More glory ho...I mean glorious art found on Comicart fans...

by artist Eric Basadula...freaky...but...Seewwwweeeeet!

Hope I am not being redundant...

Saw this Bruce Timm piece at Bad Librarianship Now!

RED SONJA - "She'll cut you" - by Stephanie Buscema

Borrowed from STEPHANIE BUSCEMA'S Blog - right here on Blogspot!  DIG IT !

RED SONJA - VERY NICE!

I've been visiting comic art fans a lot and picking out drawings of Sonja and so on for a few months now.  I came across this one I would like to share with you...Don't know who the artist is but it's beautifully crafted.  Looks to be colored with pastels...not an easy medium to work with.  This artist kicked ass.  Plus I love the Peter Griffin side boob shot and there is nothing I like more than some cheesie cake to brighten up my day.
    The hair is masterfully done and I love the sillhouettes of the warriors in the background...just an outline and more pastels.  Clever , beautiful...deadly.

Red Sonja by Andy Smith....

Andy was one of my Kubert school alumns - he was not in my class but he went there when I did.  I saw him everyday and I admired his work.  I liked the way he inked back then.  Very clean deft line delineation.

He's a pretty big name in comics these days.  He's done RED SONJA / CLAW and currently you can see his work in the WWE comic books.  He's an all around everyman artist who can do it all...draw,ink.letter,color,write..he's a real pro and I am proud to have studied art with him.

He has a few books out that he wrote...instructional how to...make comics and such.

He is also a radio personality in the Florida area.  Recently because of his radio connections he filmed a tv pilot for a sitcom on a cable network...he played a director.  Fitting. :)

As real as Red gets....

Unless one were posting an actual photo of a woman dressed like this would be the only way for somebody to have a visual of what RED SONJA would look like in reality if she were walking right by you out in the real REAL world.  Looking at this painting I notice the hard athletic ( BUT SEXY ) body and can feel the strength and power a woman like this would actually have.  Trying to imagine who would best play the role of RED in a movie were it made 30 or so years ago.  This particular painting I see a little Raquel Welch and a little Adrienne Barbeau.  But even the  vivacious Raquel and the voluptuous Adrienne never had physique's like this.   But I am highly impressed by the photo realistic qualities of this artists skills.  Not too realistic so as not to forget it's a painting.

Another Sonja , Manga style

A couple of months ago I posted a sweet manga style Red Sonja that was just too cute not to admire and fall in love with....Recently I found this OTHER manga style Sonja drawing on Comicartfans and had to share.

    The shape of the hips the big anime style eyes the curvilicious nature of the busom....yeah, I had to share.

Red Sonja in the 1980s

I have always been torn where the 1980s version of Red Sonja is concerned. I am a big Frank Thorne fan, but my earliest experiences with Red Sonja are from Savage Sword of Conan, which (to the best of my knowledge) Thorne rarely worked on directly* My first real comic book experience with the character was through the mini-series She-Devil with a Sword: Red Sonja, which led to the regular comic book.



From a logical level, the new Red Sonja attire is certainly more adventure-worthy than the chain mail bikini. Also Sonja is more athletic looking than in Thorne's work. From a feminist perspective, Sonja is less of a sex-pot, but if I remember correctly, they play with a potential lesbian bent to her nature — this is not really a problem for me, save that Sonja accepts no man who cannot best her, not because she is not interested.

One of the best parts about the 1980s Sonja is having Christy Marx writing. Ms. Marx wrote for numerous cartoons and comics (including Sisterhood of Steel, Conan the Barbarian, and Elfquest). I first came accross Marx's work in the PC DOS game Conquest of Camelot, which had a lot of mythological depth and a good story. Marx was very talented and was key to reviving the character for me.

All that being said, I am going to jump off the fence. I like the 1980s Sonja. She is different than the 1970s version, and has complexities of her own. I remember there being some really awesome covers, one of my favorites was:



* The Wizard and Red Sonja Show was, I believe, originally published by Eros Comics, and reprinted in SSoC.

Cosplay @ CROM!

Not sure if anyone has posted this already. Quite an impressive costume, imho.


CROM!: Red Sonja Cosplay at the San Diego Comic Con!

Just so we have things clear.

I'd like to keep this blog as civil as possible. A comment on the previous post irked me, but I try not to feed the trolls, then I began thinking of how inappropriate the comment was. It may have been in jest, I don't know. The problem is, with text it is often difficult to discern meaning by anything but the words typed.

That being said, I don't want to see any more comments that can even be construed as abusive. This is a fan blog, run by fans. I, however, own it. I am going to keep things the way they are for now, but if I need to start moderating comments or limiting comments to followers I will not hesitate, and I can boot offenders.

Lets keep it clean, and keep it considerate. If you can't say something nice, then say it on 4chan. ;-)

The Many Faces of Sonja

Red Sonja issue 50 has come and gone without a mention here, so I figured I might as well be the one to mention the Sonja-liciousness of Dynamite's landmark 50th issue. There were four covers for this issue, and I wanted them all. Unfortunately, I was only able to pick up the Joe Jusko and Joe Linsner covers (I had really hoped to get the Art Adams cover, too).




