Vengeance in Her Lair

There have been a lot of Sword & Sorcery painters, and I will get to many of them, but one of the finest and most enigmatic was Catherine Jones, born Jeffrey Durwood Jones in Atlanta Georgia. Called by no less a person than Frazetta “the greatest living painter”, Jones had a successful career and a sometimes difficult life, and overall has remained somewhat of an artist’s artist – appreciated by peers more than fans.

Jones first came to light in the 70s along with the cresting wave of S&S popularity, and she provided many illustrations of heroes like Solomon Kane, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, and Conan himself. She did comic line-art, marked by heavy use of blacks and complicated, organic linework, but her real strength and demand was covers. Jones was an amazing painter, with an understated style that often garnered less attention than artists with flashier, shallower work. Her look was layered, erudite, and complex, with as much influence from Klimt as from anyone contemporary.

Her work was moody and dark, with sharp details that shot through like lightning. She illustrated over 150 book covers, and rendered many Sword & Sorcery heroes, both well-known and obscure. Further, one can see her influence on other artists, from Frazetta himself to Sanjulian and Kelly.

Jones’ life was troubled. Married to Mary Louise Alexander for many years (who would later be widely known as comics writer Louise Simonson), Jones began to question her gender identity. After her divorce she moved into studio space in Manhattan with Bernie Wrightson, Barry Windsor-Smith, and Micheal Kaluta to form a collective called The Studio. Virtually a template for artist collectives formed since, it captured all four of them at pretty much the peak of their powers.

After the Studio broke up in 1979, Jones became more interested in expressionism and fine art, and worked less. By 1998 she was ready to address her identity issues, and began hormone therapy and changed her name from Jeff to Catherine, and as Catherine she was known and will be remembered.

By 2001 she suffered a serious nervous breakdown, which cost her both her studio and home, and which took years to recover from. By 2004 she was working again, but her health deteriorated. She died in 2011 after suffering long ailments including emphysema and heart disease, and passed into legend.

Jones’ work eschewed the lurid details of the common Sword & Sorcery artwork and focused on complex color, texture, and a virtually unmatched control of light and shadow. Her work was murky, iconic, brooding, and menacing. Many more people have seen her work than know her name, and many artists walk in her shadow without even knowing it.

Sons of the Blood Star

The land stretched out before them endlessly, turning from the sere yellow of the plains to the deep red of the desert. Around them the last few trees stood stunted and bent by the wind, and the last channel of the river lay like a rope of red mud, with scarcely a trickle of water down the center like blood. There were fourteen men in this company of mercenaries: twelve soldiers, one officer, and their prisoner.

The officer was a centenary named Malthus, and he did not like what he saw. On the maps this arm of the desert was narrow, and it would only take a few days to cross it. Even here he could make out the shadows of the stark hills in the north that marked the far southern edge of the Jeweled Kingdoms. They were close, and they needed every moment.

He looked at his men and saw they were weary but still steady. They sweated in their leather armor and bronze-crowned helms, but their grip on their spears was firm, and they eyes told no fear. The pack animals bore food in plenty, and there was enough water in their skins for the crossing, if they were cautious. His men were hard, lean border men. They did not shrink from a long march.

Malthus looked backward, over the hills and the golden-grass plains behind them, and he saw there still the plume of dust. The Jhagars were perhaps a day behind them, and they would gain quickly on their horses. He and his men were afoot, and they were at a terrible disadvantage in this country. If they tried to push west toward the coast, around the spit of barren wasteland, they would be overtaken. There was no way to know how many men were in pursuit, and he could not risk losing his captive.

Now he looked at the man who caused all this trouble. He was taller than Malthus or most of his men. His skin was a dark, reddish shade, like his fellow nomads, and his hair was black. The sides of his head were shaved and tattooed, only the center growing long and braided. A heavy beam lay across his shoulders, his arms hooked over it and bound in place with heavy leather thongs. He was naked save for a loincloth, and his body bore bruises and the marks of the whip.

