Happy Valentine’s Day? I wasn’t going to bend over backwards to find a Valentine’s themed post but fate reminded me of Dragon Magazine 156 at just the right time. Weirdly, this is from April, 1990, which seems like a missed opportunity (I guess it works for the April Fool’s stuff, but whatever). This is by Daniel Horne.

Horne did one of the most beloved Dragon covers, “Saving the Best for Last,” which depicts a gigantic skeleton bursting out of pack snow in front of woman ranger with a cocked bow. You can just see the skill in talent in it, and most of his other work. This one, though, is interesting. Because it is a humor piece, you kind of lose a lot of built up visual language of D&D/fantasy. That reveals, I think, a really strong Norman Rockwell/Saturday Evening Post aesthetic to my eye. Which is cool. All fantasy art comes out of the illustration tradition, but in the world before DiTerlizzi, I don’t feel like you often see it as clearly as you do here.