There were six stories in the thick issue (it was a lot like an issue of Dynamite's Savage Tales, except all the stories were Sonja-centeric). Three of the stories are brand new, one is really old (a Frank Thorne reprint) and two were from a previous Dynamite Sonja series.


The first story, The Cloud Tiger, was illustrated by Pablo Marcos (this wasn't the first time he's taken a stab at Sonja). Methinks Pablo needs to spend some time studying anatomy. Women's anatomy, specifically. To misquote Steven Tyler, "Lady looks like a dude." Thumbs down.


The second story, Here there Be Wolves, was illustrated by Joyce Chin, and Joyce took a much more classic approach to drawing Sonja. The horse, the flowing red hair - it all borrows heavily from Franke Thorne's Sonja (though she's a cup-size or two bigger). Thumbs up.


I was sure that the issue's third story, The Frost Giant's Curse, was going to be a rip-off of the Conan Frost Giant's Daughter story. Fortunately, other than the words "Frost Giant," there wasn't much retreaded material. The story was well-illustrated by Johnny Desjardins. Thumbs up.


This isn't the first time Dynamite has included an old Marvel Red Sonja story in one of their comics. It's fun to see how Sonja has evolved over the years (sorry, but I'll take most of the newer renditions of Sonja over Thorne's, any day). Still, the walk down memory lane deserves a thumbs up.


I had some serious Tolkien flashbacks when reading the fifth story, The Hands of Fate. Noah Salonga's ghost kings were right out of the Lord of the Rings (from the Paths of the Dead). And trolls. All we needed was some orcs and a couple of hobbits. Thumbs up.


The last story of the issue, Revenge is a Bitch, is short, but very well illustrated by Ron Adrian. Sonja is strong, fierce, and angry, but still unquestionably female (something other artists forget in their efforts to make Sonja the uber-butch warrior queen). Another thumbs up.


And if anyone cares, I also have a couple of thoughts on the third installments of Dynamite's Red Sonja Annual. Dan Brereton is da' man. And Adriano Batista ain't half bad, either.

RED SONJA - by Sanjulian

I'd seen his work on various magazine covers throughout the 1970's I always loved his figure work and his backgrounds are as mysterious and cloudy just like Frank Frazetta's.  But this RED SONJA has a very unique look and feel to it.  I've never seen an original depiction that I liked very much.  When I think of Red Sonja I'm thinking Frank Thorne , Buscema , Maroto.  You know a particular LOOK.  This is the first time I'm seeing this and I think it's classic and beautiful.

Sonja with a little less up top

I was out wandering around the interwebs today, looking for information on a Richard Corben comic series that I had somehow missed last year when I stumbled across some Edgar Tadeo sketches of Sonja that I don't think I've seen here before.





I prefer the pencil work to the fully inked version, but here are the inked versions of the last two.




The web site that I found the first image on made this comment:

The She-Devil with a Sword never looked better than in this drawing by Ed Tadeo. I like the fact that in designing Sonja's figure, Ed opted to depict her as lean and muscular instead of preternaturally busty. Nice work.

As much as I love the gigantic breasticles, I have to agree...

The Queen's not quite dead yet...

Queen Sonja #7 came out last week. And, as of this issue, no real attempt to explain how Sonja became queen has yet been made (that I've noticed, anyway). Or to explain exactly why she's fighting the Armies of Darkness.

Nevertheless, the cover by Lucio Parrillo was again amazing.


Another comic title that came out last week was Image comics's Dust Wars with an equally amazing cover by Paolo Parente (you should seek out any other comic he's worked on - he's amazing).


And that got me thinking...


What other artists would I like to see do a Sonja cover? I think Paolo would be right up at the top of my list.

A blast from the recent-past...

Here are a few (just a paltry few of the very many) of Dynamite's Sonja covers that deserve a mention...

Red Sonja, She-devil with a sword issue 13 Joe Linsner cover:


Red Sonja, She-devil with a sword issue 30 Alex Ross cover:


Savage Tales issue 6 Art Suydam cover:


Savage Tales issue 7 Art Suydam cover:


Sonja looks an awful lot like Angelina Jolie in that last cover...

Why am I mentioning these covers now, when it has been so long since they were published? Well, I was up looking for other comics that I appear to have missed random issues from in the past few months and I came across these issues as I went through box after box of disordered comics.

Savage Tales was a cool book (Sonja, Hercules, Atlantis - all kinds of weirdness). I'm bummed that it died after only 10 issues.

yet another BEAUTIFUL JUSKO drawing

I go crazy everytime Joe puts out another drawing..this image of the RED TRESSED warrior woman is over the top...he should paint this one.  I can't see enough of his stuff I could look at Joe's stuff all day...on his wesite on his Facebook...I never get tired.  Never.  Whatcha think fokes?