Red Sonja

Red Sonja, "warrior woman out of majestic Hyrkania," is a fantasy sword and sorcery heroine created by Roy Thomas and Barry Smith and first appearing in Conan the Barbarian #23 (Marvel Comics). She was loosely based on the character Red Sonya of Rogatino in Robert E. Howard's short story "The Shadow of the Vulture" (The Magic Carpet Magazine, January 1934), which was rewritten as a Conan story for the Marvel comic.

Howard vs. Marvel

Howard's Red Sonya was very different from Thomas's: Thomas reinvented her, making her a heroine of Conan's Hyborian Age, tweaking the spelling of her name, and giving her a sword instead of her guns.

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She is most often depicted wearing a very brief bikini-like costume of scale mail. As originally drawn by Barry Smith for "The Song of Red Sonja" in Conan the Barbarian issues 23 and 24 (1973), she did not have as full a figure and dressed a little more conservatively, in a chainmail long-sleeved shirt and cloth (maybe leather) shorts.

Related Topics:
Bikini - Barry Smith - Conan the Barbarian

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The "bikini" look is usually credited to Frank Thorne, but was created by Esteban Maroto for Sonja's appearance in The Savage Sword of Conan issue 1 (1974), and used by John Buscema in issues 43, 44 and 48 of Conan the Barbarian (1974) and Dick Giordano in the first issue of Marvel Feature (1975) before Thorne took over from issue 2 (1976). For some reason the "bikini" proved popular, becoming well-known through the paintings of Boris Vallejo and others.

Related Topics:
Frank Thorne - Esteban Maroto - John Buscema - Conan the Barbarian - Dick Giordano - Marvel Feature - Boris Vallejo

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