ImagineFX Frazetta Tribute Cover

Just checked my mail and found the latest issue of ImagineFX. I knew it was supposed to be a Manga special this month, but that was about it. So when I opened it I was surprised to see this:

I was already in a pretty bad place after hearing about Al Williamson passing away yesterday, so this hit me right in the heart.

It's the subscriber-only cover, so they can get away with bold design like this (the cover is matte black with spot varnish for the drawing and the FX part of the logo if it isn't clear on the screen), but this sort of grace note really shows the IFX crew to be a class act.

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