Missed Out On Free Conan Comic Day? Fret Not...

Conan of Cimmeria believed that Thulsa Doom’s evil had been banished forever, but the Atlantean necromancer’s dark power stirs once more and, if it cannot be stopped, the dead shall overtake the living! The Tyrant-King of Atlantis returns and all shall suffer, unless Conan and his brave allies can turn back the tide!

Did you miss out on the Conan The Barbarian offering on May 2's Free Comic Book Day?

Don't worry - publishers Titan Comics has you covered. The 24-page book is now available as a free, downloadable PDF direct from them, here.

Written by legendary Conan scribe Jim Zub, with art by Jesus Merino, the comic is a prelude to the next big Howardverse comic book crossover event, Tides of the Tyrant King, starting in the Autumn.

This year's event ties into the classic 1929 Robert E Howard pulp story Skull-Face, his take on the Sax Rohmer's popular Fu Manchu adventures that began in 1912.

Tides of the Tyrant King also features, from the original Skull-Face yarn, Soldier Stephen Costigan, cousin of my favourite Howard creation Sailor Steve Costigan.

The Cimmerian Is Ablaze Once More

Cover art by Chris Regnault

Continuing yesterday's celebration of upcoming comic book releases related - or inspired by - the works of Robert E Howard, July also sees the start of a new miniseries for The Cimmerian.

Once again, after a break of about four years, Ablaze is publishing the English-language translation of Glénat's original French "uncensored" adaption of Howard's Conan adventure Xuthal Of Dusk (aka The Slithering Shadow).

Conan, accompanied by Natala - a slave of wild beauty - advances through the seeming infinity of a sandy desert. With water and food supplies now exhausted, and with the two stranded in turn under a blazing sun and frigid nights, it is clear that the inevitability is death. Right as Natala’s final ounce of strength leaves her, Conan spots something in the distance. It’s a city that shines like glass. It’s Xuthal…

Written by Christophe Bec, with art by Stevan Subić, this will be a three-issue miniseries and marks the regular return of The Cimmerian series, following on from the publisher's Free Comic Book Day release at the start of next month.

Variant cover by Stevan Subic

As I understand it (I am not a copyright lawyer, nor do I play one on TV), Ablaze can publish The Cimmerian because it limits itself to republishing existing European adaptations of Howard’s original Conan stories that are in the public domain in Europe.

Heroic Signatures controls the global Howardverse I.P and works with Titan Comics to publish its new, original, line of wildly successful comics and magazines inspired by Howard's work.

It struck a deal, six or so years ago, with Ablaze to translate and distribute the French Glénat bande dessinée adaptations as The Cimmerian (to differentiate these comics from Titan's new Conan books).

Forthcoming Howardian Comics That Piqued My Interest

Legendary scribe Gail Simone is bringing us The Ring: The Man Who Beat The Man in June, courtesy of Dark Horse.

The eight-issue series, produced in co-operation with venerable boxing magazine, The Ring, follows:

"...veteran Ring Magazine journalist Cameron Duggan and rising broadcast personality Lisa Wolfe, a former podcaster who has transitioned into television commentary. As the pair travel the boxing world covering a new wave of contenders chasing championship glory, they encounter the ambition, rivalries and politics that shape the sport at its highest level.

"Each fighter approaches the pursuit differently, but the goal remains the same, reach the top of the sport and prove himself as the man who beat the man. As Duggan and Wolfe document the journey of these fighters, they also find themselves navigating the pressures and personalities that surround the sport."

While not directly a Robert E Howard story, Two-Gun Bob was a massive fan of boxing and wrote plenty of pulp tales set in that world - including those of my favourite character, Sailor Steve Costigan.

However, the next comic that caught my eye - and will be added to my pull-list PDQ - is pure Howard.

The incredible writer/artist Patrick Zircher brings his take on Howard's Puritan monster-hunter Solomon Kane back for another miniseries from Titan Comics in July.

Solomon Kane: The Lion Errant sees our hero travelling to India, guided by a "mysterious black-maned lion" where he is drawn into a "confrontation between the warrior queen Rani Durgavati and the mighty Mughal Empire".

"But the coming battle is more than a clash of armies. Ancient powers are stirring, gods and demons walk among the living, and Kane’s arcane Atlantean staff may hold the key to it all. Steel meets the divine. The Sword of Vengeance answers a higher call."

