As a kid, I not only had a great passion for superhero comics– but I was also crazy for anything that was sword and sorcery related. I devoured the CONAN comics that my dad would bring home, and I think that’s what sparked my initial interest in that sort of thing. Before long, I was reading some of the original CONAN novels by Robert E. Howard (as well as some of the more modern ones by L. Sprague DeCamp)– and from there I moved on to a few of Michael Moorecock’s ELRIC novels– some works by John Jakes, and many others. Anything that involved embattled sword (or axe) wielding heroes, damsels in distress, giant monsters and creepy evil wizards really thrilled me. One of my absolute FAVORITE comics from that time was a series called CLAW THE UNCONQUERED from DC Comics. It was a short lived series (only 12 issues, I think)– but it really captured my imagination. It featured a Conan-like barbarian with a twist: he was cursed with having a demon’s claw as his right hand. He kept this hand covered in a red metal gauntlet– but when he got into real trouble, he’d whip off that gauntlet…. and look out! The hand took over…. and took care of business. Ernie Chan was the original artist of the series– but he left half way through, and Keith Giffen took over (as artist AND writer if I’m not mistaken). I was really crestfallen when Chan first left, because I loved his stuff– but when I read the initial Giffen stuff, I really took to it. If anything, be book got BETTER. It would be a hoot to one day convince DC to let me revive that character. I don’t know if they’d go for it…. but I’d certainly love to give it a shot.

So, naturally, as a kid, I had to have my own barbarian character. And, naturally, I had to base him on my favorite barbarian character CLAW. And so, today I offer you VULCAN THE DEADLY! The first picture is the first page of a short VULCAN story I did when I was probably about 13 or so… and the second is my modern version of the character.

That’s it for now.

Mike