Fabian's Queen Of The Black Coast!

"Whenever I was obliged to draw a violent scene, I had to decide how far to go. Today, violence on film, on television, and in comic books sometimes reaches a level of grossness I find hard to stomach. When this drawing was in the preliminary pencil stage, I had Conan's sword swinging down just above the native warrior's head, I would not go so far as to show the head being lopped off, that would be too gross. But when I was in the inking stage and got to that area, without thinking about it I erased the pencilwork and redrew the sword lopping off the head! It was a mistake, I should have left that part up to the viewer's imagination. There is no excuse for being gross. I made the same mistake when I painted a poster showing Conan cutting a giant ape in half with his sword, which also happens to be based on the same story, "Queen of the Black Coast". I guess I got caught up in the violent nature of Conan and lost control of myself!" - Stephen Fabian

"One of the early decisions an illustrator has to make when composing a picture is where to put the horizon line, or the viewpoint. In this case I placed it at the lower part of the picture so that both Conan and the viewer have to look up at Belit, who is basically performing, 'on stage'." - Stephen Fabian

"It was but a ghost of a city on which they looked when they cleared a jutting jungle-clad point and swung in toward the in-curving shore. Weeds and ran river grass grew between stones of broken piers and shattered paves that had once been streets and spacious plazas of broad courts. From all sides the except the river, the jungle crept in, masking columns and crumbling mounds with poisonous green. Here and there buckling towers reeled drunkenly against the morning sky, and broken pillars jutted up among the decaying walls." - Queen of the Black Coast

The cold light struck icy fire from the jewels in Belit's clustered black locks as she stretched her lithe figure on a leopard skin thrown on the deck. - Queen of the Black Coast

Then the rest were on him, in a nightmare rush of blazing eyes and dripping fangs. His fiercely driven sword shore the first asunder: then the desperate impact of the others bore him down. - Queen of the Black Coast 

In one mad instant she was there- a tense white shape, vibrant with love fierce as a she-panthers. The dazed Cimmerian saw between him and the onrushing death, her lithe figure, shimmering like ivory beneath the moon: he saw the blaze in her dark eyes, the thick cluster of her burnished hair: her bosom heaved, her red lips were parted, she cried out sharp and ringing as the ring of steel as she thrust at the winged monster's breast. - Queen of the Black Coast

So passed the Queen of the Black Coast, and leaning on his red-stained sword, Conan stood silently until the red glow had faded far out in the blue hazes and dawn splashed its rose and gold over the ocean. - Queen of the Black Coast

Here's a link to the complete REH story "Queen of the Black Coast".

These are some of the most beautiful images I've ever seen from Fabian. He's a master. 

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