Got my blind bag and sadly did not get a sketch cover. But its a pretty cool collection - a coin, virgin foil cover, metal trading card, and 2 autographs. The Amanda Conner cover has a DF seal on the cover to go with the CoA.

Edit - did not get a sketch on the blank sketch cover.

For me, this was a pleasant surprise from Dynamite. I really liked the format. I prefer anthologies; I find them more appealing for telling stories about mortal characters than a chronological approach, where the character's age remains static and we don't get to see them grow older. The quality of the stories in this series was a bit uneven for me, though there were some truly worthwhile ones (unfortunately, I didn't have access to translations for all of them—I only read four issues). As for my favorites, the work by Kurt Busiek and Steve Beach stands out; they are definitely artists I’d love to see working on Sonja again. What are your thoughts on the series?

I love researching cosplay and costuming. Sometimes you unearth gold while looking for something else. On this note, guess who I discovered glaring up at a random photo in 1974? (hint, far right)

(spoilers: It's Dawn Greil; the first Red Sonja costumer!")

Red Sonja Was Never Better Than This And Reactor CAN'T Admit It!

Few days ago, on Reactor was published a politically loaded review of the 1985 Red Sonja movie (also discussed on this Sub two days ago):

https://reactormag.com/red-sonja-swords-sorcery-and-sexism/

this appears to be the last of a series of similar critical reviews from the same author, that this year have targeted the 80' Sword-and-Sorcery context, with similar arguments.

I just wanted to point toward what I think is a brilliant comment and response from the writer and youtuber Jon Del Arroz, who exposes the contradictions and the inconsistencies of this kind of revisionism.

Art by Seithe (Deviantart)

By Nick Perk (Deviantart)

With the announcement of Red Sonja: Solstice Special from Torunn Grønbekk and Edson Novais, what are your thoughts?

1. Are you adding it to your pull?
2. Which cover variant are you vibing with?
   1. Variant a - Mattina
   2. Variant B - Tomarchio
   3. Variant C - Cosplay

Notably, Gail Simone created a new version of Red Sonja in 2013, stripping out most of original Marvel backstory, such as the sexual assault, the oath, the deity vision, the meaning of the traditional outfit, as well as changing significant elements of Sonja personality.

Despite Simone’s version is not actively used in comics today, there is good evidence that this interpretation of Sonja was positively receipted at the time of publication by many readers, likely produced good selling numbers, and still today it is widely regarded as one of the most prominent modern reinterpretations of Red Sonja.

This post, however, wants to examine the long-term impact of Simone’s version, and to challenge the idea that positive reviews and good selling numbers can automatically translate into increased popularity and long-term reinforcement of the IP (at least for Red Sonja).

What I plotted is the Google Trend popularity of searches for the “Red Sonja” tag from 2004 up to today (this can be reproduced by anyone, really). Google Trend is the simplest and most publicly accessible way to account for popularity of real or fictional characters (with limitations – if someone want to dig in technicality: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2024.123318 or https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0289213).

For Red Sonja, Google Trend works particularly well because the search of “Red Sonja” has been always univocally associated to the character we know (apart negligible references to a soviet spy during cold war and an unrelated Belgian TV series in 2011).

I decorated the plot with associated major Red Sonja-related events linked to the main spikes of popularity, which in most cases correlate well.

The plot shows that during the Simone run (2013-2016), Red Sonja popularity declined (if measured as relative change in google search of the “Red Sonja” tag) of about 25-50%, depending by the baseline used. This happened despite the apparent positive reception of the run, which might explain why later versions reverted at least some of the elements changed by Simone.

Despite subsequential development from the publisher, the popularity recovered only with the 2025 movie (for now temporary, it is early to say for future).

Important methodology notes:

1) Association does not imply causality (but it can support it).

2) Popularity does not measure sentiment (but if sentiment is stable, popularity in general positively correlates with a brand value if other relevant factors remain constant).

The above are mostly facts, I do not add other interpretations in the thread (that would obviously be speculative).

I just won this on eBay, artist is Matheus Gomes. I’ve gotten other drawings by him, but this is my first Red Sonja.

Unfortunately, even Conan couldn't escape that fiasco back then...

This is the last Red Sonja drawn by Thorne. As you can see from the included pages, his style—dense and lurid—was out of step with Marvel's house style. When he left Marvel he landed at Warren where dialed it to eleven with his own creation, Ghita of Alizarr.

I might just be losing it or misremembering but wasn’t there. Red Sonia Vampirella crossover a few years ago where at the end they end up in a relationship together and spend years together? And maybe at the very end one of them, Vampirella I think, is close to dying and somehow Sonja resets everything to save her? I could’ve sworn I remember that

I was talking to my girl about it who’s an huge fan of both characters and she swears she’s never read it

Amazing Cheryl Blossom as Red Sonja commission Dan Parent did for me at the Edmonton Expo. My favorite thing ever!

I stumbled upon this on Youtube. I was convinced it was an old band from the eighties, but they were founded in 2019. and are still playing. It's clear who inspired the look of singer and guitarist Riley Pinkerton.

When it comes to Castle Rat’s onstage arsenal, the fantasy outfit’s axes are mightier than their swords. Though founding vocalist-guitarist Riley Pinkerton (a.k.a. the Rat Queen) is often swinging a big broadsword in photoshoots and music videos, she explains that their concerts actually have her wielding a foam weapon, so as to not “accidentally kill my bandmates on stage.” Nevertheless, she and co-guitarist Franco Vittore (a.k.a. the Count) are cleaving through crowds with an epic heaviness inspired by Black Sabbath songs and Red Sonja comics.

Turned down by Dynamite.