Kane!

Talkin' 'bout Kane, baby!

Not Robert E. Howard's Solomon Kane, no. He's cool - -see my earlier sketch for comments on that guy.

Nope --talking about Karl Edward Wagner's Kane. 300 pounds of sorcerous left-handed, sword-swinging, god-killing, immortal badness. Kane is decidedly an anti-hero, often made protagonist only by the fact that his worst enemies are often Lovecraftian aliens lingering in the forgotten shadows of his barbaric world.

I think I've read my Kane books even more often than my REH Berkley Conan books -- which were edited by the late Mr. Wagner and were the reason I sought his S&S tales. Seeing the amazing Frank Frazetta covers would have made me buy them anyway, but things didn't happen in that order.

I long fantasized about adapting Kane to comics -- always thinking that the books would have to carry the Frazetta paintings in some way if one wanted to do them right. So, I'm a little conflicted on the news that at least one of the Frazetta Kane covers is being used for something else. I'm always happy to see more S&S comics and Frazetta get the respect he deserves, but. . .

. . .Damn it! That's a Kane cover!

Oh, well, maybe I'll still get to a Kane comic someday. Doesn't look like any of the guys doing the Image Frazetta comics chose to spin off of Bloodstone or Darkness Weaves yet!

~Richard

Marvel Sketchcards!

Mark Irwin at Upper Deck sent out an open call for artists to do sketch cards for an upcoming Marvel card release. I thought it sounded like fun and grabbed 50 with the idea that I'd do one or two every day before starting my other work. Here's a sampling:

Sorry about being absent so far this summer -- been busy with both work and family and the majority of my sketching has been academic rather than imaginative.

~Richard