Artists I Like: Frank Thorne

Another entry in this series... this time a man whose famous rendition of Red Sonja strongly influenced basically my entire artistic journey. And yet I know very little about this guy.

I'm talking about Frank Thorne.

This guy got started doing comics in 1948 at the age of 18 and drew comics basically until his death at age 90. Talk about a life of comics! The first time I saw his work and knew his name was with the 1970s Red Sonja series, which he drew most of the issues of. Striking covers and beautiful interiors, lush with fantastic imagery and the bodacious chainmail bikini itself. This iconic image stuck in my head as part of my DNA.

It is strange to think that Thorne spent the first 28 years of his comics career drawing things like Tomahawk and Perry Mason... good solid work, but not the kind of bombastic stuff I know him for. Something happened in 1976 when he took over drawing Red Sonja. After that... it was GAME ON and the rest of his life was spent drawing beautiful women kicking ass. And we're all richer for it.

Red Sonja

I post most of my pinup art over at Blood Red Pinups. But that one exists so I can be unfiltered and post nudes if I want. I also post pinup art here sometimes as long as it would be fitting to hang in your church.

Thus: Red Sonja!

Funny thing about this character is I have no real understanding of her history. Since I haven't read every Robert E. Howard story (shameful), I always assumed the character was in some Conan pieces I hadn't encountered yet. But actually she was almost entirely invented for Marvel Comics during Roy Thomas' legendary run on the Conan comic. There was a Howard story about a character named Red Sonja but it's utterly unrelated to the Conan saga and is actually set in historical Vienna.

Most of the recurring female characters of modern Conan stories are based on characters who appeared in maybe one or two of Howard's yarns. Belit and Valeria are famous examples, with Red Sonja being closely tied to Conan only through the comics.

Very interesting, don't you agree?