Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Marvel Comics, Titan | Tagged: conan, Kef F, kef f sutherland

When Your Childhood Conan Bedroom Wall Art Is Still There 50 Years On

When the childhood Conan bedroom wall art you drew fifty years ago is still there and no one has painted it over in the half century since

Published Mon, 09 Mar 2026 09:28:07 -0500

by Rich Johnston

Comments

Article Summary

Discovered my childhood Conan wall art still intact in my old bedroom after 50 years.
The original Conan drawing has survived countless residents without being painted over.
The artwork dates back to the 1970s and was inspired by Barry Windsor Smith's iconic Conan style.
My lifelong passion for comics and art began early and left a lasting mark on my childhood home.

Kev F Sutherland is a favourite at Bleeding Cool as a comic book polyglot and true Renaissance Man of the twentieth and twenty-first century. He founded and put on the UK Comic Festivals, the main British comic con that ran annually in the years between UKCAC and Thought Bubble. He's written and drawn comics for Marvel, Viz and The Beano, He put on the stage show The Sitcom Trials and adapted it for television, which he hosted. He has been performing as the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre for decades. He runs school comic book workshops for kids, touring schools and libraries, where he gets kids to create comics there and then (while he does the cover) which they can take home with them. And in recent years, has been creating original graphic novel adaptations of Shakespeare plays, transposed across time and space, and (after a bit of begging) has finally got himself an American agent as well.

When Your Childhood Conan Bedroom Wall Art Is Still There 50 Years On — Photo from Kev F Sutherland

Well, he has also been revisiting his younger years, including the insanely detailed comic book/graphic design diaries he created as a child, showing prodigious talent and an obsession for geekdom even then. And he also found his childhood home in Leicester, England, when it was listed for sale online by the Right Move real estate agents. Including this image from the attic bedroom.

That Conan image is something Kev F drew on his bedroom wall fifty years ago. And it is still there, indeed it seels to be a selling feature of the house. And all the families who have lived there since have kept it, not painting it over, despite not knowing of its prominence. It's also a Barry Windsor Smith swipe, which definitely dates it to the seventies…. and dates Kef F to the seventies as well. I wonder if it is worth a pilgrimage sometime?

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!