'Conan the Barbarian' and Robert E. Howard.

After almost three decades, this summer will finally bring a new Conan movie to the big screen. ‘Conan the Barbarian’ will star Jason Momoa (Stargate Atlantis) and Ron Perlman (Hellboy), directed by Marcus Nispel, known for his Viking adventure 'Pathfinder’ (2007). It’s great to see the savage warrior back in the spotlight, fighting his way through hordes of demons, but will it be true to the fiction of Robert E. Howard, author of Conan and many other 'sword and sorcery’ tales? Time for a flash back!

Robert E. Howard

Far removed from the 'City of Angels' and it's paradise of screen heroes known as Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Robert E. Howard (1906 – 1936) lived in the simplest of Texas small towns, most notably Cross Plains, southwest of Dallas.

Howard started writing at an early age, inspired by the stories of days past, the savage battles between Indians and the first settlers and the echoes of Confederate soldiers and their gruelsome Civil War. His father was a doctor who traveled a lot, leaving Howard to care for his mother, who was terminally ill with tuberculosis. Howard never received an expensive education, but with his talent and persistence, he soon got his first stories published in the popular pulp magazines.

Howard’s work, a combination of adventure, fantasy and horror became known as ‘Sword & Sorcery’, a term coined by the writer Fritz Lieber in April 1961 in reaction to a letter from British author Michael Moorcock, who demanded a name for the genre of stories Howard had written.

Pulp Fiction.

Pulp magazines were introduced at the dawn of the twentieth century by Frank Munsey (1854-1925) who used his printing presses to publish inexpensive ten-cent magazines on cheap paper, featuring serialized stories and short fiction. The first and best known pulp fiction magazine was Munsey’s ‘Argosy’, which first appeared as a weekly in December 1882.

In 1903 the magazine sold half a million copies per month. Munsey’s success led him to start other pulps, such as ‘All-Story Magazine’, which premiered in January 1905 and is famously known for introducing and publishing Edgar Rice Burroughs’s ‘Tarzan’ stories starting in October 1912 (left), along with his other works of his fiction, ‘Under the Moons of Mars’ in February 1912 and sequential stories ‘The Gods of Mars’, ‘The Warlords of Mars’ and remaining stories, part of his ‘John Carter’ saga (although Burroughs later turned to ‘Blue Book’magazine and Hugo Gernsback’s popular Sci-Fi pulp ‘Amazing Stories’).

In 1920, All-Story magazine merged with Argosy into the new ‘Argosy All-story weekly’. Having changed it’s publication rate to monthly in 1942 and stripping more and more of it’s fictional content over the years, the magazine ran until well in Seventies, having it’ s final issue printed in November 1978.

Weird Tales.

Following Munsey´s success, others publishers tried their hands at pulp magazines, many of which had great success until the depression kicked in. The first issue of ‘Weird Tales’, published by J.C. Henneberger, appeared in March 1923. It ran for 279 issues until September 1954. The magazine’s editor, until his death in 1940 was Farnsworth Wright (1880-1940). Beside Howard's fiction, the magazine is famous for publishing stories by master of horror H.P. Lovecraft (‘The call of Cthulhu, At the Mountains of Madness’,‘From Beyond’), Robert Bloch (author of ‘Psycho’) and Clark Ashton Smith. Howard was known for his lengthy correspondence with Lovercraft and became part his group of protégé’s, a small enclave of fiction writers who all added to the Cthulhu mythos with their own stories.

‘Kull the Conqueror’ and ‘Solomon Kane’.

In 1924, at the age of eighteen, Howard sold his first story entitled ‘Spear and Fang’ for $ 16 Dollars to ‘Weird Tales’ magazine. It was a little plot about the confrontation between Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals, which the magazine published in their issue of July 1925 (left). It was followed by his short ‘In the forest of Villefere’, a story about Werewolves, the month after. ‘Wolfshead’ and ‘The Lost Race’, two other stories from that period, were published in April 1926 and January 1927, though there were many stories Howard wrote that never made it into the magazine.

In 1927 he sold his fictional story ‘The Shadow Kingdom’ to Weird Tales magazine. Originally called ‘The Phantom Empire’, this story was set in ancient, lost Atantis. It featured Kull the Conqueror, a barbarian who became a king, only to realise it was easier to become ruler of the land than to stay that way, as many seemed to plot against him. A remarkable allegory of Howard’s own life and death, who’s inner struggles robbed him from his successful career at the early age of 30, when Howard shot and killed himself.

