THE CIMMERIAN BLOG CLOSED ON JUNE 11, 2010.

For details on why we decided to call it quits after six years, click here.

It was a bittersweet night for the Cimmerian bloggers that were on hand for Howard Days 2010. On the final day of this site’s existence as an active blog, TheCimmerian.com received the The Stygian Award for the best website at the Robert E. Howard Foundation Awards ceremony. There is something fitting about going out at the top of your game in Howardom. On behalf of all the TC bloggers past and present, thank you all so very much.

LEO SAYS: And with that announcement, we’ll bring this blog to a close. Thanks to everyone who made it such a going concern for all these years, and be sure to check out all of the other REH sites and blogs on the sidebar for all of your REH/JRRT/fantasy needs.

Damon C. Sasser just picked up the latest issue of the Robert E. Howard: Two-Gun Raconteur journal from the printer. It will be available at Howard Days 2010 on June 11.

Since the announcement of the fourteenth issue of the TGR journal on TC last April, Damon has posted some updates on its contents, which will be detailed below.

Above, you can see Michael L. Peters’ cover featuring El Borak. Two of his drawings from a four-plate Solomon Kane portfolio based on “The Hills of the Dead” are also illustrating this blog entry.

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Well, it appears that’s that. Just a scant week ago, I was astonished to discover it had been exactly one year since my debut on The Cimmerian, and now it appears my first year will be my last on the site.

Working at TC has been the time of my life. I followed the blog for years, always hoping that someday I might be able to make an impact comparable to it: maybe even join the elite ranks of TC itself. I was astonished to see Steve Tompkins post my silly little story, and for it to result in a great throwdown between Leo & Steve on the merits of Conan the Barbarian and Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. To be invited as a regular (after all that) in 2009 was, at the risk of being terribly trite, a dream come true.

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Things change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. The Cimmerian blog has been pretty steady for well-nigh five years in providing  coverage of topics both REH-centric and not.

In 2007, Leo Grin typed ”The Deathliest Hallow,” opening the TC floodgates for numerous JRRT-related posts from Steve Tompkins and others. Blog entries about David Gemmell, Karl Edward Wagner and Charles R. Saunders have never been few nor far between here at The Cimmerian. Check the archives and tell me it ain’t so. The Cimmerian always supported the fantasy genre that Robert E. Howard loved (and, in the case of sword-and-sorcery, created). From the earliest days of the site, the bloody history of mankind, a topic REH found endlessly fascinating, has been explored.

Perhaps that matters to some. Perhaps not.

The Cimmerian blog seems to have mattered to a few people. To those loyal readers, I raise a mead-horn. Y’all were the best. My utmost thanks to the bloggers who kept The Cimmerian’s bloody sword swinging in the hinterlands of the aether all these years. Nobody involved (Leo Grin first and foremost) ever made a dime from writing for The Cimmerian blog. Love for the works of Robert E. Howard was the primary motivation and criterion for membership here.

The Cimmerian blog will cease as of the second weekend in June. I hope y’all enjoyed the ride.

*Art by Rebel Highlander.

LEO ADDS: Kind of a cryptic announcement that Deuce posted above, so allow me to elaborate a bit.

I was originally fully set on closing down the blog circa December 2008 when the print mag ended its run — I was ready to move away from REH fandom and into other endeavors, and wanted to make a clean end of it all. I figured the other bloggers would easily find new homes at REHupa or at Damon’s TGR blog, and the TC archives could be moved somewhere, and that would be that. But at the time, blogger Steve Tompkins implored me to allow him to keep it going under his leadership. I capitulated, gave up the reins to him. . . and a few months later poor Steve was dead.

TC was very fortunate for Deuce to step in and take over the managerial role at that time, and under his reign he added many bloggers and the hit-count exploded. Me and Steve got maybe 10,000 hits a month, give or take, but under Deuce he built that up to the current total of around 80,000 a month, or almost a million per year — not bad for a fantasy niche blog.

But Real Life issues of various kinds have been piling up on Deuce and me for many months now (that eternal fandom lament), to the point where neither of us is able to give TC the editing and management time it deserves. Remember, this blog was originally an adjunct to the TC print mag, and there was a certain focus and set of standards inherent in that endeavor (set down, it should always be remembered, by my friend and mentor Don Herron). Even though the focus of the blog has grown well beyond REH, I never wanted to lose those standards. Maintaining those standards, I learned from my time publishing the print mag, takes active editing and management: developing themes and subjects around which to post, correcting and enhancing the essays and posts of the newer people who may not be as up on the old scholarship, maintaining a certain editorial voice and taste. Even my own pieces went through this crucible at TC, to their benefit. We used to routinely do this back in the day, and the new crop of bloggers deserve the same courtesy and attention.

But of late, Deuce and I haven’t been able to be that involved — I’m ashamed to say I’ve been so busy I haven’t even been able to read many of the current posts at TC. And so every time Deuce and I see a mistake in a blog post we should have corrected before publication, or a critical take that it was our job as manager/editor to help expand or deepen, we’ve felt like we’re letting the TC name down. If I had it to do over, I would have closed the blog down back in 2008, but I don’t have that time-travel luxury. So now, in May of 2010, with less and less time for it, Deuce and I both decided that we should bite the bullet now, better late than never. The popular TC bloggers will not vanish from the web — some will pop up at the other REH and fantasy blogs you guys visit (REHupa, REH:TGR, Black Gate, et cetera). And many of them have personal blogs as well for you to monitor. I’m sure this move will have the effect of making these other venues all the stronger, and that’s as it should be.

