This post is brought to you by the Swords of Fire series. These collections offers longer heroic fantasy with four novellas, each with an illustration by the cover artist, M. D. Jackson. Working in the Lin Carter tradition of the 1970s, these books offer exciting tales of monsters and magic with enough length to tell their tales with some world-building and characterization. This series was created to feature S&S novellas of at least 15,000 words. There are characters who appear once and there are others, like Sirtago & Poet, who appear again and again. Authors include David Hardy, C. J. Burch, Michael Ehart, Jack Mackenzie, M. D. Jackson, Will Parker and G. W. Thomas. It is the opinion of the editor that the ideal length for a heroic fantasy tale is the novella. This series tries to prove that over and over. Here are exciting adventures with brave men and women who face off against the forces of darkness.
I’m not exactly sure why but Sword & Sorcery makes better comics than Epic Fantasy if by sheer numbers if nothing else. First, let’s consider what we aren’t going to talk about. I am going to exclude TV characters like Xena, Warrior Princess as well as all role-playing game material like Advanced Dungeons & Dragons comics and video games like The Witcher. Here’s why. These comics are a secondary market driven by other media. What I want to look at here is fiction. Actual stories written by authors who fall either into Sword & Sorcery/Heroic Fantasy/Low Fantasy versus the bestsellers of Epic Fantasy. You can make an argument that there is no difference between them (I have made that argument before myself) except in marketing. Once again, I am challenging my own assumptions and I think comic books may be the venue to do that with.
The classic Sword & Sorcery authors always begin with Robert E. Howard’s characters: Conan the Barbarian, King Kull, Bran Mak Morn, Cormac Mac Art, Solomon Kane and other odd bits like Corben’s Bloodstar and Tim Conrad’s Almuric. The S&S wave includes adaptations of Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd & Grey Mouser, Michael Moorcock’s Elric and Corum, John Jakes’ Brak the Barbarian, Lin Carter’s Thongor of Lemuria, and Gardner F. Fox’s Kothar (disguised as Conan). The number of characters inspired by these folks are many with Claw, The Warlord, Dagar the Invincible, Cerebus the Aardvark (and that’s just in the 1970s!)
Actual adaptations of Epic Fantasy are not that common but include the following:
In 1978, Terry Brooks’ The Sword of Shannara was adapted by Brooks with art by Gray Morrow as a newspaper strip. Despite the great work Morrow did drawing the novel, it has not been reprinted.
The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien have received adaptations. The Hobbit was well-done by Chuck Dixon and Seam Deming with art by David Wenzel in 1989 then reprinted as a graphic novel. In 1980, a partial version of The Lord of the Rings by Nick Cuti and Luis Bermejo was published largely in Europe. Bermejo has done good work in the Sword & Sorcery genre too.
1984 to 1986 Robert Aspirin’s Myth Adventures from WARP Graphics was adapted by AD&D cartoonist Phil Foglio with Tim Sale. If funny Fantasy is your thing, here it is. Is it Epic or Sword & Sorcery or just something else, you decide.
Raymond E. Feist’s Magician Apprentice from Marvel Comics (2006-2008) was adapted by Michael Avon Oeming, Raymond E. Feist and Bryan Glass, with art by Brett Booth and Ryan Stegman. The first in a long career of the magician character. I have heard Feist criticized as “Welcome to my D&D adventure” but many bestsellers started in that arena. After 1973, RPGs are part of the mix.
Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time (2010-2013) from Dynamite was adapted by Chuck Dixon with art by Chase Conley, Andie Tong, Marco Firioto and Francis Nuguit. The series later go a TV show (2021-2025) but it appeared after the comic. Three volumes were adapted: The Eye of the World, The New Spring and The Great Hunt.
Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn from IDW (2010) was adapted by Peter B. Gillis and drawn by Renae de Liz. The Last Unicorn had a TV cartoon in 1982, but the comic creators did not reference this in their comic. It was not an adaptation of the cartoon. This is one of the classic novels to follow Tolkien in 1968.
George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones (2011-2012) from Random House in the US was adapted by Daniel Abraham with art by Tommy Patterson. The TV show Game of Thrones happened at the same time, 2011-2019, but the comics did not use images from that production.
Joe Ambercrombie’s First Law (Blind Ferret Comics, 2013) was adapted by Chuck Dixon and drawn by Andy Tong. Dixon seems to have made a second career as an Epic adapter. He, of course, created such Fantasy comics as Brath and worked on the Conan franchise in the 1980s and 1990s.
Conclusion
None of these titles lasted more than a few years. Usually, once the adaptation was done, they disappear. Which makes sense, but if the project really has legs, there is usually a continuation by going onto the next book. Take The Sword of Shannara for instance, which has twenty-four volumes. The Wheel of Time has fourteen. There is certainly more to adapt but it seems it is often one-and-done. (I think in the case of Game of Thrones, it was the fact that the characters looked different than the TV actors that hurt sales.)
New stories could also be possible. Would the further adventures of the Last Unicorn and her friends not rock if written by Peter S. Beagle? I rather doubt he’d be down for that but you get the idea. It has been done before. John Jakes wrote a new Brak tale for Marvel. It was only the success of his Kent Family Chronicles that ended that run at one story.
If Epic Fantasy adaptations have been lackluster, perhaps the stories they inspire have been good sellers? There have been a few attempts at some grand scale Fantasy comics. Whether they are Epic or S&S is debatable. In America, Wendy and Richard Pini’s Elfquest went for decades, having a more Epic feel than S&S. From Europe, the Darkness series (2009-2013) by Cristope Bec and Ico is an obvious Tolkien-type, while The Chronicles of the Dragon Knights (2016-2020) by Ange and Varanda and other artists went for twenty-two volumes. There are cases of big epics succeeding.
Now, if you are like me, the line between these two “marketing genres” aren’t really that important. What matters is that Fantasy Comics of any sort rock with plenty of action, monsters, fantastic ideas and locales. Sword & Sorcery may have the edge on Epic Fantasy in that it is usually played out on a smaller scale, allowing comic book creators more flexibility or simpler story lines. Take old Conan, for instance. The Hyborian Age can be grand and epic and sweeping, but the stories tend to be man-versus-magician or man-versus-monster. But that doesn’t mean that a massive epic like The Lord of the Rings can’t deliver. It takes more care, with an eye always on the source material, but the rewards can be amazing (like the Wenzel art in The Hobbit.)
Sword & Sorcery from RAGE machine Books
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