In the fall of 1927, Howard wrote another story which he submitted to ‘Argosy All-Story’. The story was called ‘Solomon Kane’, named after his new character, a fearless and skillful swordsman who faced demons and battled ghosts. When the magazine rejected the story, Howard send it to Weird Tales instead. So, In August 1928, before any of Howard’s Kull stories were published, WT featured Howard’s first Solomon Kane adventure (entitled ‘Red Shadows’). Between 1928 and 1932 the magazine would publish seven of the fourteen stories Howard wrote featuring the swashbuckler:

 · 1928 August: ‘Red Shadows’
 · 1929 January: ‘Skulls in the Stars’
 · 1929 June: ‘Rattle of Bones’
 · 1930 June/July: ‘The Moon of Skulls’
 · 1930 August: ‘The Hills of the Dead’.
 · 1931 September: ‘The Footfalls Within’.
 · 1932 July: ‘Wings in the Night’.

Meanwhile,‘The Shadow Kingdom’ appeared in Weird Tales of august 1929, followed by two more Kull stories, ‘The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune’ in the September issue of that year and ‘Kings of Night’ in November 1930. These are the only ones that were published during his lifetime. Howard would write several more stories about Kull, but discontinued the series as most of them were rejected. Nine other stories were published after his death, including ‘By this Axe, I rule’ which Howard had rewritten into Conan’s first adventure, ‘The Phoenix on the Sword’.

A movie about Kull was made in 1997, ‘Kull the Conqueror’ starred Kevin Sorbo (‘Hercules: the Legendary Journeys’) and was based on Charles Edward Pogue’s script for the third and final installment of Arnold Schwarzenneger’s Conan movie trilogy in 1987, which never got produced. Pogue's script follows Howard's only novel-length Conan story 'The Hour of the Dragon' and shows elements from 'By this Axe I Rule' and 'The Phoenix on the Sword'.

Conan the Cimmerian.

Howard, having a keen interest in history, started writing up his own mythology on the land of Cimmeria and the Hyborian Age in 1932 and send in his first three stories featuring Conan the barbarian to Weird Tales magazine: ‘The Phoenix on the Sword’, ‘The Frost-Giant’s Daughter’ and ‘The God in the Bowl’. Although none of the stories were accepted at first, Howard rewrote ’The Phoenix on the sword’ and created another story called ‘The Tower of the Elephant’.Both sold to WT magazine, the first appeared in December 1932 (Cover below), the latter in the issue of March 1933.
Conan became one of the most popular characters in ‘Weird Tales’. Between 1932 and 1936 seventeen Conan stories appeared in WT magazine:

· 1932 December: ‘The Phoenix on the Sword’.
· 1933 January: ‘The Scarlet Citadel’.

· 1933 March: The Tower of the Elephant’.

· 1933 June: ‘The Black Colossus’.

· 1933 September: ‘The Slithering Shadow’.

· 1933 October: ‘The Pool of the Black One’.

· 1934 January: ‘Rogues in the House’.

· 1934 April: ‘Shadows in the Moonlight’.

· 1934 May: ‘Queen of the Black Coast’.

· 1934 August: ‘The Devil in Iron’.

· 1934 Sept/November: ‘People of the Black Circle’.

· 1934 December: ‘A Witch shall be born’.

· 1935 March : ‘Jewels of Gwahlur’.

· 1935 May/June: ‘Beyond the Black River’

· 1935 November: ‘Shadows in Zamboula’

· 1935 December/April 1936: ‘Hour of the Dragon’.

· 1936 July/August/September/October: ‘Red Nails’.


The ten remaining Conan stories Howard wrote, some never completed, found a place after his death in other publications:

· ‘The Black Stranger’

· ‘The Drums of Tombalku’

· ‘The Frost Giant’s Daughter’

· ‘The God in the Bowl’

· ‘The Hall of the Dead’

· ‘The Hand of Nergal’

· ‘The Hyborian Age’

· ‘The Snout in the Dark’

· ‘The Vale of Lost Women’

· ‘Wolves beyond the Border’

Note: Of ‘The Black stranger’ three versions circulate, as Howard rewrote it later into the pirate story ‘Swords of the Red Brotherhood’, which didn't get published either. Author L.Sprague de Camp turned 'The Black Stranger' into another Conan story called ‘The Treasure of Tranicos’. The first published version appeared in the premier issue of ’Fantasy magazine’ in March 1953.

‘Red Sonja’ and the Legendary ‘Magic Carpet Magazine’.

Beside ‘Weird Tales’, Rural Publications also published the bi-monthly ‘Oriental stories’ pulp magazine. Written by the people of ‘Weird Tales’ and also edited by Fransworth Right, it’s adventurous fantasy stories were all set in the Orient. It first appeared in October 1930.

