“For every being there is an appointed time, and even the gods must die….”

 – Robert E. Howard, “The Grey God Passes“

To his thousands of fans — to the many artists who grew up in his shadow — to me personally, Frank Frazetta was a god. In this media-driven age when pop idols are deified on an almost daily basis, it does not seem so ludicrous to make such a statement about an individual whose work, whose creations redefined how entire genres would be represented in countless minds’ eyes. At every stage of his career he stood out from his peers as something special, someone to be emulated, a man ahead of his time. As he eschewed his mortal coil last week, moving on to whatever lies beyond, it seemed at first to me that world had changed. That something great and vital was lost. But in seeing so much of his work being displayed in forums, on blogs; in reading so many wonderful tributes about what Frank and his work meant to so many individuals, I realized that in fact he left the world a much richer place than it was when he entered it.

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Sixty years ago this month, a comic book with a very new type of story hit the newsstands. Avon’s Out of this World one-shot, cover dated June 1950, sported a classic science fiction cover by Gene Fawcette featuring a menacing robot carrying off a hapless damsel while her would-be rescuer fires his ray gun. The comic was an anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories, including “Lunar Station” by Joe Kubert. But it is the final story in the book whose title should raise the eyebrows of Robert E. Howard fans — “Crom the Barbarian.”

Written by Gardner F. Fox and illustrated by John Giunta, “Crom the Barbarian” is listed by the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide as the first sword-and-sorcery comic story. Whether this designation is accurate or not is probably a matter for debate. There are fantasy stories and characters — primarily Arthurian and mythological — that appear earlier in comics (Prince Valiant would be a notable example), but “Crom the Barbarian” is very likely the first true Howardian sword-and-sorcery story. It is littered with tropes and place names that can found in the Conan stories — the name of the titular protagonist, “Crom”, being the most obvious example.

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Or, “A Pedantic Nitpicker Strikes Again.”

BOOM! Studios brings you an epic story by CONAN creator Robert E. Howard published in comic book form for the first time ever!

His name is Cormac FitzGeoffrey, and he has no master. As a wandering warrior born and bred on the battlefield, Cormac is a renowned fighter, a ruthless adversary, and a man who is no stranger to the ways of bloodshed and violence. Cormac counts his friends on one hand, so when he learns that his most recent liege has been murdered, nothing will stop his quest for revenge. By oath, a path of vengence will be marked by the blood of his enemies. Sword swinging, beserker action only the way Robert E. Howard and BOOM! Studios could deliver. Featuring covers by fan-favorite THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN artist Joe Jusko and SLAINE artist Karl Richardson!

A month after the initial news broke of Cormac Fitzgeoffrey’s comic debut, Comic Book Resources has nine pages from the comic online. Since the Hiberno-Norman terminator is one of my favourite creations, I was eager to feast my eyes on what BOOM! Studios brought to the table. Now, I have a few problems with what I’ve seen so far, but in comparison to certain other comics claiming to be inspired by Howard, it’s like Michael Alan Nelson was channeling REH himself.

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I announced an upcoming Breckinridge Elkins webcomic here at The Cimmerian last December. Australian artist Gary Chaloner posted today on The Official Robert E. Howard Forum that his new website dedicated to his comic adaptation of Howard’s Gent from Bear Creek is now fully operational:

Just letting everyone here know that the brand-spanking new webcomic and website has launched over at www.BreckinridgeElkins.com ! Pages will update weekly initially, but if the feedback is good, we hope to increase the frequency. More articles and extras will be added as the weeks roll by as well.

So please pop on over and give the online adventures of Breck Elkins a go!

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While my opinion on Roy Thomas’ many runs on Conan has run the gamut, even at his worst, he’s easily the best Conan comic writer out there, and I’d wager one of the finest pastichers to boot.

