Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy" discussion

Sword & Sorcery fans often attribute their being hooked into the genre by enthralling cover art. Anyone alive in the 1980's remember walking into real bookstores and browsing the rolled-poster-prints kiosk of Frazetta Art? Robert E. Howard, credited as "father of the genre", was quickly associated with Frank Frazetta, who not only trained Ken Kelly but also had his try at turning his Death Dealer character (initially a portrait) into a novel character (with author James Silke).

In any event, "cover art" deserves some attention. Please share your favorites and how you were affected! To get the ball rolling, I will post some of Frazetta's and Kelly's cover art. It would great to have discussions too with assessments of how well the art reflected the story. Karl Edward Wagner had some nice covers by both Frazetta and Kelly...and awesome stories. The Death Dealer and Horesclan series (Robert Adams) had awesome covers, but not everyone agrees about the writing.

Frazetta's Museum Link: http://frankfrazettamuseum.com/
Some of his awesome covers:



Ken Kelly Link : http://www.kenkellyfantasyart.com/gal...
Some Covers:

I'd also add the Michael Whelan Elric covers:

S.E. wrote: "Sword & Sorcery fans often attribute their being hooked into the genre by enthralling cover art..."

It was Chris Achilleos' Elric, which was used as a cover for all the Greek translations of Elric, that got me hooked:



Later I discovered Frazetta (especially Kane & Silver Warriors) & Whelan (the Vanishing Tower & Stormbringer were used in some Greek S&S collections that contained Elric stories).

My first encounter with Elric (and sword & sorcery in general) was with Robert Gould's excellent cover artwork. They're not as dynamic as Whelan's or the work of Frazetta, but they have a cryptic intensity that caught my interest.

http://www.flickriver.com/photos/3632...

Phil wrote: "My first encounter with Elric (and sword & sorcery in general) was with Robert Gould's excellent cover artwork. They're not as dynamic as Whelan's or the work of Frazetta, but they have a cryptic i..."

My paperback Elrics are the Berkley editions with the Gould artwork, and I do like them quite a bit.

Another of my favorite S&S artists is Roy G. Krenkel -- I have his Cities & Scenes From The Ancient World and Swordsmen and Saurians. Nobody did ancient cities like him.

http://www.bpib.com/illustra2/krenkel...

I always loved the paperback copy to Swords Against Death, which was my first s&s book. I THINK it was Krenkel, but I gave the thing away when I got the collected Lankhmar stories in hardback. Always wished I hadn't done that.

Howard wrote: "I always loved the paperback copy to Swords Against Death, which was my first s&s book. I THINK it was Krenkel, but I gave the thing away when I got the collected Lankhmar stories in hardback. Alw..."

Howard, I think you may be referring to Jeff Jones as illustrator. He did the ~1970's editions for Fritz Leiber:


He also did an Almuric cover for R.E. Howard's work: Almuric. Actually, Jeff did ~150 covers for all sorts of speculative fiction (for Lin Carter, Leigh Brackett; Sprague deCamp... and strangely had a gender change late in life, thus becoming Jeffrey Catherine Jones). See her/his art at: http://www.paperbackfantasies.jjelmqu...

BTW, I recently signed up for your Giveaway for The Bones of the Old Ones (other S&S groupies, you have until Dec 10th 2012 to enter). You have nice cover art for your ancient Arabia/Dabir and Asim series. Can you comment about the cover art process at all? As a chemist-by-day, self-published-author by night, I am looking into commissioning a piece for my next work. Any perspective from you would be most welcome.

Hi S.E., you're right! It WAS Jeff Jones. My version of Swords Against Death was the full-cover painting of the water god with the ship, not the later version.

The covers -- well, first, thanks for signing up for the giveaway. I am a little removed from the cover process, but I'm fortunate enough to still be involved. The first DESERT cover just sort of happened without much input from myself or the editor. WATERS is a combination of several ideas that the art department came up with, and I was permitted input on which aspects of them I liked best. DESERT, you'll notice, only has one guy on it even though the series is a buddy series, so the word was handed down that the covers really ought to show two heroes. Hence the twain on the cover of BONES.
In the instance of BONES, my editor and I picked through our favorite scenes of the book and they were provided for the artist, whose cover image is loosely based on something that happens about mid-way through the book.
As for advice, I'd say to go through your text and pick the most striking moments, provide those to your artist, and see what inspires him or her the most. Make sure to provide character descriptions as well. Hope that helps!