Since publishing had become difficult during the depression, the rate of appearance was changed to quarterly. Nine issues were published before it was decided to change it’s name to ‘The Magic Carpet Magazine’, after which only four more issues were published in 1933 and one in January 1934 before the magazine was dropped.

For this magazine, Howard wrote historical adventures set in the Middle East during the Middle Ages. The last issue of January 1934 carried his short story ‘The Shadow of the Vulture’, which introduced the Ukrainian warrior woman ‘Red Sonya of Rogatino’.

The character wasn’t connected to any Conan story whatsoever. Comic writer Roy Thomas and artist Barry Windsor-Smith decided to change that when working on their 'Conan the Barbarian' comic series for Marvel in 1973 (Issues 23/24). Spanish artist Esteban Maroto re-designed the character for the first issue of ‘Savage Sword of Conan’, wearing nothing much but a bikini made of metal, which was then adopted by artist John Buscema for his ‘Conan the Barbarian’ series as well (issues 43/44/48).

Above: Re-designing Red Sonja. The premier issue of 'Savage Sword of Conan' sporting a cover by Boris Vallejo (left) and the 44th issue of 'Conan the Barbarian' by John Buscema, both from 1974. 'The Fiend and the flame' continued the 'afterlings' story arc, based on 'The Tower of Blood', a non-Conan short story by David A. English, published in 'Witchcraft and Scorcery' magazine, freely adapted by Roy Thomas for the comic.

Beside Conan chronicles and his historical adventures, Howard also wrote and sold stories about Boxing to pulps as ‘Fight stories’ and ‘Action stories’, featuring his sailor ‘Steve Costigan’. Along Howard's story ‘The Shadow of the Vulture’, the last issue of ‘Magic Carpet Magazine’ (left) also featured one his boxing stories which he had written under the alias ‘Patrick Ervin’. Scarcely distributed as the magazine was, it has become a legendary thing between collectors.
Howard also wrote western stories. ‘Mountain Man’ , published in ‘Action stories’ March/April 1934 was his first. ‘Breckenridge Elkins’, the main character would prove popular enough to create and sell 26 stories the next two years. His other creation ‘Francis Xavier Gordon’, was a gunfighter from El Paso who lived and traveled the far east, kinda like Indiana Jones would nowadays.

His nickname, 'El Borak' given to him by the Arabians meant ‘The Swift’. The first of five stories to be published during his lifetime was ‘The Daughter of Erlik Khan’ , which saw publication in Top-Notch magazine in December 1934. Twelve others found their way into print posthumously.

‘One Who Walked Alone’.

Novalyne Price arrived in Cross Plains in 1934, where she worked as a school teacher until 1936. Being an aspiring writer, she had met Howard a year earlier and though the two became romantically involved, they never married.

In the spring of 1936, she was accepted into the graduate program in education at Louisiana State and left town. In June, Howard died of a self- inflicted fatal bullet wound to the head, the day his mother slipped into a final coma. She passed away a few hours later.

Novalyn never became a writer as such but instead worked as a teacher. She was admitted into the ‘National Forensic League’s Hall of Fame’ in 1981 because of her gift for writing speeches. Her memoir about the relationship with Howard, published in 1986, was called ‘One who Walked Alone’ and was adapted into a movie starring Vincent D’Onofrio and Renée Zellweger (‘The Whole Wide World’, 1996). Novalyne passed away on March 30, 1999 leaving one son, Marvin Douglas Ellis, from her marriage to William Ellis.

‘The Savage sword of Conan’ and other comics.

Conan has inspired many talented writers and artists in the comic industry. Most notably Marvel Comic published their ‘Conan the Barbarian’ series between October 1970 and December 1983. Writer Roy Thomas created most of the stories with artist John Buscema. 275 issues appeared in total, with Thomas writing issues 1-115 and 241-253 and Buscema doing pencils on issues 25-190. British artist Barry Windsor-Smith penciled the first 24 issues.

Marvel also published the monthly Black & White magazine ‘Savage sword of Conan’ between August 1974 and July 1995. It ran for 235 issues. Buscema and Roy Thomas worked on it with Neal Adams Jim Starlin and Dick Giordano.

Above: Marvel's 'Conan the Barbarian' by Roy Thomas and John Buscema also ran as a newspaper comic strip. Black & White strips daily and a three strip color edition on sundays. It ran from September 4 1978 to April 12, 1981.

Dark Horse has been heavily invested in the character since 2003. Kurt Busiek and Cary Nord started their 50-issue run on ‘Conan’ at Dark Horse that year, which ran until 2008 (with a one-shot ‘Conan and the Daughters of Midora’ by Jimmy Palmiotti and Mark Texiera in October 2004.) It was followed by Timothy Truman’s ‘Conan the Cimmerian’, which lasted 25 issues.

