First of all, a direct comparison of how different the accessories can make Red Sonja look:
We also told you how the character was based on Sonya of Rogatino, from the short story "In the Shadow of the Vulture," which was later adapted into Marvel's Conan comics. You can read it online or listen to it in audio format:
That version of Sonya did appear in a Marvel Comic, thanks to a very roundabout and unexpected series of events.
Because women have always had a strong place in nerd culture, Marvel's Red Sonja inspired a lot of cosplay. A lot. Well, after seeing so many comely portrayals of his character, artist Frank Thorne had an idea: together, he and a handful of the most prominent cosplayers of the era began putting on a fun little stage show about a wizard trying to summon Red Sonja and getting more than he expected. Thorne played the wizard (he had the beard for it), and the Sonjas were played by Linda Behrle, Angelique Trouvere, Dianne DeKelb, Wendy Snow, and Wendy Pini (because none of them had beards). Yes, "Elfquest" Wendy Pini - she was well known for her Red Sonja cosplay back then. Her husband Richard did the effects for the show.
It started as a night club skit in 1976, a quick scene with just one Sonja. By the next year, that had snowballed into "The Wizard and Red Sonja Show," and was put on for audiences at comic-cons all over the US. The show done at the 1977 Philadelphia Comic Art Convention was even recorded by Westinghouse Broadcasting and showed in a segment on their Evening Magazine news program titled "The Wild World of Red Sonja." That's right, it was possible to watch a Marvel TV show in 1977.
That KYW-TV recording may be gone forever, but because the internet is a magical place, we can see the show's final performance, at San Diego Comic-Con in 1978:
Yes, it's supremely cheesy, and by that point it was down to just Thorne and Pini, but it's fans having genuine fun. And if not for a dedicated and patient attendee with a Super 8 camera, it would be absolutely lost. Clearly, people pirating SDCC panels is a long and proud tradition!
Comic-Con would have been in July, as always, but Savage Sword of Conan #29 (cover date May 1978, released in March) used the back half of the issue for an adaptation of the stage show. And since Dianne DeKalb was portraying Sonya of Rogatino, that character appeared in an official Marvel story:
The comic shows you what the comedic plot of the full show would have been, and has lots of pictures of the cosplayers. It's worth finding a copy to check out this forgotten piece of nerd history.