Joseph wrote: "I'd also add the Michael Whelan Elric covers..."

Joseph (who mentioned Whelan's covers) and Periklis (who worked one of the same into the banner of this group), since you highlighted of Whelan's work I was taken by an impulse-buy at the used bookstore and purchased another copy of Stormbringer. See, I already own a copy of the story within a collection, but I didn't have the standalone book with the cool cover. But now I own one. Buying old books with awesome covers is therapeutic ... or so I tell myself... is there a mental-health/help section in the group yet?

S.E. wrote: "Buying old books with awesome covers is therapeutic ... or so I tell myself... is there a mental-health/help section in the group yet?"

If you're looking for a group of people who will tell you not to buy another copy of Stormbringer just because of the Whelan cover, you may be in the wrong place. If you're looking for a group of people who will support your decision, however, I think we can probably help you there.

Just seeing the above thumbnails is really making me itch to go online and do some 'out of print' shopping. I really am a sucker for fantastic cover art.

Without a doubt, Frazetta sold me on Conan before I read a single word of Howard's work. Hell, a Frazetta cover could sell a book written by me, for crying out loud! But I really love Ken Kelly's earlier work, and Jeff Jones as well.

Two books I bought on the merits of the covers alone and really, really enjoyed were:
Legend

Peter wrote: "Two books I bought on the merits of the covers alone and really, really enjoyed weere:
Legend A Blackbird in Silver"

Welcome to the group Peter. Nice picks. The "Legend" cover is probably painted by Mark Harrison. How about "A Blackbird in Silver", is it as good a tale as its cover?

S.wagenaar wrote: "Without a doubt, Frazetta sold me on Conan before I read a single word of Howard's work. Hell, a Frazetta cover could sell a book written by me, for crying out loud! But I really love Ken Kelly's e..."

I bought my very first Lancer Conan based solely on Frazetta's cover. One of the best purchases I ever made. Opened up a whole new world for a certain 12 year old...

Periklis wrote: "Peter wrote: "Two books I bought on the merits of the covers alone and really, really enjoyed weere:
Legend A Blackbird in Silver"

Welcome to the group Peter. Nice picks. The "Legend" cover is pro..."
Yup, its kind of evil general makes good, kind of book

Cover Art of the Conan books is what first started it all for me. The artwork of Frank Frazetta was amazing. When I was a kid, I was so fascinated with the artwork, that I saved my lunch money and my weekly allowance and purchase some of the Frazetta posters and taped them to my bedroom wall. Unfortunately, 'tape' was NOT good to use since it would rip my posters every time I tried to move them. I also had a few of the Frazetta art books that were awesome too. Unfortunately, I did the same thing with the artwork in the books and placed them on my bedroom wall, only to ruin them with tape.

http://d.gr-assets.com/books/13325167...

Ski wrote: "Cover Art of the Conan books is what first started it all for me. The artwork of Frank Frazetta was amazing. When I was a kid, I was so fascinated with the artwork, that I saved my lunch money and ..."

It's amazing how many things the folks on this group tend to have in common. My shelves are full of books originally purchased for the covers (specifically Frazetta, Whelan, Ken Kelly and Jeff Jones). Not all of which have been read. I also had the Frazetta posters taped to my wall and owned that same art book. It's a small world.

Tom wrote: My shelves are full of books originally purchased for the covers (specifically Frazetta, Whelan, Ken Kelly and Jeff Jones)."

That's something I'm guilty of as well. If I'm in a used bookstore, I'll still buy anything within reason if it has work by one of those artists on the cover. I am such a sucker. I'll even pick it up if it's one I already have. It borders on pathological and is just so very, very sad...

