In the wake of the Robert E. Howard navy’s sinking of the U.S.S. Van Ostrand, Conan.com forum veteran Mark Singleton has proposed an award dedicated to those who propagate myths, misconceptions and downright lies about the Man From Cross Plains.

Like most of you, I was outraged by Maggie Von Ostrand’s article on REH, by far the the most incindiary piece thing ever written about the man IMO. As REH continues to gain popularity through film adaptations and whatnot, my fear is that the lies and misinformation is going to continue to be perpetuated. As Mark Twain said, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes”. As a way of fighting back, I propose an annual award, the DeCampista Award, given out to a single individual who did the most in the calender year to set back the progress of REH studies, both in terms of the man himself and his literary creations. It could be voted on by a panel of REH scholars (Mark, Rusty Patrice, etc).

Mark provides a fairly strong list of contenders, ranging from the ignorant to the willfully misrepresentative, from scriptwriters and authors, to journalists and editors. An eclectic collection, to be sure. I have put together my own thoughts on Mark’s nominees, and pull no punches in the process. You have been warned!

The Nominees:

Arnie Fenner

… while Robert certainly was a tremendously gifted storyteller with a wholly original voice, capable of spinning an exciting yarn in first draft that could capture his reader’s imagination… he simply wasn’t a great writer.

…his writing is more rudimentary than lyrical and there is very little variety in his fiction. His characters are essentially very similar, regardless of the setting or time period…and he often recycled his plots and repeated situations, phrases, and descriptions. Attention to detail never got in the way of the story Howard wanted to tell….

–Arnie Fenner, in his introduction to …And Their Memory Was A Bitter Tree

Mr Fenner is the first choice, and while his maligned introduction might be slightly outside this year (the controversy was mostly in the latter months of 2008, a while before my time on The Cimmerian) it would be a shame to not have him nominated. Mark Finn, Leo Grin, Steve Tompkins, Bill “Indy” Cavalier, and Rusty Burke have just about all the bases covered on exactly why and how Fenner’s introduction was garbage.

Unfortunately, unlike the case with Maggie Van Ostrand, Fenner’s introduction is still out there to poison the minds of Howard neophytes. Short of mulching all the existing copies of Bitter Tree, or simply placing a sticker directing future readers to the above links next to the price tag, there’s little that can be done about it save posting reviews at Amazon and elsewhere. It’s up to us to be proactive, to get the word out: being passive, and only correcting those who come to us, just leaves thousands of others wallowing in ignorance, believing Wright’s editing was the vital element that cut Howard’s rough diamonds into shining jewels, and that REH was merely on the level of “good storytellers” like J. K. Rowling instead of the greats of modern American literature.

Fenner’s introduction to Bitter Tree just makes that job a little harder.

Maggie Van Ostrand

If you think you come from a dysfunctional family, you’ve got nothing on Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Cimmerian, later called Conan the Barbarian. But was Conan really a fictional character? Not exactly. At least, I don’t think so. Conan was almost surely based on Howard’s own father, Isaac Howard, M.D., who practiced medicine on the frontier of the American West.

Both of REH’s parents were beyond weird and there is no doubt they created Robert’s tortured mind. Much of the energetic transmogrification of the tales in his head to the pages of pulp fiction, and later to motion pictures and gaming, emanated from what he experienced as a child. It would create in him a kind of fantastical madness.

For instance, Robert E. Howard was in love with his mother, while his father believed he had brought a curse upon the family by killing a whippoorwill. I believe these things fomented the unsettled, repressed, and chaotic mind that burst forth in the character of Conan.

REH was more than one of Stephen King’s inspirations, more than a flayed mind, and more than the tortured individual so brilliantly portrayed by Vincent D’Onofrio in the biopic The Whole Wide World. Who was this man?

–Maggie Von Ostrand’s “Was Conan the Barbarian Really A Fictional Character?”

In the space of a week, Von Ostrand’s sensationalist tract became the stuff of legend. Here was an article that put every hack scribble written about The One Who Walked Alone to shame. Not a single line goes by without a mistake, misconception, or outright invention on the part of Ms Van Ostrand.