Joe Jusko cover art

The final forthcoming comic with serious Robert E Howard vibes is Dan Panosian's Fire And Ice: Darkwolf, from Dynamite, which also kicks off in July.

This is a spin-off from the gorgeous - but erratically published - Fire and Ice sword and sorcery comic book series.

"Born from the immortal imagination of fantasy illustrator supreme Frank Frazetta, Darkwolf storms into a new era of savage fantasy-brought to life by writer Dan "Urban Barbarian" Panosian and powerhouse artist Andrey Lunatik.

"Dynamite's acclaimed exploration of the world of Fire and Ice continues in this new series!

"It all begins when a mother and her twins flee the warlock who sired them - until a masked warrior descends from the mountains and unleashes hell upon their pursuers. But saving them is only the beginning. 

"Violent. Mythic. Unrelenting. This is Darkwolf, and the legend begins here - a fierce, visceral rebirth of one of fantasy's most iconic warriors

Dan Panosian cover art

The Real Hyborian Age?

Map of Robert E Howard's Hyborian Age, from Titan Comics' Conan The Barbarian

In 1932, Robert E. Howard wrote an essay describing an advanced civilization at the end of the last Ice Age, destroyed by catastrophe and flooding, followed by a final period of glaciation. He called it the Hyborian Age. Today, Graham Hancock argues for essentially the same sequence of events using modern geological evidence. But Howard got there first, drawing on sources that go back over a century.

In this video, I trace the intellectual roots of Howard's fictional prehistory through Ignatius Donnelly, the Theosophical tradition, Charles Hapgood, Jack London, Yogi Ramacharaka and B.G. Tilak, who argued that Vedic myths preserved memories of an Arctic civilization destroyed by glaciation.

Featuring rare first editions from my personal collection including the 1938 LANY first publication of The Hyborian Age, one of fewer than ten known copies.

A fascinating half-hour presentation by Howard scholar and essayist Jeffrey Shanks (his erudite writings appear in every issue of Titan Comics' bestselling Howardverse books).

In this feature, he looks into the early 20th Century (and prior) archaeological, historical and pseudohistorical, mythological, and occult ideas on prehistory and the Atlantis myth that fed into Robert E Howard's fictional setting of the Hyborian Age.

Early Thoughts on Personalising The Twilight Sword Setting

As a youngling I had this Pauline Baynes map of Narnia on my bedroom wall

With the impending release of the beta PDF of Twilight Sword, I have begun to noodle around ideas for "personalising" the lands of Radia - the game's default setting. 

World building from scratch is one of my weaknesses as a gamesmaster: all my worlds created whole cloth tend to end up as simply reskinned versions of real lands from Medieval(ish) Earth... and not in a clever, Robert E Howard Age of Hyboria way.

I also have a tendency to "Game of Thrones" things up before the first die is slung, by which I mean I overcomplicate and hyperdetail the setting way beyond anything the players will probably ever have any interaction with.

This is because I tend to fall in love with my settings and then mistakenly believe I'm the next JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis or George RR Martin! When all I'm really doing is creating a backdrop for some wonderfully silly elfgames.

Aware of this fault in my planning process, I'm approaching Radia - which we know is inspired by video games and anime - with broader strokes.

At the moment, clearly, I know almost nothing about the actual, 'official' setting, so am just scraping together notes and bullet points of ideas, locations, names (for places and people) etc that - hopefully - veer away from the usual Western/Tolkien norm of fantasy settings.

For the anime influences for Radia, I shall be looking to pick up cues from my beloved Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, Record of Lodoss War, and Delicious in Dungeon.

My knowledge of anime is limited (although greater than my knowledge of video games), but I remain firm in my belief that these three serials have the best resources in the pure fantasy (Dungeons & Dragons-inspired) genre.

Beyond anime, I'm looking at established settings such as Narnia, Wonderland, Oz, Neverland, Eternia, and Arduin, and films like Labyrinth, The NeverEnding Story, The Dark Crystal, and so on, rather than my usual inspirations, for example Hawk The Slayer and Lord of The Rings. 

Don't get me wrong Hawk The Slayer remains the definitive old school Dungeons & Dragons movie in my book and Peter Jackson's Lord of The Rings trilogy is simply the greatest movie of all time, which I ensure I watch at least once a year from start to finish.

But, in my experience, the thing I find about such intricate settings as Middle-Earth and Westeros is that they are 'fragile'. If you mess around with them too much they break and are no longer the setting you fell in love with in the first place.