Jason wrote: "That's something I'm guilty of as well. If I'm in a used bookstore, I'll still buy anything within reason if it has work by one of those artists on the cover. I am such a sucker. I'll even pick it up if it's one I already have. It borders on pathological and is just so very, very sad...

I hate to be pedantic, but I think you chose the wrong word there. You said "sad" when clearly you meant "awesome".

I was a fine arts major in school. My first cover was a Boris, commissioned by Bantam for High Couch of Silistra. I didn't think it matched the description, so I got Bantam to arrange for me to talk to him and request changes (feathered wings to non-feathered, etc). He didn't like that. So we changed to someone else thereafter. I had always loved the Frazetta covers, and in Germany I had Chris Achilleos for the German versions of the Silistra series, then Frazetta for the German Tempus. But now that I have cover control, I'm choosing Rubens and ancient art that truly moves me. I'm not sure how to post those here but the new cover for Tempus, and The Sacred Band cover, and the Beyond sub-series with Rubens covera, are pleasing me because I can look at them for hours and always see something that evokes the heart of the stories within. Matching books to cover, when centuries separate book and cover creation, has been an adventure. Strangest experience was finding the three Rubens we're using for Beyond Sanctuary, Beyond the Veil, and Beyond Wizardwall and realizing that each of those three paintings fit one of the three books nearly perfectly, as if they had been painted for my series. Someday I'll try to figure out how to post some of them...

Janet wrote: "I was a fine arts major in school. My first cover was a Boris, commissioned by Bantam for High Couch of Silistra. I didn't think it matched the description, so I got Bantam to arrange for me to t..."

There are two ways to add an image. Either:

(some html is ok)> image:> and choosing: width 300 height 400> add the url of the image.

or, add book/author> type book title> choose add cover

I have added two covers mentioned above:

Periklis. Thanks for the coaching, and for adding the covers. We're much happier with our new covers, although we did like the German ones.

I'm not sure if my thank you posted: Thanks, Periklis, for posting these two covers, one from back in the day, and one of the new ones I chose. We're very much happier with the new covers, with the exception of the German ones from the 20th century. And thanks for the lesson how to post a cover. (Grin.) jem

This is a fascinating discussion. I always loved those Frazetta Conan covers as well; very evocative of the character. Swords & Sorcery always seemed to have a style similar to the pulps, but distinctive from them. I'm hoping to do pulp style covers for my own books if I can find the right artist to commission.

Considering so much publishing these days is done with e-books rather than with a book on a shelf, do you think cover art is as important to the genre as it once was?

Michael wrote: "This is a fascinating discussion...Considering so much publishing these days is done with e-books rather than with a book on a shelf, do you think cover art is as important to the genre as it once was? ..."

Not sure of the statistics of consumer purchasing, but I think many would agree that cover art is still plays a huge role. It is still the main image/ad associated with books. I think it interesting that many eBooks jump to the first chapter...so cover art is often not seen after the purchase/download.

That said, I think the cover design criteria is changing. Most cover art is seen as a thumbnail (or reduced size). So highly detailed graphics (complex compositions) are not discerned as well as simple designs.

Yes, I read something about that in terms of designing for e-books. A great sword & sorcery cover is likely a poor e-book cover because you lose the detail in that thumbnail view, and the dark colors will tend to blob together as well.

I have a graphic designer in the family so hopefully she can give me some tips for the design.

I think the cover still has value since I know they continue to entice me. I just wonder if maybe I'm behind the times and not up on the market.

Michael wrote: "Yes, I read something about that in terms of designing for e-books. A great sword & sorcery cover is likely a poor e-book cover because you lose the detail in that thumbnail view, and the dark col..."

I've always thought that the visual element of S-&-S is extremely potent - in the text as well as in actual illustrations. As I've mentioned before, my all time favourite S-&-S visual is Steranko's cover for de Camp's 'Warlocks & Warriors' anthology (the earlier anthology covers were pretty poor in my opinion. The point that a S-&-S visual makes a poor e-book cover is very astute. The covers for my two books are amazing. I was extremely lucky with my artists - but just don't reproduce well in small size). I wonder if this is similar to the axiom that a first-rate novel makes a second-rate film?

