Reply To: Conan – What Inspires You?

[Rhoderic]

When I first started reading the REH stories some 10-15 years ago, I bought the “Fantasy Masterworks: The Conan Chronicles” compilations. The cover art for the first book has really stuck in my mind better than any other Conan artwork. It’s no “true classic” (yet, anyway) on the level of those iconic paintings by Frank Frazetta and to a slightly lesser degree Boris Vallejo, but to me it captures the mood and ambience of the setting perfectly: LINK

It’s by John Howe, by the way. As many of you will probably be aware, he’s better known as an illustrator of Tolkien’s legendarium. What I love about that painting is partly the sense of exoticism of Conan’s surroundings (even the night sky looks enticingly exotic when composed together with the Zamorian cityscape below) and partly the sight of Conan himself in relative repose, brooding, contemplative, looking out over the world he seeks to experience and maybe – someday – master.

I suppose most of my interest in the Conan stories is to do with the atmosphere of the world Howard built, not so much the sheer brawn-versus-brawn action. Natural, then, that my favourite piece of Conan artwork be something more moody and less action-oriented. Of course, it helps that there’s a sense of adventure about his immediate circumstances, perched on the side of a tower and holding a sword that inevitably draws the eye. And admittedly I do really like Howe’s more action-oriented cover art for the second compilation book, too: LINK.

Anyway, The Tower of the Elephant is my favourite story, too. But I am a bit surprised to see it described as something of an underdog compared to some of the other stories like Red Nails and Beyond the Black River. I’ve always had the impression that it’s the very most popular and iconic of all the Conan stories.