Now, I know you can say: but it's your game, you can do what you like with the setting, who's going to know?

But, besides the fact that I would know, it's my belief that these settings are so intricately interwoven that if you mess with, or change, one bit it will have a cascade effect further down the line so that something else isn't going to make sense (just look at George RR Martin's anger with The House of The Dragon tv show because characters were cut out who actually have an important role to play in the story at a later date).

Hence, why I'm shifting my focus to loosey-goosey, weird and surreal settings that are governed by more fairy tale aesthetics. I believe these will gel more with my vision - and understanding - of how Radia (and Twilight Sword) is supposed to operate.

Of course, I could be completely wrong. But I hope not.

I'd really like to run a setting that was, at once, familiar to the Tuesday Knights but also fresh and original, and not just another Middle-Earth/Forgotten Realms/Medieval Europe retread. 

And has talking animals.

She Is Conann (2023)

Presented as a series of vignettes, 2023's She is Conann, written and directed by Bertrand Mandico, is supposedly a feminist take on Conan The Barbarian

I would beg to differ. The various segments of this French art house offering present Conann (Con-ann, gettit?) at different stages of her life (which, as far as I could tell, was the main similarity to Robert E Howard's stories of Conan The Barbarian), starting as a peasant girl captured by barbarians led by the red-haired Sanja (also called Sonja), played by Julia Riedler.

Both Sanja and Conann turn out to be immortal - for no readily explained reason - but whereas Sanja is played by the same actress throughout her various appearances, Conann is portrayed by a succession of different actresses: Claire Duburcq at age 15, Christa Théret at age 25, Sandra Parfait at age 35, Agata Buzek at age 45, and Nathalie Richard at age 55.

Nearly always in her orbit is the dog-man Rainer (Elina Löwensohn), a cameraman documenting her life and narrating the movie. All very gender-fluid and meta, but ultimately sound and fury signifying nothing. 

Rainer (Elina Löwensohn)

Why is Rainer a dog-person? Who knows! However, I must admit that the make-up on Löwensohn (and the other dog-people who pop up) is very impressive. My mind couldn't help wandering to the dog-people of Jeff Noon's excellent Vurt books, and wondering why these had never been adapted to the big screen.

Perhaps She is Conann is meant to be a commentary on the broader machismo and sleaze of many of barbarian movies of the 1980s? However, to my mind, any film that requires a crib sheet to fully grok is a huge red flag.

She is Conann begins in a sci-fi/fantasy world (supposedly Sumeria, but you'd never know), with strong '80s-throwback, retro vibes (accentuated by the fact that the entire film is shot on a series of soundstages with old school, direct-to-video, levels of set decoration).

The story soon jumps to a more contemporary period and all semblance of a sword-and-sorcery setting is forgotten (bar the odd reference to "barbarism").

Every segment ends - segueing into the next - with the Conann of that period being slain by her next 'incarnation', until the final story when she has become a multimillionaire patron of arts and gives herself up to the artists she supports as an edible work of art.

The creators can only inherit Conann's limitless wealth if they totally consume her specially-prepared body.

The deliciously disturbing body horror sequence that follows is really the highlight of She is Conann. 

This being the most overt, and clear, segment of the movie, I'm pretty sure there was a clever metaphor about 'eating the rich' in there should you be inspired to look for it.

Shot primarily in black and white, but switching to colour every now and again, She is Conann is also largely in French (with subtitles) except for a segment set in '80s New York when the characters speak - and swear - in English.

Ultimately, the 105-minute movie is a stylish, but empty, mélange of assorted styles and ideas from far superior sources, the unique cinematic voices of Peter Greenaway and Derek Jarman mixed with literary tropes from Michael Moorcock and William S Burroughs.

Oddly though, as infuriatingly incomprehensible as much of it is, the story flows and moves quickly, probably helped along by the comparatively short length of time spent on each period of Conann's life.

But that also means each iteration never hangs around long enough for us to truly understand her character at the moment in her life or her motivations.

Presumably every directorial and narrative choice in the film has been made for a reason, it's just unclear what those reasons were.

On paper Bertrand Mandico's recipe for reimagining Conan The Barbarian should have created a perfect meal for this viewer, who usually has a lot of time for clever art films, but instead She is Conann is disappointingly too pretentious for its own good.

It's Swords Versus Sorcery As Conan Faces Dark Gods

Currently scheduled for release on Life Day, Conan: Gold for Dark Gods has just been announced as a new, original, hardback adventure for Robert E Howard's legendary barbarian.

