Weird Tales Dec 1935 – Conan in Chains, 'Hour of the Dragon' by Robert E. Howard
A scantily-clad woman clutches a key ring outside iron dungeon bars, her expression a mix of fear and determination as a muscular, shackled prisoner — unmistakably Conan the Barbarian — looks up from the filthy cell floor beside a grinning skull. The composition drips with sword-and-sorcery peril: torchlit stone walls, chains, and the implicit promise of escape or doom. This is the December 1935 issue of Weird Tales, featuring Robert E. Howard's serialized Conan novel 'The Hour of the Dragon.'
Brundage at her most brazenly sensational — chains, skulls, barely-there costuming, and the king of Aquilonia reduced to a dungeon floor. It's pure sword-and-sorcery wish fulfillment rendered in lush, pastel-soft gouache that somehow makes the peril feel even more lurid.
“Weird Tales THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON a vivid weird story of a thousand eery thrills by ROBERT E. HOWARD DEC. 25c Paul Ernst • Clark Ashton Smith Edmond Hamilton • Harold Ward”