Within two days, the outrage and passionate action of Howard scholars and fans resulted in the offending essay being heavily prefaced, and its bastard offspring on Texas Escapes whisked away into the aether. Would that such passion could elicit such a response in the upcoming Conan and Solomon Kane films! Still, as Mark Finn would attest, it’s better to chip away at a wall in the hope it’ll crack, than merely sling insults and protestations at the architect.

“Who was this man?” I don’t know, Maggie, but it sure as hell wasn’t Robert E. Howard.

Thomas Dean Donnelly & Joshua Oppenheimer

[ CONAN ] He’s in his 20s to early 30s, Caucasian, powerfully built, broad-shouldered, sun browned skin lined with scars. Piercing blue eyes and square-cut black mane, tall. He is a savage killer that has matured into the refinement his father tried to teach him when he was young. Conan is very smart, almost inhumanly strong, and very cunning. His entire life, from the moment of his birth, has been shaped by violence. Being the last of his tribe and having to watch his father die a cruel death, he is determined avenge his peoples slaughter by killing all those who led the attack on the Cimmerians, including the all-powerful Khalar Singh. He is prepared to die in order to accomplish his goal. What Conan did not expect, was to find a reason to live? LEAD

–Conan, according to the leaked casting sheet for the upcoming film

No pictures of Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer seem to exist on the internet, so the above is a representative picture: the poster to one of their most heinous crimes against literature. I’m not hopeful that the upcoming Conan will be a marked improvement on their excremental A Sound of Thunder.

Donnelly & Oppenheimer have not said much about their upcoming disaster, but what we’ve seen speaks for itself. There is practically no Robert E. Howard to be seen in this mess, and plenty of Conan the Barbarian’s influence. The Conan in this script is not, and couldn’t be, Robert E. Howard’s creation. There’s no way any of this adventure could happen in Howard’s Hyborian Age, due to vast differences in politics and geography. Even the themes–that a wild soul must be “tamed” in order to be a “true warrior” being the absolute nadir–just can’t work.

To Doppenheimer’s credit, they haven’t been in any interviews that I’m aware of. I can’t even find a picture of them on the internet. I guess they’re smart enough to realize that nothing they could say could make this project look any better to Howard fans.

Arvid Nelson

Our story takes place thousands of years before Conan’s time. Thulsa isn’t necessarily evil… yet. But he has irresistible charisma, that “cult of personality” the very best and the very worst people seem to have. He hasn’t decided how he’s going to use that power yet. He doesn’t know whether he wants to be Mussolini or Gandhi.

–Arvid Nelson on Thulsa Doom just following the Great Cataclysm… which takes place after “The Cat and the Skull”

Nelson’s defense of Will Conrad’s Pictafarians has been the source of much consternation, but it’s probably his work on Dynamite’s Thulsa Doom which is the most egregious of all. The Pictafarians and Fool’s Doom would be enough, but Nelson’s Kull is groaning with other discrepancies: Kull’s wife, the rat-faced Nosferatu, the religious-political dynamics of The Great Serpent religion, the steals from Arthurian legend and Warhammer.

Despite I and others explaining why portraying Brule and the Picts as black makes a complete mockery of Howard’s Nameless Tribe, as well as eviscerating his attempts to reconcile John Milius’ Reverend Thulsa Doom with Howard’s skull-faced horror, Nelson is adamant in defending his ideas. He misrepresents Howard fans’ objections in the most offensive way possible: by saying that we are mistakenly projecting post-Howard traditions onto Howard’s own words. Instead of accepting that we’re basing our facts on Howard’s writings, he seems to imply that we’re a bunch of clueless fanboys who couldn’t possibly have done as much research as he did: that we’re so disorganized and sloppy, we rely on “post-Howard traditions” to form the foundation of our arguments.

It’s one thing to defend your position, but falsely saying the opposition is wrong, because of some perceived reliance on irrelevant outside material, is quite another.

Michael J. Bassett

Well Kane is a guy that is as psychologically intense as he is physically so there is an adult sophistication involved there. But Solomon Kane is also first and foremost a movie I wanted to entertain people with and I know they will be entertained. But I hope they get from the character is understanding. This is a true hero’s journey, he is this broken hero that you can connect with and understand his nature in such a ****** up world but with all those physical and mental challenges that go into that.

