Warren Magazine's...El Cid

Gonzalo Mayo's might be better remembered for his beautiful stories on Warren Publishing's Vampirella, but some of his earliest work for the company was in Eerie #65 for April of 1975 on the character El Cid. Known as the Spanish King Arthur, "The Chronicles of El Cid" written in the thirteen century tells the story of Rodriquez Diaz De Vivar who was born in 1040. A noble who received a warriors schooling under King Fernando, he distinguished himself in battle against the invading Moors and was given the title "Campeador" taking command of the King's forces. Nine original sword and sorcery stories were produced for Warren's Eerie magazine scripted by Budd Lewis and illustrated by Mayo, that have recently been collected in a beautiful Dark Horse hardback. Warren's award winning writer, Lewis, created some exciting stories with our hero fighting demons, goblins, trolls, sea monsters, and other vile creations over his few appearances. But the real draw for many in this the short-lived series was  Gonzalo's extremely intricate artwork with its lovely women, savage battles, and almost hallucinating fantasy scenes as shown on this lovely title page below.