Sword & Sorcery books tend to have a sort of rough texture to them. They have a dark, subdued murkiness. I guess that's fitting to the genre?

I'd like to do something brighter and high contrast more like the crime or thriller pulps with torture and danger on the covers rather than pre-humanoids hacking each other to pieces.

I am finding it rather difficult to find artists that work in that pulp style though. :-\

I really wish Frazzetta was still around ... I love his work.
Some artists just do certain things better than anyone else ... Remington and horses ... Winslow Homer and the sea ....
Frazzetta and voluptuous women .....

I was just complaining to my friends yesterday about how this great pulp artist has been dead for 70 years. :( They don't make 'em like they used to.

Yep... they sure don't
And as much as I loved his paintings.... I like his pen and ink work even better

Funny.... I remember getting seriously yelled at in high school for making my "Fs" the way Frazzeta did in his signature....

Folks, though tugged and yanked by other work, I felt compelled to cast my blade into the forge of this interesting thread.

T.C. Rypel ("Ted") here, author of the GONJI Series...

This business of suitable covers for s&s, heroic-fantasy---whatever the particular house rules see fit to call it---is of vital importance to any author. The public perception of his book is often indelibly imprinted, against all conventional wisdom, by what's on that cover.

With various circles of writer-amigos, I've often debated issues like: What might the instantaneous image of any fine storyteller's work be, in posterity, if they hadn't been associated with a particular visionary artist's covers---an individual's impressions of the work beneath those covers?

Frazetta and Howard are an instantaneous link-up; a "speed-dial" to a particular ambience associated with BOTH. Almost a synthesis of fantasy vision-scape.

You see Frazetta, you think "Howard," and vice versa. My feeling is they both received synergistic career boosts from association with the other. They were both excellent at what they did. So aesthetic justice is served. But how might their legacies be altered, if only slightly, had they NEVER been combined for a book publication?

To consider another angle, I've read an awful lot of crap, over the decades, apparently masquerading as a justification for some damned compelling cover. And conversely, I've read some great stuff that I luckily sought out for reasons other than the bland, inappropriate or downright lousy cover illustrations.

Often enough, we can be thankful, the good stuff lives on independently of its mercifully forgotten covers. But I'd wager that a lot of solid fantasy tales have had to labor longer and harder than necessary, in that bibli-agora out there, to find their audience due to misleading or just plain dud covers.

And how many times were we seduced into a swamp-slog of a read (more likely when we're younger and more impressionable) by a dazzling whirligig of a cover illo; one that promises that... Man, it'll all be worth it when I get to THAT scene---?! And then, either "that scene" isn't even in the book, or the cover art turns out to be the only thing interesting about the scene. We should have bought the poster instead.

As to the lost value of a good illo due to the thumbnail constraints of the e-book era...

This is an interesting topic to me, one I hadn't really given a lot of thought to, since my GONJI Series has come back into domestic print---both paper and e-book---recently. And these books have a curious history, with respect to their cover illustrations.

When Gonji first appeared in a series of mass-market paperback novels from Zebra Books, back in the 1980s, they were art-designed with lovely embossed, stylized oriental dragons. Which (along with a nicely conceived GONJI "brand-name" banner I've always insisted on keeping), unfortunately, became a monotonous symbol for the books. Apart from the bright background color that changed from book to book, it was...one dragon, two dragons, rampant dragon, recumbent dragon---all stamped into the covers in a parade of convex sameness. Roar...*yawn*

It screamed "literary historical fiction."

And thus, despite (or hand-in-hand with) the uncertain tiny disclaimers on the spines of the books: "Zebra Adventure" - "Zebra Fantasy" - "Zebra Fantasy Adventure"---no one knew where to place them. Bookstores might put them with mainstream or historical fiction, as readily as with fantasy. Fantasy booksellers like Robert Weinberg were apologetic, when I would ask why they weren't carrying my books in their catalogs, explaining that Zebra was NOT positioning them as fantasy in their sales lists. And by the covers, you couldn't tell they WERE. They looked like straight samurai adventure. Classy to behold, but easily dismissed by FANTASY-seekers.