At his best, Thomas translated Howard into a new medium practically seamlessly. The movies, television shows and video games have thus far not even attempted to translate Howard’s Conan into a new medium, making unnecessary and sometimes baffling alterations to character, setting and themes. Thomas created the first precedent for actually adapting Robert E. Howard: rather than cannibalize elements and names, Thomas brought Howard stories, with their original plots, characters and themes, into the sequential art form. No swiping of set pieces from other stories, no conflation of plots into a new tale, no completely invented and contradictory plots, just Robert E. Howard’s story, prose, and poetry.

Many of Marvel comics’ problems were a result of the suffocating Comics Codes Authority, though Thomas did an admirable job in cheating them, as chronicled in the introductions to the Chronicles of Conan trade paperbacks. However, he had a few missteps: Red Sonja being the one I have the biggest problem with. It irritates me no end to see the many times Windsor-Smith or Buscema drew a gallery of Conan’s past loves: Bêlit and Valeria would be present, but Sonja would always be drawn bigger and in the foreground, pushing the far superior original Howard characters into the background. Since Sonja had her own series much of the time, I can understand from a publicity viewpoint, but it’s no less irksome. Even so, I’d take Red Sonja over Janissa or Karela any day of the week. Or Khalar Zym.

Thus, with a little trepidation, but mostly a good deal of excitement, I’m very interested to learn that Roy Thomas is coming back to Conan. What does he have planned for his grand return?

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The Darrell Richardson copy of A Gent from Bear Creek sold for a record $11,000.

The recent Adventure House auction of the Darrell C. Richardson collection had some mixed results, but overall prices for Howard-related publications, particularly the scarcer items, were very strong. The Richardson copy of A Gent from Bear Creek sold for $12,100, likely a record for a mass-produced REH collectible. The scarcer pulps also did quite well, as did some of the fanzines. The Gnome Press and Arkham House books were somewhat flat, however, and the Richardson copies of Skull-Face and Others and Always Comes Evening failed to meet the reserve.

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A comic strip by REH from 1923.

Conan, Kull, and Solomon Kane — three of Robert E. Howard’s best known characters have all had great success in the comics medium over the past few decades. Bran Mak Morn, Esau Cairn, and Cormac Mac Art have been adapted in graphic narrative as well. Two-Gun Bob himself is even the star of Jim and Ruth Keegan’s ongoing back-up strip in the Dark Horse Conan series. Howard’s larger-than-life characters and fast-paced action-oriented prose seem well-suited for translation to the comics page, but what would he have thought of all this? Did he read comics? Would he have written for the comics, as many other pulps writers did, if had lived longer? A recently-bumped thread on the official REH forum has been discussing this topic off-and-on for the last several years and some of the contributors such as Don Carter, Rusty Burke, Rob Roehm and Mark Finn have all added to our knowledge of Howard and his interest in the medium of sequential art.

There is no doubt that Howard read comic strips and this should not be a surprise — the newspaper “funnies” were a major form of entertainment in the days before television. They were read by everyone — children and adults alike — and they often sold newspapers on their own. Many of the popular strips took up a full page on Sunday, unlike the comics today where even the Sunday strips get two or three lines at best. The earliest comics were humor strips, referred to as “gag-a-day,” but in early 1929 the adventure strip was born with the appearance of both Buck Rogers and Tarzan (both characters that were created in the pulps). They were soon followed by Dick Tracy, Captain Easy, Mandrake the Magician, Flash Gordon, and others.

One of the earliest examples of Howard’s interest in comic strips, comes from one that he created himself. In a 1923 letter to Clyde Tevis Smith, he included a crudely-drawn, but funny strip depicting a caveman’s attempt to win over his sweetheart (who is playing hard-to-get) in typical stone-age style. One can already see the teenage Howard developing his sense of comedic timing and his affection for slapstick violence that would later make his Breckinridge Elkins stories so successful.

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Thanks to Coming Attractions for the heads-up: Cormac Fitzgeoffrey is leaping into the realm of sequential art with Hawks of Outremer.

Writer:  Robert E. Howard, Michael Alan Nelson, Artist: Damian Couceiro, Covers by Joe Jusko and Karl Richardson.

