The Dark Man, vol. 5, no. 1

The most recent issue of The Dark Man (vol. 5, no. 1), the peer-reviewed journal of Robert E. Howard studies is now available from Gavinicuss Books and Mike Chomko Books. This issue contains three articles from REH scholars Charles Hoffman, Jeffrey Kahan, and Philip Emery as well as several reviews by Hoffman and Morgan Holmes. This week I would like to take a closer look at the three main articles in this issue and add a few comments of my own.

The first article, “’The Shadow of the Beast’: A Closer Look,” by Hoffman discusses one of the more unseemly sides of Howard’s work in analyzing the theme of miscegenation in “Shadow” and some of the other “Piney Woods” horror stories. The subject of Howard’s views on “race” is certainly a touchy one and often evokes passionate responses on the part of his fans (see for example this 17-page thread from the official REH forums). Trying to decipher the personal views of someone who lived and died nearly a century before is always a dangerous game, even when one has access to numerous writings and personal correspondence. To paraphrase Mark Finn, Howard’s views on race were complicated. Whatever his personal views, it is undeniable that Howard, like many pulp writers (as well as creators from other media), did make use of a number of the often-demeaning racial stereotypes of his day.

In this article, Hoffman unflinchingly discusses one of these stereotypes — the sexually aggressive black male who lusts after white women — and looks at how Howard made use of it in certain of his stories in order to play on the fears of his readers. For Hoffman, the fear of miscegenation in white America was “at the root of horrific violence committed against blacks” (TDM 5.1, p. 8). This is something of a generalization, but there is probably a lot of truth there. Consider the incredible popularity of the film Birth of a Nation (1915), in which the ‘heroic’ Ku Klux Klan rides to the rescue of a helpless white woman in the clutches of a lustful black man, or the intense hatred directed at heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, who dared to cross the color-line not only in the ring, but also in the bedroom.

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This is it. Quite possibly the iconic Conan image. It adorns the walls of bedrooms and offices as posters, decorates the cover of Conan the Adventurer and others, even used as a basis for film posters — Conan or otherwise. Everything a Conan or Sword-and-Sorcery fan could want is in this image: the muscular hero standing atop a veritable hill of ruin and carnage; the hints of sorcery and eldritch horror lurking in the background; the inimitable Frazetta female reclining next to the hero.

But is that all there is? Art historians pore over the likes of a Caravaggio or Michelangelo, eagerly pointing out little tidbits like the artist inserting a self-portrait into the painting, or a sly insult in the background–even the allusion of religious commentary via biological symbolism. Could this same method be used with Frazetta?

Someone might say this is the height of pretentiousness, pseudo-intellectual drivel designed to imbue a commercial work with deeper meaning that simply isn’t present. “It’s just an awesome painting, you don’t need to analyse it!” On the contrary, I do need to analyze it, precisely because it’s an awesome painting. There’s more to the picture than the mere fact that it’s a muscular dude on a mound of corpses with a sword in hand and a babe holding his leg. A look at the details might shed some further light on why this image has become possibly the defining visual interpretation of Robert E. Howard’s Conan.

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Yet what is more beautiful than a splendid human body in coordinated motion? The lithe finely poised figure of a dancer, the pantherish body of a boxer with the wedge-shaped torso, the long swelling muscles rippling under the smooth velvety skin, the easy glide of onset and retreat, the perfect balance and carriage, the suppleness of limb–where is a finer model for an artist or sculptor?
–Robert E. Howard, letter to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. December 1932

It’s sometimes asserted that illustration, especially fantasy or science fiction illustration, is not on the same level as “true art”: the reasoning being that art as commercial, mercenary work, as opposed to art for art’s sake, excludes it from the pantheon of real artistic endeavour. Such a view is not only painfully divorced from the history of art, where many of the greatest paintings were commissions for pampered nobles or local churches, and it’s an entirely arbitrary and worthless distinction to make. How can the motivation behind a work of art’s creation exclude it from consideration? How can a beautiful painting fail to be considered as art, whereas something like, say, a dislocated urinal is? The notion of “high art” is thus fraught with fluctuating social trends, reinterpretations, and above all, subjectivity–much like “high literature,” or most odiously of all, those who insist on a fallacious distinction between “books” and “literature.” Much as C.S. Lewis disregarded the desire to appear mature as a sign of immaturity in itself, I long ago cast away such childish ideas of what was “allowed” to be art and what wasn’t, and started to make up my own mind.

Illustration, in my opinion, can be counted as being something more than what it was commissioned to be–it can speak beyond mere depiction of characters and events that happen in another medium, and convey the deeper themes and thoughts that may not be apparent at first glance. There can be a great synergy between author and illustrator that creates a symbiotic magic unique to the medium, where the two complement each other perfectly, making something that is greater than the sum of two parts–Roald Dahl & Quentin Blake, Arthur Rackham & Lewis Carroll, Lord Dunsany & Sidney Sime, George Cruikshank & Charles Dickens, J. Allen St. John & Edgar Rice Burroughs, Sidney Paget & Arthur Conan Doyle. Nobody provided a better example of this phenomenon than the combination of the king of fantastic art of the 20th Century, Frank Frazetta, and the master of Sword-and-Sorcery, Robert E. Howard.