(For simplicity of discussion here, let's call the books..."Solomon Kane, with epic plots, deep character, more monsters, and somewhat more sorcery.")

Weirdly, the books sold far better than anyone had expected or advised me they might. They stayed in print for a long time. I thus had no real basis for complaint---selling books is what we want, no?

Um...yeah... Except that I wasn't hearing from many "fantasy" fans---mostly from enthusiasts of historical fiction who said: "I got flummoxed by the cover...I don't usually read this fantasy stuff, BUT once I got into it..."

So while I may have recruited a new genre fan or two, I seemed to have missed my intended audience, due to some insidious Zebra marketing plan to trade on the
popularity of SHOGUN and SHIKE and NINJA. (Gonji is a sword-of-destiny, son of a samurai warlord and a Viking sword-maiden, whose adventures occur mainly in 16th-century, legend-haunted EUROPE!)

When Zebra canceled their entire fantasy, and Gonji with it, the series became a victim of its own mis-branding. It disappeared into obscurity, save for a small, vocal fandom, because there was nothing in terms of visual association for fantasy readers to have connected it with; no art whatsoever to arouse curiosity and point to in the used-book markets. (Though those old Zebra editions have always been easily obtainable on Amazon.)

Like every other forgotten author, I've often wondered what Gonji's legacy might have been like with a series of Frazetta illos. The fact remains that very little graphic art has EVER been done to represent the character and his weird, warped-history supernatural world.

The first book in the series received audio-book treatment from Audio Realms, a few years ago. For that edition, a kind of comic-art-styled illo was commissioned. It's nice, a decent start, which at least represents a battle with vicious female vampires that appears in the book.

But then when Bastei Lubbe re-issued the series in German-language editions, they followed Zebra's lead back into the "historical" realm again. These covers---atmospheric renderings, all---now took a turn for the regrettably INACCURATE: Every one depicts Gonji wearing traditional samurai armor. Something he NEVER does in the series! In fact, we rarely ever see him in his native Japan! (In the extant books, at least. There is a "young Gonji" novel planned in detail where we'd follow his bizarre youth in a similarly "alternate-history" Dai Nihon.)

Currently, the series is in re-issue from Borgo Press (subsidiary of Wildside). They're a "facsimile" publisher, specializing in sf and fantasy titles that have been previously published by the mainstream houses, and whose copyrights have defaulted back to the authors.

Small presses like Wildside have minuscule art budgets and encourage authors to find free or inexpensively-licensed, non-exclusive cover art on their own.

So what I was forced to come up with was---you guessed it---more inaccurate depictions of what's inside! Cover art by a Serbian illustrator named Dusan Kostic which, though highly competent, is no more than "suggestive" of characters and actions in the series.

A "murky" pseudo-Frazettian style that evokes vague nightmare impressions---such as you guys cite above; a dragon cover illustration that, while admittedly a powerful image, misleads the prospective reader (there are no "dragons" per se in the extant books, though there is a "wyvern" which acts with similar, if more repulsive, vicious menace; another cover depicting traditional samurai armor again---sorry, folks, Gonji's only Japanese gear are his swords!

A third cover is a grippingly dramatic piece displaying a fanged rictus of a mouth within a flaming skull. OK...it might suggest an important werewolf character in the series...or a hell-spawned demon evoked in the book...

But I ulcerate for the aspiring "Frazetta" who will someday bond with Gonji to create an unforgettable image of my series character, such that the two seemed fated to validate each other in fantasy-fiction posterity.

For that, this minor fantasy author would risk thumbnail trivialization in the e-book editions!

T.c. wrote: "Folks, though tugged and yanked by other work, I felt compelled to cast my blade into the forge of this interesting thread..."

Wow, thanks for sharing that history. Lots of great perspective in there. The Howard/Frazetta association is truly legendary synergistic (even if they did not work together in-person). I am having trouble thinking of similar duos. I think every artist/author wishes they could be part of a sustained, successful team.