Published by Titan Books, in partnership with Heroic Signatures, the 400-page novel by sword-and-sorcery author Jonathan French, will be part of - although self-contained - Tides of the Tyrant-King, Titan's next big event storyline in its wildly successful Conan The Barbarian comic book line.

The official blurb for the book, now available for pre-order ahead of its November 17 publication, is as follows:

Conan returns to Shadizar the Wicked, the world’s cruellest city, after an old ally is executed for daring to defy the cabal of nobles who rule. He’s come to ensure the tutelage of his dead comrade’s son, and Conan’s first lesson to the boy — take revenge!

The rich masters of Shadizar rule through masks. Finding them is nigh impossible, killing them pointless, for more moneyed men would only step forward. There is only one way to make them pay: rob them blind. To succeed, Conan assembles a crew to infiltrate the Gilded Garden, the fortress-palace where the city’s elite hoard their wealth. If they can find it…

As the crew search for the Gilded Garden, they uncover it contains not only the rulers’ wealth but the sorcerous secrets of their power — ancient pacts with dark gods.

Conan must choose: is he merely a thief chasing coin and vengeance—or something far more dangerous? A rebel willing to topple a regime.

In the meantime, don't forget there's a horror-themed Conan novel, The Brides of Crom, hitting stores next month (earlier than original announced).

Make Your Pledge For The Latest Issue of The Atlantean

The heroic team-up of writer Randy Zimmerman and artist Russ Leach have launched a new crowdfunding campaign to finance the fourth issue of The Atlantean, an amazing sword-and-sorcery comic based on the works of Robert E Howard.

This particular 50+ page, squarebound issue features an adaptation of The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune, which I just happened to have listened to on audiobook at the start of the week.

You can pledge your support for the campaign here, where you will also see several sample pages of gorgeous black and white artwork. You can also purchase back issues and the original graphic novel of The Shadow Kingdom, that started this line.

The campaign has already smashed through its initial target, the pencil artwork is all finished and the comic is currently being edited and inked.

The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982)

Albert Pyun's 1982 The Sword And The Sorcerer is B-movie gem that doesn't need a review.

If your gaming is fuelled by a love of these great, pulpy epics from the '80s then you will have seen this countless times and realised that - as much as anything - it's a Dungeons & Dragons adventure turned into a movie.

From the pithy one-liners and dark humour to the casual nudity (primarily restricted to the one scene where our roguish hero escapes through the bad king's harem), this is a love letter to Conan The Barbarian and Leiber's Lankhmar.

The protagonist, swashbuckling Talon (Lee Horsley) - seadog, adventurer, mercenary general - is a great role-model for player characters, cut from the same loin cloth as Howard's Cimmerian warrior.

And you have to appreciate the fact that, although the rightful heir to the kingdom being fought over, Talon has no interest in the throne, or marrying the princess he rescues. This is just one adventure for him, out of a string of many.

While full of memorable moments, as all this era of swords and sorcery cinematic shenanigans were, the most memorable aspect of The Sword And The Sorcerer is the titular 'sword'.

And I'm pretty sure it's not even magical!

The wholly impractical sword had three blades, with the added bonus that the exterior two could be fired off like high velocity, short-range missiles.

Of course they didn't have an automatic return mechanism, so it was pretty much a one-shot effect for each combat... and if, for some reason, you were unable to reclaim the shot blade you'd need to find a swordsmith willing to make you a replacement.

But such logistics are irrelevant in this old school genre of movie.

Conan and Dragonero Team-up For First Time In English

Cover art by Lorenzo Nuti

Conan the Barbarian will team-up with Italian comic book icon Dragonero this May in a seven-part miniseries published for the first time outside of Italy by Titan Comics and Conan rights' holders Heroic Signature.

In Conan & Dragonero, the legendary barbarian finds himself transported to a mysterious land called Erondár, the home of dragon-slaying hero Dragonero.

After the traditional initial misunderstanding triggered by such meetings, the two heroes realise they must team-up to fight the mysterious forces that threaten both their worlds.

This series is written by Dragonero's creators Luca Enoch and Stefano Vietti, with art from Lorenzo Nuti.

Because much of Robert E Howard's work is in the public domain outside of the United States, this team-up book was originally published by Sergio Bonelli Editore in Italy back in 2022/23 as Dragonero & Conan The Barbarian: Shadow of The Dragon.