So that’s the story. It’s been a good run (five years for the print mag, some six for the blog) but Life moves on. If you are a reader who wants to keep up with the things TC used to post on, I’d recommend checking out REHupa.com, REH: Two-Gun Raconteur, the forums at Conan.com (especially the REH-specific forum), and the group blog at Black Gate magazine. If the TC bloggers know where they are heading off to and where you can find them in the future, I trust they will post that information here in the coming weeks. We’ll keep the blog open for them here until June 11, the anniversary of Robert E. Howard’s own death. Soon after that, I expect that the TC archives will be shuttled off to some other site (most likely my personal site at leogrin.com) where any of you can continue to access them, and the internet address “thecimmerian.com” will vanish from the Internet.

Thanks to everyone who, as contributor or reader, helped make TC a going concern for its run. See you around the blogosphere.

Stephen Hickman's depiction of the infernal maelstrom that is the siege of Minas Tirith

The two Middle-earth masterpieces Tolkien lived to see publications of are somewhat remarkable in their differences. The Hobbit is a tale with as much humour, song and merriment as it has dark terror, strenuous toil and rousing adventure: The Lord of the Rings almost seems a different animal in many ways. Many a reader might prefer one over the other: The Hobbit’s light and breezy prose winning some over, the grand epic narrative of The Lord of the Rings convincing others. Then when you throw The Silmarillion and The History of Middle-earth into the fray…

Even the professionals find themselves respecting both, but being partial to one. Irene Gallo has written a fascinating article, where she has gathered renowned Tolkien artists and posed such questions: which tome is their favourite, which do they prefer to illustrate, which was harder or easier to adapt into a visual medium, and so on. Among the illustrators queried are Ted Nasmith, Justin Gerard, John Howe, Sam Bosma, Mattias Adolfsson, Stephen Hickman, and familiar Howard illustrator extraordinaire Michael W. M. Kaluta.

Take a look!

Rogue Blades Entertainment, publisher of the excellent fantasy anthologies Rage of the Behemoth and Return of the Sword, has announced by way of editor Jason M. Waltz the first annual RBE Challenge! fundraising Writing Contest. The fifteen top stories will be printed in Discovery, the competition anthology.

The cover art featured above is by V. Shane.

A few words by Jason Waltz:

[Discovery] is a competition anthology open to anyone who writes heroic action adventure of ANY genre! Using V Shane’s above artwork and the title Discovery as inspiration, pen me mighty and mysterious tales of action and adventure. Speculative fiction is NOT required for Challenge! themes! Sword & Sorcery, Sword & Planet, Soul & Sandal, Western, Mystery, Dark Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Sci-Fi, even Horror and Romance! You name it, so long as it’s heroic fiction, you can submit it.

More details (including prizes, judges, submission guidelines, etc…) can be read on the official announcement page. Submissions will open on June 1st, 2010 and run till September 1st, 2010. Jason is expecting yarns between 3,000 and 9,000 words. The entry fee is a cheap $10, so if you’re an aspiring writer, this might be your chance to see your words printed in an anthology by a (good) professional publisher of heroic adventure.

Mythos Con, a new convention celebrating the life and works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, is scheduled for January 6 to 9, 2011, in Phoenix, Arizona. It will feature art, merchants, movies, panels and games. A large number of writers, artists and film makers will attend, including contributors to the Cimmerian print journal like Donald Sidney-Fryer and Chuck Hoffman.

You can find more details on the official website by clicking here.

Thanks to Grim Blogger for the heads-up.

Courtesy of the indispensable Coming Attractions website:

The shirt design above is by award winning artist David Burton. It is the art chosen by Project Pride –the Robert E. Howard Museum of Cross Plains, TX. — for the 2010 annual Robert E. Howard Days. Project Pride helps maintain the Robert E. Howard House and Museum.

The image is printed on a nice gray t-shirt and is now available. Shirts are eighteen dollars (this includes postage). They’ll ship the next day upon receiving payment. Shirts come in all ADULT sizes from S to 3X. Make the checks or money orders to: Project Pride and send to: PO Box 534, Cross Plains, TX 76443.

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Robert Rodriguez

Only a short while after the sad news of Frank Frazetta passing, many have reflected on the man’s impact on the worlds of television, film, music and art. One of the most ambitious was his collaboration with Ralph Bakshi, Fire and Ice. Among the fans of that rotoscoped extravaganza are director Robert Rodriguez and Harry Knowles. The long-haired, bearded, bespectacled (no relation) master of Aint-it-Cool-News talked with Rodriguez recently, where he announces he has gained the rights to Fire and Ice.

In addition to this new news, Rodriguez talked about Machete (where he likens Danny Trejo’s character to his take on Frazetta’s Conan) and Frank Frazetta himself.  A fan of Frazetta taking control of one of Bakshi’s most celebrated films, and so infused with Frazetta’s art and style that it might as well be called Frazetta: The Movie? I’m guardedly excited. Read all about it here.