As I read through my Appendix N collection, I can't help but note the fabulous covers on the Berkley Robert E. Howard collection.
Ken Kelly, the cover illustrator for that series, has a style reminiscent of Franzetta. I'm drawn to his covers for another reason though. All of his illustrations are wrap-around covers, thus explaining the positioning of the hero, and the action, in the bottom right corner. These wrap-around cover remind me of another one, that being the David Trampier wrap-around cover for the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook.
Not all of these Ken Kelly covers are of Conan, of course. Black Vulmea, El Borak, Almuric and several others are represented as well.
9 comments:
Those are great, especially the first two.
Nice. I hadn't seen all of those before without the text on them.
Great, great imagery. So inspiring! I'm so jonesing for some gaming now!
Good to see my namesake in there!
I love these-I've made it a point to try and get most of them in hardcover.
Ken Kelly is one of my all-time favorites, just behind Frazetta.
Cool! I hadn't seen the flying skull-men one before now.
BTW, what did you think of 'The Space Merchants'?
I recognized the first image immediately - it was used for a d20 product that came out about 8 years ago. ("Grim Tales" produced by Bad Axe Games).
Otherwise, I was unfamiliar with Ken Kelly's work. Nice stuff.
The Berkley Howard books were a great series -- fantastic art, informative introductions, and original texts. Very classy presentations! Thanks for posting these pictures.
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