–Michael J. Bassett on the alleged hero’s journey Kane undergoes

Interestingly enough, Basset’s name is by far the most controversial nominee among the forum users. True, Bassett has been open and complimentary about Howard in a way the other nominees couldn’t fathom, and true, he did state that he wanted to write a true adaptation, instead of the maligned origin story he concocted for Solomon Kane. However, even as a minor offender, I believe he should stay on the list.

It isn’t the fact that Bassett’s doing a pastiche, it’s that his pastiche origin is so alien and incompatible with Howard’s Solomon Kane that it completely colours the rest of the stories with a new perspective.  By transforming Kane from a man who’s been a puritan fighting the forces of evil all his life, into a scoundrel who spent the first twenty-odd years of it as a murderous plunderer, Kane has become a different character. How can one look at “Solomon Kane” and “The Blue Flame of Vengeance” in the same way, knowing that for much of his early adulthood, Kane was as vicious and monstrous as the brigands he battles in those tales? How can one read “The Moon of Skulls” and “Wings in the Night” knowing that Kane spilt as much innocent blood as Nakari and the Akaana? How can one see Kane’s resolute goodness and bravery in “Solomon Kane’s Homecoming” without the taint of hypocrisy, knowing that he was once just as evil as any of the human foes he fought?

Bassett’s nowhere near as bad as the others on the list, though, not least because he’s pretty damn respectful of REH, but that can’t explain all the changes. Studios demanding an origin tale can only account for so much, since Bassett has defended his alterations. Somehow, Bassett thinks that his Kane is perfectly compatible with Howard’s: a bloodthirsty, avaricious, merciless privateer, somehow being a fitting origin for the one Howard fantasy protagonist who could be considered a genuinely good man. I’ll give Bassett all the credit in the world for the good things he does for REH, but it’s only fair that I give him deserving criticism for the bad. He isn’t a front-runner by any means, but it would be remiss to have him not nominated, any more that Arvid Nelson or John Clute should be excused for their praise of Howard.

In addition, I’d like to add my own nominee:

Gary Romeo

There seems to be a little confusion about de Camp’s book. It has not been completely debunked (if someone thinks this is so, then please state where and when this complete debunking was published; there have been minor articles keying in on one or two points here and there but nothing “complete”) and “hopelessy flawed” is definitely an opinion not a fact.

The problem with Maggie’s article is that like Patrice said, she made stuff up. Patrice by the way agrees with de Camp’s central theme that Dark Valley became Cimmeria. So even those who disagree, in the main with de Camp, will agree sometimes.

Some of the responses are full of their own mistakes. Novalyne Price says on page 6 of “Day of the Stranger” Necronomicon Press 1989 that “I was corresponding with Sprague de Camp, and finally I wrote to him and said “Hey I’m going to have to write my own book about Bob.” And he wrote back. “By all means, do that,” because he thought that I would have something to say that no one else would say, or could say. So he encouraged me very much to get started on it.”

–Gary Romeo pulling a Kanye West in the comments section of “Was Conan the Barbarian Really a Fictional Character?”

Talk about dedicated. Gary Romeo is the last, greatest champion of L. Sprague de Camp, and in the wake of the Van Ostrand debacle, he showed just how willing he was to leap to his hero’s defense. In a discussion that was primarily about Maggie Van Ostrand’s wholesale massacre of the Howards’ good name, where Howard fans and scholars united in support of their favourite author, Gary was there. But, of course, Gary couldn’t just put aside the anti-De Camp comments for a damn moment, and support the author who created Conan and made De Camp a millionaire: he had to make this a defense of De Camp.

Just as surely as Kanye West was criticized for ruining pop starlet Taylor Swift’s big moment for the sake of praising somebody else, all my grudging respect for Gary Romeo went flying out the window. “Yo guys, I’m really happy for you and I’mma let you finish, but lay off De Camp, one of the best of all time. One of the best of all time.” Of all the times to pick a fight about De Camp and Dark Valley Destiny, of all the times Howard fandom had to unite, Gary had to make his contribution more about De Camp than about Howard. In his entire post, only one line actively addresses the article: “The problem with Maggie’s article is that like Patrice said, she made stuff up.” That’s it. A tenth of the comment. With sincere apologies to Indy “Leave Gary Alone!” Cavalier, I was somewhat sympathetic to Gary being lambasted. However, when the time came for him to speak up, he made his choice, and he chose De Camp.