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Here, to my knowledge, are the latest leaked pictures of Jason Momoa as Conan, or to be more accurate what you can contemplate are photos of photos taken at Cannes. The Film Festival started yesterday in that seaside city of Southern France, which hosts numerous screenings, market discussions and the like in addition to the official competition.

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Generally, first shots make an important impact in the buzz for a film. Be they tantalizing glimpses of the set, blurry images of actors in costume, or even a prop lying around, early shots do a lot to generate excitement about a project. Of course, the reverse can also be true: sometimes early pictures can be underwhelming, laughable, or scandalous.

The first photos from the set of “Conan” are out, as well as the first pictures of Jason Momoa (pictured above with an ecstatic fan) as our favourite Cimmerian. What can they tell us about the direction of the film?

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“The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune” is Robert E. Howard at his most poetic. His writing had made a quantum leap forward in quality compared with his earlier Kull stories as he transitions from working in familiar genres to blazing a trail none had attempted before him. More than his gift for well-turned phrases and imagery so powerful, it literally sears itself in the reader’s mind; Howard reaches for a depth of character and achieves a work that is both psychologically and philosophically rewarding. Sadly, as the author would later tell his friend, Clyde Smith that he was disappointed in the result and had resolved to never attempt anything so deep again.

The tale starts off with Kull, plagued with ennui and yearning for something more substantive than riches, power, and transient beauty. The brooding king rejects the company of loyal Brule, the Pict who won the king’s respect and friendship in “The Shadow Kingdom,” but foolishly takes the advice of an alluring female, one of the mysterious “Elder Race” which ruled before the Valusians. In Howard’s world view (and in truth, a pulp convention of the day), the exotic female generally proves untrustworthy and the nameless beauty who appears at the beginning and the conclusion of “The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune” proves no exception.

The girl appeals to Kull’s desire for spiritual sustenance. She promises him that the wizard, Tuzun Thune possesses hidden knowledge of what was and will be and is able to converse with the dead. The allure of the occult is enough to send Kull, whose pagan faith in Valka is apparently as unfulfilling as his earthly riches, in search of the hidden knowledge promised by the Eastern wizard. Yet when Kull visits the house of Tuzun Thune, he finds the wizard interested in little more than verbally sparring with the barbarian king.

Just as Kull appears to tire of the wizard’s bantering, Tuzun Thune tempts him into gazing into his mirrors with the promise of wisdom for “mirrors are the world.” Kull gazes and is bewitched by his own reflection and is immediately confronted by the thought that his reflection might in fact be the real him and that he is only the reflection. This is more than just a passing primeval fear, but the recurring thought that keeps Kull mesmerized day after day even at the exclusion of viewing the distant prehistoric past or the far-flung future.

Kull is momentarily distracted to see the world map of the present radically altered in centuries to come. The wizard responds with what might be the author’s own code of existence:

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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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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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Robert E. Howard’s “The Shadow Kingdom” is a remarkable advancement upon “Exile of Atlantis” and the “Am-ra of the Ta’an” fragments. Howard’s first published story of what will later be known as the Pre-Cataclysmic Age leaves behind the derivative world of Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiches to mine new territory in terms of character and setting as well as genre. Kull, the barbarian who has recently seized the crown and now must struggle to keep it, marks a significant break from both Howard and the fantasy genre’s past while continuing to build upon the age-old theme of the outsider as noble savage. Howard was hardly the first young man who felt a sense of kinship with such characters. It is not hard to imagine the aspiring young writer, alienated in Cross Plains, pouring his feelings into the exiled Atlantean who remains an outcast even after rising to the throne of Valusia.

The story opens with Kull making a proper royal entrance. Unsurprisingly, the barbarian king’s empathy rests not with Valusia’s finest archers and trumpeters, but with the mercenaries paid to act as foot soldiers – men who show the king little respect, but who demonstrate integrity for all their brash honesty and disdain for pretence.

This sets the stage for the introduction of Brule, the noble Pict destined to become Kull’s most loyal companion. While Brule enters the series as a figure of suspicion, Kull soon modifies his opinion of his character. Brule, like Kull, is a man of integrity. It is not hard to imagine Howard crafting his story through the eyes of his protagonist starting out with a prejudice against Brule only to have the Pict prove his loyalty. Howard the writer literally became Kull the character. This intense and unique identification between creator and creation is part of what gives Howard’s best work its strength for the author imparts to the reader his genuine surprise at unforeseen developments. The world of Howard’s stories was real to its author and this is what separates him from perhaps every other fantasy writer with the exception of Tolkien.

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“So you could steal from him the only thing he would never give you — the ring with the jewel men call the Star of Khorala — the star stolen from the queen of Ophir, who would pay a roomful of gold for its return.”

–”The Man-Eaters of Zamboula”

Like Kyros, Khorala is something of a mystery in the Hyborian Age. It doesn’t have hints and references spread through Howard’s work like eastern Khitai, nor does it even have contextual evidence like Sabatea. There is no definite quantification of its nature: is Khorala a place, a person, a state of being? Looking into history, there are clues to be found. With a bit of application, one could make some intriguing suppositions about Khorala, and the place it has in the Hyborian Age.

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