Since I was born during the late 80s, I didn't have the chance of getting the lancer paperback books that featured Frazetta's beautiful covers on them...So I had to, for lack of a better term, "curtail" looking for such books and find the best alternative, which was to buy the beautiful Frank Frazetta cover series from Dark Horse. Granted these aren't original Frazetta paintings, however the work by Kurt Busiek, Cary Nord, Dave Stewart, and company attached to the covers is worth getting.
1) I know I know...you see a wizard magazine with Angelina Jolie on the cover and with little knowledge of what's inside (i'm just speculating) probably think "wait..how could this even be a treasure?" However, if you're a Conan fan this wizard is a must have. It contains an article about Robert E. Howard's tragic life along with pictures of iconic Conan. I found the article to be really heartfelt, and that is why it remains one of my treasures.
2)To those who don't know, this is Conan the frank frazetta series issue 1, and to cut to the chase the following three are 2,3, and 4 respectively. The cover is the painting "The Frost Giants" by Frazetta, which first appeared on the lancer published Conan the Cimmerian in 1969.
3)The painting is "Chained" and is a beautiful piece by Frazetta, and the story is 'the God In The Bowl,' which is masterfully done by Kurt Busiek, Cary Nord, Dave Stewart, and all those involved. The first published painting, I believe was 'Conan the Usurper' published in 1967.
4) This beautiful Conan cover was featured on the 'Conan The Adventurer,' first published in 1966 and this particular issue contains the story Tower of the Elephant.
5) This cover is the painting "The Destroyer," and includes the Hall of the Dead, which was done by Mignola and Nord, which I completely loved.
The next issue of Conan the Frank Frazetta Series will include the Man-Ape painting by Frazetta, as well as the adaption of the Howard story "Rogues In The House."
Personally, I'm a little sad at the fact that there are only going to be 8 issues of the series. However, since the trend seems to be referencing covers from the Lancer Conan books that Frazetta painted, I hope they reproduce the covers of 'Conan The Warrior', 'Conan The Avenger', and 'Conan The Buccaneer'.
References and thanks used for this part of my treasure collection.
-Lancer Books 1961-1973 and Irwin Stein and Walter Zacharius for actually publishing Howard's stories
-Frank Frazetta
-DarkHorse.com (for producing this series)
Hope everyone/ anyone enjoyed this because it took me forever to put together sadly to say.
