A Beautiful Scan of my favorite piece of Barsoom art — St. John’s Thuvia

Michael Sellers Art

Bob Zeuschner saw my previous post about the J. Allen St. John Thuvia and was good enough to send me a really good quality scan, and for that I’m immensely thankful. I am sharing it below. My comments about why I like it so much are in the article: Best.Barssoom Art.Ever. — but the short version is that this is the one piece of art above all others that to me captures what’s going on in my mind when I read the ERB books. Things I love about it:

  • The “steroid factor” is not in evidence.  I don’t hate the steroid art (Frazetta comes to mind), but I definitely like this better.
  • The representation of Thar Ban, on the horse, is interesting in that the humanoid elements are more pronounced.
  • The thoat is awesome.
  • The classical feel
  • Thuvia is perfection.  Obviously it’s easier to get perfection from behind — but that’s part of the genius.  Her hair, her form, her body language, even the way she holds her hand.
Here it is.  I’m not doing inserts this time because this is a nice, big scan — just click on it and enjoy.  Thanks Bob!
Also — below the first piece is a second one from the same sequence that has been colorized.  St. John’s original is not in color — I’m just including it because it’s kind of unique and suggests how this one might feel in color.  (And yes — I know a colorized version of this first one exists, but I’m not crazy about it — the colors don’t feel right to me, so I’ll stick with this one, which is brilliant.)

UPDATE: Just came across this image of St. John’s wife posing as Thuvia.
St. John Wife Thuvia

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