As a reader, the expectation of experiencing the scene depicted on the cover resonated with me (probably every member here) … on a similar note… I am reminded of the cursed Deathstalker Movies which had beautiful Vallejo/Bell cover art, and terrible-unrelated content.

S.E.:

Terrific example of how such cross-pollination DOESN'T work, far too often! In this case, you use movie poster art, but the principle is precisely the same. People went to the films with high expectation---how could you NOT, back in those days, when you couldn't pre-vet a film as easily as you can now, in the Internet era?

The poster sold you, and you wound up feeling violated by a deceitful, money-grubbing would-be seductress!

I agree wholeheartedly that I prefer a cover that depicts a tantalizing scene from the book. One of the reasons I've never been happy with the covers on my books.

All the more reason I need to commission the right art for my covers. I just need to find an artist!

The right art can certainly make a difference, in my opinion. It is what gets your foot in the door and allows the writing to do the rest. Even in this age of electronic books, where the first sample chapter(s) are available at the click of the button, you still have to get people to select the link to your book in the first place and, as sad as it seems, even going through two clicks seems to be asking too much of some. You have to lure them into it.

In terms of cover art, I agree a scene from the work is ideal, and that it is not always economically feasible. But when not possible, if the mood of the piece suggests the content accurately(not deceptively--as stated above), you're at least giving the buyer an honest metric by which to consider making that fateful, second click, and building some trust with them for later offerings.

A very few times I've had artists illustrate scenes from some of my stories. It's always thrilling.

Looks like I'm in negotiations for my first cover. I'm excited. :D

Speaking of covers:

Picked both of those up recently. Looking forward to them.

Michael wrote: "All the more reason I need to commission the right art for my covers. I just need to find an artist!"

I'll be interested in what you end up going with. I'm in a slightly similar position in looking for an artist to illustrate a sword-&-sorcery graphic novel - couldn't afford to commission anyone - it's more a question of finding someone willing to put together a few pages to make up a submission pitch for publishers.

Hmm, well the artist I'm talking to mainly does cover illustrations. I might be able to put you in touch with a comic book artist though who does my character sketches. I'm not sure what exactly you're looking for though. Your best bet is probably to browse deviantart and try to find an artist to work with.

That's very good of you - if your artist might be interested I could send him some of the script and see if it catches his interest. It's a little off-the-wall in its humour, but the art could easily be 'played straight'. (I have dipped into deviantart but to be truthful haven't quite worked out how to word a query of this sort to the site.)

The main thing you want to do is find an artist whose style matches your concept. The hardest part for me was finding the style I was looking for. My friend works on commission, so if you're looking for someone to partner up with or is willing to do it for free, then I think you'll have to look elsewhere.

A lot of artists on deviantart are probably willing to work with you especially if they have an interest in your type of storytelling. I would browse the fantasy art on there and take a look at some artists you like and reach out to them. Hopefully you find something you like.

Just tell them that you're a writer working on a fantasy project, you really like their art, and you were wondering if they'd be willing to work with you on it. You can get into the details from there.

Michael wrote: "The main thing you want to do is find an artist whose style matches your concept. The hardest part for me was finding the style I was looking for. My friend works on commission, so if you're look..."

Thanks, Michael - will do.

I don't know how much S&S cover art he did but Arthur Suydam does some amazing Frazetta-like work. Mostly for comics as far as I know. He actually trained under Frazetta for a while, he said he wasn't the best teacher actually, ha ha.

Commissioned Ken Kelly for the cover art to my sequel to Lords of Dyscrasia (sequel called Spawn of Dyscrasia, due out in 2014). Just received the painting last week; thought I'd share some one early compositions as I tinker with the lettering/title/etc.. I documented the design process of the base painting and will share that in a few months. More on: S E Lindberg Blog - Post on Ken Kelly Cover Art

Thoughts?

Congrats Seth. Love the painting and design, so looking forward to purchasing a physical copy. Also looking forward to the "design process documentary" to learn how Kelly's traditional techniques blend with the digital medium (design, fonts, etc).