There were several mini-series, such as the three part ‘Conan and the Jewels of Gwahlur’ (April - June 2005), the four part ‘Conan and the demons of Khitai’ (October 2005 - January 2006), ‘Conan and the book of Thoth’ (four issues, March - June 2006), ‘Conan and the songs of the Dead’ (five issues in 2006), ‘Conan and the Midnight God’ (five issues in 2007).

Above: Roy Thomas returned to writing Conan recently, when Dark horse started their latest Conan mini-series ’Conan: Road of Kings’ in December last year. (Variant cover to the first issue by Dale Keown (right). The sixth and last issue will appear June 22th. Dark Horse is also reprinting complete issues of ‘Savage Sword of Conan’ in Trade paperbacks. The tenth volume is currently up for pre-order (left).

‘Conan: Red Nails' and other Animated cartoons.

Based on Howard’s last Conan story, published in Weird Tales between July and October 1936, animation studio Swordplay Entertainment proudly announced their animated feature 'Conan: Red Nails’ in 2005. The direct-to-DVD animation was originally Planned for a 2006 release and featured designs by fantasy artists Mark Kaluta and Mark Schultz, with voice acting done by Ron Perlman (Hellboy) , James Marsden (X-Men) and Mark Hammill (Star Wars).
The movie would feature traditional cell animation with CGI elements but when financial issues arrised the project went D.O.A.

In 2008 producer David Schwarcz confirmed the project was still very much alive and a release was planned for December 2009, and that the company tried to have the release coincide with the release of the new and upcoming live-action Conan movie. Unfortunately the project seems to have been cancelled. The Official Red Nails website, although showing some pretty cool artwork, hasn’t been updated for a while now and shows no signs of an emerging release. Wanna catch some shots? Check out some of the rough animation on Youtube. There's also a preliminary scene with Valeria.

Conan the Adventurer (1992 - 1994).

Created by the American-Japanese Jetlag Productions Studio together with American Sunbow Productions ('Transformers' and 'G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero') the first episode of their animated cartoon series ‘Conan the Adventurer’ aired on October 1992. The series ran for two seasons, 13 episodes in the first and again 52 in the second. The last episode aired on January 21^st 1994. Check here to catch some of this stuff on Youtube.

Following in the footsteps of Filmation’s popular cartoon series ‘He-Man and the Masters of the Universe’ and Marvel’s ‘Dungeon and Dragons’ (co-produced with Toei Animation) 'Conan the Adventurer' showed all the good stuff while stripping some of Conan's barbarian qualities, making the character suitable for a younger audience.

The plot shows Conan fighting Serpent men and shape shifters with a special sword named 'Star Metal', crafted by his father from a meteor that fell from the sky. Because it has the power to open portals to other dimensions, the reptilian leader Wrath-Amon tries to get possession of Conan’s sword and free Set from the Abyss, where he was banished long ago for trying to enslave the human race. Still sounds pretty cool, right?

The complete series was released on DVD in 2009 in very limited quantities, if you're into it and didn't get a chance to grab a copy, don't sweat it: Shout! Factory will be releasing the first season on a 2-disc DVD set on July 26th!

Conan and the Young Warriors (1994).

A spin-off, 'Conan and the Young Warriors' was created in 1994 by Michael Reaves (Batman: The Animated Series), but crashed after the first season of thirteen episodes. Voiced by Phil Hayes, Conan finds himself training three young warriors (hence the title) destined to rule over Hyboria in the future, they possess magical 'star stones'.

'Project Pride' and the Howard museum.

With financial support from fans around the world and the estate of Alla Ray Morris (who inherited the rights to Robert Howard’s fiction), the community organization in Cross Plains, Texas bought the house that Robert and his family lived in all their lives and restored it into a museum in 1989. The house has been restored and refurnished like it used to be when the Howard’s lived there, and you can actually check out and visit Robert’s room, where he typed all his stories.

Although the restoration has been completed and the house is listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 1994, maintenance still requires funds. Project Pride is a non-profit organization, if you like you can join them for a small amount as an individual or a family. Check out their website and make sure to visit the official REH foundation site. They've got some excellent information on Howard and publish extremely rare material from the author. Below: Howard with his dog 'Patches'.

Yes, Howard's room has an original Underwood typewriter from the 1930's at his desk, although that is not the one he actually used to type out all his stories (which was bought a long time ago by an American). The picture above is a photo of the one that is on display at the museum.