BOOM! Studios brings you an epic story by Conan creator Robert E. Howard published in comic book form for the first time ever! As a wandering warrior born and bred on the battlefield, Cormac FitzGeoffrey is a renowned fighter, a ruthless adversary, and a man who is no stranger to the ways of bloodshed and violence. Cormac counts his friends on one hand, so when he learns that his most recent liege has been murdered, nothing will stop his quest for revenge. By oath, a path of vengence will be marked by the blood of his enemies.

32 pages, Full Color,   SRP: $3.99

Is this really only the first time the Silver Skull has made the transition to comics? It’s hard to believe: the Hiberno-Norman juggernaut would’ve made fantastic entries for Savage Sword. Of course, I might be biased, seeing as Cormac Fitz is one of my favourite of Howard’s characters, and I did a three part exploration of the character a while back.

I’m not acquainted with the work of Michael Alan Nelson, but among his credits are Fall of Cthulhu, a series of what are effectively “modern” mythos tales in comic format. Likewise, I’m unfamiliar with the art of Damian Couceiro, but judging by the work on his blog, he seems competent enough. His work isn’t as detailed as, say, Darick Robertson, but that could lend itself well to an action-packed comic.

With Dark Horse in control of Conan and Kull, and the resulting adaptations running the gamut of fantastic to disappointing, I’m intrigued to see what BOOM! Studios brings to the table. It’s undiscovered territory for me, and I hope they do the Son of Geoffrey justice.

"Swords of Mars" by Frank Frazetta

The Albin Polasek Museum and Sculpture Gardens in Winter Park, Florida is currently hosting “Maidens and Monsters: The Art of Science Fiction, Adventure, and Fantasy,” an exhibit of original illustrations from pulp magazines and book covers by some of the most renowned artists of the 20th century. Around fifty works by over twenty different illustrators are on display, including pieces by Frank Frazetta, N.C. Wyeth, John Allen St. John, Margaret Brundage, Hannes Bok, Virgil Finlay, Frank R. Paul, Alex Schomburg, Michael Whelan, Kelly Freas, and Roy Krenkel. All of the artwork in the exhibit is from the famous collection of Stephen D. Korshak, an Orlando-based attorney and the author of A Hannes Bok Treasury (1993), Grandmaster of Fantasy: The Paintings of John Allen St. John (2008), and From the Pen of Paul: The Fantastic Images of Frank R. Paul (2009).

Last weekend, I had the privilege of seeing the exhibit while I was in Orlando attending MegaCon and for a science fiction fan and pulp enthusiast like me it was an amazing experience. I was joined on the Saturday afternoon excursion by my wife and a few of my fellow REH fans and comic book and pulp collectors. The museum is located near downtown Winter Park, about twenty or thirty minutes north of Orlando, depending on traffic. The grounds are beautifully landscaped gardens accented by original sculpture and the staff was very friendly and enthusiastic about the exhibit.

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My name is Keith Taylor and this is my first post. A Tasmanian-born long-time resident of Melbourne, I’m married to an — I assure you — lovely and very smart girl named Anna. We have a twenty-year-old son. He’d kill me if I said anything about him on the web, no doubt.

It’s chiefly through the interest and help of Deuce Richardson that I’m here and holding forth at all, so, many thanks, Deuce.

And I’m a writer.

It appears I was born that way. At least, I was a voracious reader from the word go, and writing my own stories at the age of nine, bundles and reams of them, which I would examine, find wanting, and methodically burn in a backyard fire at the end of each year, keeping only the few scripts and ideas I reckoned still had possibilities. I couldn’t stop, either.

I’m best known for the Bard series, and for having written a couple of novels with Andrew J. Offutt, based on Robert E. Howard’s Gaelic pirate Cormac Mac Art and his Danish friend Wulfhere — The Tower of Death and When Death Birds Fly from Ace Books. Having the chance was a pleasure and privilege, but it also taught me that there’s nobody who could write a Robert E. Howard story, or character, except Howard himself.

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