When Malthus looked at him, the prisoner lifted his head, and then Malthus had to force himself not to shudder at the sight of those black, blank eyes. This was Vha Shar, the war-shaman of the Jhagar horsemen, and he made Malthus flesh creep.

“You will not wish to go into the desert,” Vha Shar said, his voice unnaturally deep and jagged, like broken obsidian. “Not in this place.”

She-Devil With A Sword

One of the indelible images of the Sword & Sorcery genre is the lady barbarian warrior in the armored bikini. Regardless of changing times and attitudes, there never seems to be a lack of interest in the hot chick in the skimpy clothes, waving a sword or an axe as of that were able to offset the essential sexism and fanservice of the trope. The most popular, well-known, and enduring of these characters, is the red-haired swordswoman known as Red Sonja.

Often claimed to be a creation of Robert E. Howard, the claim is only half true. Howard created a character named Red Sonya of Rogatino in the story “The Shadow of the Vulture” in 1934. She was at the historical Siege of Vienna in 1529, and was depicted as a fully-clothed warrior woman of the period. The comics apparently took her name and her hair, as those were too good to pass up, and they mixed in the persona of another Howard warrior woman named Dark Agnes de Chastillion to create a whole new character.

The original story was written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Howard Chaykin in 1973. The story set the new Red Sonja in the Hyborean Age, and made her part of the Conan mythos in the comics. She appeared in the main Conan the Barbarian comics, then in Savage Sword of Conan, and her popularity led to her getting her own series in Marvel Feature: She-Devil With A Sword in 1975. It did not run that long, but by the time it was done, her image was set. Originally a more practically-garbed heroine, art by Esteban Maroto established the “bikini armor” look, and it was carried on with gusto by the eccentric genius of Frank Thorne.

Thorne, born in 1930, is an unsung artist in the mainstream, mostly because his tastes ran to steamier, more controversial subjects than comics were comfortable with at the time. He set the tone for Red Sonja, but from the beginning he rankled at the limits put on her.

Because Sonja’s origin, as penned originally, is deeply problematic. When her family is killed by bandits, Sonja is raped viciously, and then calls on the goddess Scathach to save her. The goddess grants her great skill in battle so long as she never has sex with anyone save someone who can defeat her in combat.

So while she is depicted as a walking advertisement for sex, Sonja is canonically unable to have any control over her own sexuality. Her only sexual experience has been forcible, and to keep her powers and skills she can have no other kind. It demeans her by making her prowess a gift rather than something she earned, and allows her no say in her own sex life.

Thorne reportedly hated this, and it may have led to his early departure from her story. Then something marvelous happened, and Thorne went to Fantagraphics – an alternative comics publisher – and began producing the wonderful Ghita of Alizarr.

Ghita is a very deliberate deconstruction of the Red Sonja tropes. Ghita is a dancer and sometime prostitute in a very Howard-esque fantasy world. She travels with her companions pulling off cons and robberies, until one day she is gifted with superhuman warrior skills and strength and becomes a kind of wandering superhero. The difference is that while Sonja was unable to have any sex, Ghita fucks everything that moves, and is always in control of what she is doing. She feels no holy urge to be a hero, and often has to be backed into helping people when she would rather be drinking and dancing.

Fueled by Thorne’s fantastically detailed artwork, lusty sensibilities, and sly humor, Ghita is the overheated, bloody, exciting epic that he was never allowed to turn Red Sonja into. It’s been collected numerous times, and I highly recommend it.

Meanwhile Red Sonja herself has limped through a number of reboots and incarnations. There have been several series of comics, all of them focusing on her pinup status rather than anything gritty or exciting. There was the underwhelming 80s movie with Bridgette Nielsen, and there have been rumors of another movie for some years now. Bryan Singer is said to be developing a TV series, but who knows if anything will come of that, or be worth watching if it does.

So a character was created by Howard more than 80 years ago, adapted by the comics, mutated into a sex prop, and keeps on going even though there has never been a definitive or really first-rate story about her. Yet the image of the chainmail bikini remains to plague Sword & Sorcery as a tiresome and juvenile stereotype, and I doubt it will ever entirely fade away.