[David C. Matthews]

I'd been meaning to post this for awhile, ever since I found it a few weeks ago while rummaging through my stack of paperbacks. It's the cover of a book entitled Sword Woman, a collection of short stories written by Conan creator Robert E. Howard… and, contrary to what you might expect, it isn't Red Sonja, although the red hair and chainmail outfit would make that a logical conclusion:

What's remarkable about this cover is that the pub date for this book was 1977; if women's bodybuilding existed at all back then it was so underground that even I wasn't aware of it. This, then, would probably have been one of the first depictions of a muscular woman I can remember seeing in the "mainstream" media. The artist obvious thought it was only logical that a woman who could wield a sword like this would develop a decent set of arm sinews. (The publisher, Berkley Books, also deserves some credit for making the decision not to send this art back to the artist to have it "corrected".)

Unfortunately, I have no idea who the artist is; I can't determine a signature on the art and there's no credit on the copyright page.

[btx]

Back in '77 huh? Well that sort of confirms something I've long believed… Even if FBB never happened, it was due to LACK OF IMAGINATION on the part of artists in depicting female strength. This artist didn't need a FBB to use for reference… he obviously knew his anatomy to correctly (and proportionately) draw a muscular female arm. Even today, it doesn't seem to occur to the average illustrator, that if a female character is supposed to display strength she has to be DRAWN THAT WAY. Instead we get the anorexic ( Don't get me started on Ian Churchill's Supergirl) or we get buxom but bicepless ( She Hulk or Power Girl…. depending on the artist ) Or even more annoyingly, the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't muscles that vary from page to page (SH and PG again).

Still, if DCM has images that go this far back…. anyone else out there with some pre '79 ( The "official" year of FBB) fantasy/comic book imagery of muscular amazons? No pipestem arms please. I need to check my old stash….

BTX

[yatz]

A damn good drawing on it's own merits – and it's somethng you don't often find on book covers, even today. Of course, the publisher was wary enough to qualify it, with that "woman or warrior" blurb at the bottom… No way you can be both, right? Great find, Dave.

[AlexG]

Its been many years, so I'd have to re-check my collection of Ken Kelly covers rendered for the Horseclans series (Signet) 1975-1988 by Robert Adams, but I do recall that the author often described his Warrioresses with well-developed femuscular builds, especially those belonging to the Amazonian Moon Maidens.  One in particular, whose name eludes me at the moment, was not only very large size-wise, but stronger then many a male Warrior counterpart.

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[Vic]

I do believe that I still have that book DCM, snatched that right off of the shelf as a kid ( I was 12 or 13 in '77). 

Dagnamit Alex, now i'm going to have to go back and research her name in my Horseclans books!  Hmmm, now was that Savage Mountains or Billy the Axe?

[AlexG]

Dagnamit Alex, now i'm going to have to go back and research her name in my Horseclans books!  Hmmm, now was that Savage Mountains or Billy the Axe?

Had some time last night, her name is Kahndoot – the other prominent Amazonian Moon Maiden, their Chieftainess actually, and Bili's lover/wife is Rahksahnah.  Both are featured throughout the series of books involving Bili of Morguhn –  The Savage Mountains, Death of a Legend, The Witch Goddess,  Bili the Axe and Champion of the Last Battle.

[Side Bar – just for those unfamiliar with Robert Adams works, he would phonically spell place names and persons in order to emphasis the changes to the English (or as the characters would say – Mehruhkhuhn) language 700 years after the Two Day War in the early 21st Century.]

Another author that seems to have a thing for muscular/strong female characters is S.M. Stirling.  In his Draka Trilogy (Marching Through Georgia, Under the Yoke and The Stone Dogs, plus one spin off novel, Drakon), he features the ruling class Draka women as femuscular Amazonians, and some-what Superhuman, if you're speaking of their "New Race" of genetically enhanced offspring.

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[The_Pimp_NeonBlack]

It took some remembering and meditation but I's do believe that I's saw that very same book when I's was but a child of 7 (in 1977).
It would have been a book belonging to my's uncle, who was a Gypsy whom did work in a European circus and was/is still married to a Strong Woman.
They do say it is from he that I receive my's proclivities.
Though such tings matter not to I.
Thank you, dear David, for allowing I to remember the wonder and the wonderful of my's so blacken childhood.
Peace
The Pimp NeonBlack

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, I have no idea who the artist is; I can't determine a signature on the art and there's no credit on the copyright page.

It looks like a Frank Frazetta to me.

[Author]

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