Red Sonja #3; When Hell Laughs Paperback Cover 1982

Curator: Here we have Boris Vallejo's cover art for Red Sonja #3, "When Hell Laughs," an oil painting from 1982. What strikes you first about it? Editor: There's a raw intensity to the piece; the palpable tension leaps off the canvas! The musculature and pose feel like an updated baroque Judith slaying Holofernes. The lighting gives it a mythic stage feel. Curator: Vallejo's art, often classified as fantasy or erotic art, typically relies on established visual tropes from heroic myths, religious art, and renaissance nudes. His paintings speak to the enduring human fascination with strength, beauty, and primal struggle. Notice how he stages Red Sonja with sword extended. He is speaking to an archetype here. Editor: Absolutely, the archetypes are strong, maybe overly so? The woman warrior, the damsel turned avenger...it feels like a complicated symbol. On the one hand, we have female empowerment—yet, that power seems tethered to violent hyper-sexualization. It feels dated when viewed through a contemporary lens. Curator: True, and yet consider the persistence of these archetypes. The goddess Athena, for example, she carried a spear, clad in armour and a goddess of strategic warfare, or perhaps Durga in Hinduism, each armed with myriad weapons, their forms and weaponry all carry unique emotional, spiritual and psychological power. Here, Vallejo’s painting builds upon these symbols—warrior, sword, armour—all combined to communicate Red Sonja's persona: formidable warrior woman, independent, and powerful. Editor: It raises an interesting point about how gendered violence is portrayed, doesn't it? Sonja's agency is inseparable from the brutal violence inflicted around her. Is it subversive, or does it perpetuate harmful associations, linking female strength to aggression in a world so unfortunately focused on physical retaliation as a response to complex problems? Curator: What strikes me as remarkable about this image is the sheer forcefulness. Vallejo captures a timeless fantasy narrative: of confrontation, the tension before the fight. The bloody blade and the figures’ contrapposto give a dramatic feeling, full of dynamic potential. The cliff face is so symbolic! A chasm, as Jung wrote about often, might here signal a threshold where one phase of life is ending as another is just about to begin. Editor: I think engaging with pieces like these are essential because they hold up a mirror, reflecting back at us the evolving anxieties and ideals around gender, power, and representation. It's in unpacking those complexities that we find deeper insights. Curator: Indeed. This image is an open, symbolic doorway; It's so rich in archetypes and artistic decisions, it seems it has staying power.