A Red Sonja Cover Gallery XIX:
All Ages

This is the nineteenth installment in our Red Sonja themed cover galleries, continuing from the first gallery. Below, we present ten selected covers from various comic books, which artists depicting Red Sonja for audiences of all ages.

1

  • title: Li'l Sonja (2014)
  • publisher: Dynamite
  • cover artist: Art Baltazar
  • writer: Jim Zub
  • artist: Joel Carroll
  • issue: #1 of 5
  • release date: January, 2014
  • commentary: In January, 2014, Dynamite released five one-shots, each focusing on a different Dynamite license, including Red Sonja, Vampirella, Evil Ernie, the Bionic Man & Woman and Battlestar Galactica. Each issue was written and illustrated by a different team but all the A covers were by Art Baltazar of Tiny Titans (DC Comics) fame and all B variants were drawn by Agnes Garbowska of My Little Pony (IDW) fame. For the curious, this was not the only Red Sonja cover by Art Baltazar, who also drew a variant cover for issue #14 for Amy Chu's interpretation of Red Sonja (2016).

    We have featured covers from Li'l Sonja in galleries with themes including
    • All Ages: #1
    • Unplaced Issues: #7

2

  • title: Red Sonja (2013)
  • publisher: Dynamite
  • cover artist: Agnes Garbowska
  • writer: Gail Simone
  • artist: Walter Geovani
  • issue: #1 of 18
  • cover: retailer exclusive: Phantom Comics
  • release date: July, 2013
  • commentary: For the debut issue of the Gail Simone retelling of Red Sonja, Agnes Garbowska created a cover, exclusive to Phantom Comics, showing off Red Sonja's strength of arm. The puppies lapping up the milk, spilled as a result of this tavern brawl, are a special touch.

    We have featured covers by Agnes Garbowska in galleries with various themes, including
    • All Ages: #2 & #3
    • Sketches: #2
    • Unplaced Issues: #7

3

  • title: Red Sonja (2013)
  • publisher: Dynamite
  • cover artist: Agnes Garbowska
  • writer: Gail Simone
  • artist: Walter Geovani
  • issue: #2 of 18
  • cover: retailer exclusive: Larry's Comics
  • release date: August, 2013
  • commentary: For the second issue of the same series, Agnes Garbowska made another cover, this one an exclusive to Larry's Comics. Here Red Sonja recklessly rides her rocking horse over the cliff edge.

4

  • title: Red Sonja (2015)
  • publisher: Dynamite
  • cover artist: Ken Haeser
  • writers: Gail Simone, Eric Trautmann, Roy Thomas, Michael Avon Oeming & Luke Lieberman
  • artists: Dave Acosta, Pablo Marcos, Taki Soma, Noah Salonga & Sergio Fernandez Davila
  • issue: #100 (one-shot)
  • cover: D variant
  • release date: February 2015
  • commentary: The Gail Simone series of Red Sonja has a curious numbering from #0 to #18 and #100 and #1973. There are 18 core issues numbered #1 to #18, which ran somewhere between monthly and bimonthly from July, 2013 to September, 2015. A year into this, Dynamite issued a #0, as is often done to provide folks, who haven't been reading from the first issue, a synopsis that serves as an entry point to the remainder of the series. In February, 2015, Dynamite released this one-shot, labeled issue #100, to celebrate ten years of publishing Red Sonja comics. To our knowledge there is no math that actually sums to 100. In addition to the 80-issue run of Red Sonja: She-Devil with a Sword, there are many other 4-issue series, annuals and one-shots, so that the sum of Red Sonja books by Dynamite at that time was much greater than one hundred. In any case, there were five covers to this special issue #100. The most kid-friendly cover, by Ken Haeser, is shown here. This cover is an homage to Frank Thorne's cover to the first issue of Marvel's Red Sonja: She-Devil with a Sword, published in January, 1977. (As an aside, Mel Rubi's homage to the same cover is shown in the second entry to A Red Sonja Cover Gallery XVI: Mythological Beasts.) To close out the accounting, in July, 2015, there was also an issue #1973, to commemorate Red Sonja's first appearance in comic form in February, 1973 in the Marvel series Conan the Barbarian #23.

5

  • title: Red Sonja (2016)
  • publisher: Dynamite
  • cover artist: Tony Fleecs
  • writer: Marguerite Bennett
  • artist: Aneke
  • issue: #1 of 6
  • release date: January, 2016
  • cover: D variant
  • commentary: In 2016, Dynamite released six-issue arcs of Red Sonja, Vampirella and Dejah Thoris. The first issue of each of these series contained several cross-over connecting covers. This cover by Tony Fleecs (also of My Little Pony fame) is the central panel of a band scene in which Vampirella plays guitar and Dejah Thoris plays bass.

6

  • title: Red Sonja (2016)
  • publisher: Dynamite
  • cover artist: Jason Meents
  • writer: Amy Chu
  • artist: Carlos E. Gomez
  • issue: #04 of 25
  • cover: D variant
  • release date: April, 2017
  • commentary: This cover by Jason Meents is inspired by the Funko Pop! figures line. Although it was released at the same time as the five one-shots comprising the Funko Universe arc from IDW (Ghostbusters, X-Files, Judge Dredd, Strawberry Shortcake and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), this book is not part of that series.

7

  • title: Red Sonja (2016)
  • publisher: Dynamite
  • cover artist: Charles Paul Wilson
  • writer: Amy Chu
  • artists: Marcio Fiorito and Carlos E. Gomez
  • issue: #05 of 25
  • cover: C variant
  • release date: May, 2017
  • commentary: This cover by Charles Paul Wilson was a variant for the fifth issue of Amy Chu's Red Sonja series. This cover reminds of us the awesome Polo books by Regis Faller. (Polo lives on a little island, fishes for his dinner and makes friends with beasts of one kind and another.)

    We have featured covers by Charles Paul Wilson in galleries with themes including
    • All-Ages: #7
    • Demons: #17

8

  • title: Red Sonja (2016)
  • publisher: Dynamite
  • cover artist: Fernando Ruiz
  • writers: Amy Chu and Erik Burnham
  • artist: Carlos E. Gomez
  • issue: #13 of 25
  • cover: E variant
  • release date: February, 2018
  • commentary: The last three covers in this All-Ages gallery feature Red Sonja as an adult, but the artist has chosen to present her in a kid-friendly style. This art reminds us of the style of the 2003 television series, Star Wars: Clone Wars, directed by Genndy Tartakovsky, and especially of the also awesome ten comic books in digest format titled Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures that followed from Dark Horse in 2004-2007.

9

  • title: Red Sonja (2016)
  • publisher: Dynamite
  • cover artist: J. Bone
  • writers: Amy Chu and Erik Burnham
  • artist: Carlos E. Gomez
  • issue: #20 of 25
  • cover: D variant
  • release date: August, 2018
  • commentary: While this cover features Red Sonja atop a mountain of her fallen foes, the style is reminiscient of the kid-friendly style that J. Bone used on all the covers of DC Super Friends (2008).

10

  • title: Red Sonja and Vampirella meet Betty and Veronica (2019)
  • publisher: Dynamite
  • cover artist: Dan Parent
  • writer: Amy Chu
  • artist: Maria Sanapo
  • issue: #4 of 12
  • cover: D variant
  • release date: August, 2019
  • commentary: For the cross-over series, Red Sonja and Vampirella meet Betty and Veronica, several artists were asked to create covers for each issue. One of these artists was Dan Parent, who is best known for his work with Archie Comics. While his depiction of the the heroines portrays them as adults, there is a carefree style to the art that matches the playful activities in which they are captured.

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