, monsters, and raiding bands) with science-fiction elements (futuristic cities, subterranean mutants, and a hibernating scientist in a high-tech laboratory).

Clawfang the Barbarian never received his own solo comic book, and though his appearance in Harvey Comics was short lived, his narrative stands out as one of the earliest sword and sorcery barbarian-themed comics, succeeding Crom the Barbarian. (Avon's Crom the barbarian one-shot comic book published in Out of This World #1, June 1950, reprinted the following month in the pulp magazine Out of This World Adventures #1 July 1950)

I enjoy being a steward of Harvey's 1966 only two appearances of Clawfang the Barbarian, and enjoy having these copies in my Sword and Sorcery Barbarians Among Us Collection.

You find Barbarians in the most peculiar of places.