Losing Your Head
Conan the barbarian

It was the 1970's and Conan was really big. This was long before the Schwarzenegger films of the 1980's, so Conan was either Barry Smith's exotic hero from Marvel Comic's Conan the Barbarian comic, or Frank Frazetta's erotic muscled death dealer from the Lancer paperbacks. Besides Frazetta and Smith, I was being heavily influenced at the time by the work of Filipino artist Tony DeZuniga (whose smooth pen cross-hatching was so powerful) and the pencil work of Roy G. Krenkel.

I remember the night I drew this picture. I did it while talking on the phone to a girl named Lynn (one of my first loves), and I remember how this image just flowed out of me and on to the paper during the course of our conversation. When I hung up and looked at what I had drawn, I vowed that I would only draw when awash in the deep passion of youthful love. Yeah, like I could arrange for that to happen whenever I needed it!