Gary, De Camp wasn’t the one on trial here: Maggie was. Sure, plenty of people were blaming her sources–including Dark Valley Destiny–for much of the faults therein, but could you have put aside your need to defend De Camp for one post, just one post, and address the real situation, that being the hatchet job Maggie did on Howard’s life and family? If you absolutely could not stop yourself from commenting on the “confusion” about Dark Valley Destiny, couldn’t you at least have tacked it on the end of the post, as an addendum? What’s more, you don’t even address the fact that Maggie uses your review of Dark Valley Destiny and quotations about De Camp to justify her salacious smear of Howard! Why are you not appalled at seeing your work used in defense of this disgusting, horrible article? Are you even outraged at all?

I used to be perfectly willing to accept Gary’s opinions as being unorthodox, and I have an instinct to champion the underdog. For a long time, I respected Gary’s position as the Lone Voice of Dissent in regards to De Camp, and I even viewed it as valuable, to keep the rest of us on our toes. The fact that Gary’s often-controversial work appears in The Cimmerian journal and on the REHupa website is testament to the Howard scholarly community’s tolerance for dissent and intellectual debate.  But Romeo’s one post throws it all away, by being just as defensive of Maggie’s sources–and by proxy, Maggie’s article itself–as it is of Howard. Thanks a freaking lot, Gary.

So, in conclusion, we have a good mix of journalists, authors, filmmakers and comic writers. If I were called upon to pick a winner, I’d be tempted to give Gary the nod: after all, he’d probably take being considered the last, greatest DeCampista as a badge of pride, and all power to him for it. Without knowing exactly what Donnelly & Oppenheimer think about Howard and Conan, I don’t feel comfortable giving them the gong. I think Bassett and, to an extent, Nelson’s sins are countered by the respect they give Howard elsewhere. In terms of pure, hateful vitriol, it’s hard not to consider Maggie Van Ostrand’s article the most outrageous anti-Howard tract not just this year, but possibly all time. Yet in the long run, I feel Fenner’s might prove to be the most damaging, since it’s still out there, ready to raise a new generation of DeCampistas.

If Morgan Holme’s 16-part epic The DeCamp Controversy wasn’t enough to prove how the problems of Dark Valley Destiny are damaging to current Howard scholarship, his recent article A Toxic Legacy should. Even if much of “Was Conan the Barbarian Really A Fictional Character” was her own invention, Maggie Van Ostrand used Dark Valley Destiny and related material to support her article. When beset on all sides from Howard fans and scholars, her apology basically amounted to blaming her sources. Arnie Fenner’s beliefs are highly compatible with De Camp’s own assessment of Howard being great adventure without intellectual discourse, not to mention being in dire need of editing. Arvid Nelson also seems to view REH as an uncut diamond from interviews and forum posts, much like how De Camp justified his own meddling and pastichery.

Bassett, Donnelly and Oppenheimer don’t appear to have any explicit link to De Camp, but the idea of yet more pastiche pipping Howard to the screen irks me, as surely as I’d be annoyed if “Black Sphinx of Nebthu” or “The Thing in the Crypt” was adapted over an actual Howard yarn. This use of pastiche over genuine, original Howard–even if the focus on a maligned origin story for Conan and Solomon Kane is as much the fault of studios and money-men as it is the writers and directors–is thoroughly De Campian. The origin stories for both films usurp what we know of the characters as Howard wrote them, as surely as “The Treasure of Tranicos” took priority over “The Black Stranger” in De Camp’s Conan saga.

Dark Valley Destiny had only one print run, and the De Camp-penned pastiches are consigned to limbo. Despite this, the power of the less savoury aspects of De Camp’s work is still potent, enough for it to seep through the cracks. Even with the internet and the access to modern scholarship it brings, the De Campian mindset continues to persist. As ever, it’s up to us to make sure that when one brings up the old myths–Howard as Oedipus, closeted homosexuality, maladjustment to the point of psychosis, arrested development, cruel father and codependent mother, and so forth–we are there to dispel them.

AL ADDS: In tribute to our fallen ally Dan “PainBrush” Goudey, I hereby consider his design to be the trophy for the awards. I was deliberating over whether to include it, but since the awards aren’t entirely serious, his trophy encapsulates the sense of anarchic, burlesque sarcasm of the concept as only he could.