Now, it has finally made its way into the American comic book format:

TWO WORLDS COLLIDE IN A SAVAGE CROSSOVER YEARS IN THE MAKING!

CONAN OF CIMMERIA and DRAGONERO meet for the first time in an epic clash of steel, sorcery, and survival. Pulled to the mysterious land of Erondár by dark forces, Conan comes face to face with the famed dragon slayer, Dragonero, and the two warriors must set aside suspicion to stand back-to-back against a supernatural force poised to doom both their worlds.

Published for the first time outside of Italy, this landmark crossover brings together two legendary heroes in a story that honors classic sword-and-sorcery while forging something bold and unforgettable.

The Adventures of Breckinridge Elkins by Robert E. Howard

Me and Breckinridge Elkins

This week on his Robert E Howard Show segment, my favourite booktuber, Michael K Vaughan, discusses the latest release from the Robert E. Howard Foundation Press, The Adventures of Breckinridge Elkins.

I just happen to have purchased this hardback tome recently (now that I'm trying to go 'all-in' on this line of definitive publications of Howard's work), although I have to confess the only Elkins' "tall tale" I've read is the one that was published in Savage Sword of Conan magazine last year.

Breckinridge isn't a Howard character I'm particularly au fait with. But Michael does a great job in this video of convincing me that I'll probably enjoy the book, as it seems to bear comedic similarities with my beloved Sailor Steve Costigan yarns, as well as being part of Howard's Western work.

It's 82 Days To Free Comic Book Day

These two Conan titles are top of my wish list for this year's Free Comic Book Day.

Ablaze adapts the tales penned by Conan's creator, Robert E Howard, in the 1930's while Titan's bestselling Conan The Barbarian comic tells all-new adventures, with this Free Comic Book Day offering launching it's next big event storyline: Tides of The Tyrant King.

Have you started to compile your own list of titles you are eyeing to pick up during this annual celebration of the power of comic books as a storytelling medium?

Conan The Librarian

New shorty short box (on right) for my Conan The Barbarian comics

Part of my ambition to get through my massive backlog of unread comics also involves tidying up and organising those that I have read.

I've long wanted to get my Conan The Barbarian comics in one place and so have started with that phase of the operation.

I picked up a new short box (unexpectedly shorter than the short boxes I already owned), labelled it with a sticker I got from Etsy for just this purpose, and began going through the individual issues I had that would now take up residence in the new box.

Barbarian sticker from Etsy

So far, my efforts have focussed on the current Titan/Heroic Signatures-published Conan The Barbarian titles, the event mini-series they've produced, and their Solomon Kane comic books (to keep the Robert E Howard theme going).

I've also filed away some miscellaneous titles like an old Kull comic and a guide to The Hyborian Age that Marvel produced back in the day as part of its Official Handbooks line.

But these were the easy ones to find and sort, as I had most to hand. Now I need to decide if I also include Marvel's most recent run of Conan The Barbarian (which are scattered through piles under the bed and in the office) or even the few stray issues from their original, legendary run.

I don't own many of those issues from the '70s or '80s as I have a decent library of the omnibuses of both Conan The Barbarian and The Savage Sword of Conan.

This, in turn, reminds me to think about the new iteration of Savage Sword. As a magazine-sized publication it doesn't fit in standard comic book storage containers. However, it does slide nicely onto my shelves, so I'm pretty certain I won't much problem keeping them in order: most already have a home on the shelf next to the omnibus collection.

TODAY IS ROBERT E HOWARD'S 120th BIRTHDAY

It's the 120th anniversary of the birth of the greatest pulp adventure writer of all time, Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan, Solomon Kane, Sailor Steve Costigan, King Kull et al.

In the videos above people way smarter and more erudite than I share their love and appreciation for the man and his inspirational and enduring writing.

And what better time to make your own contribution to the legacy of Robert E. Howard by supporting  the Robert E. Howard Foundation, which needs funds urgently for the upkeep of Howard's former home - now a museum of his life and work.

"...the home of Robert E. Howard requires some serious repairs: its foundation and piers are rotting and collapsing, there is termite damage to a large section of an outside wall, and many of the floors are starting to buckle and drop. While the hard-working folks of Project Pride in Cross Plains have restored and cared for the House since acquiring it back in the 1980s, their small volunteer army cannot address the extensive repairs that will be needed. Professional restoration is required for this 100+ year old home on the National Historical Register, and it is needed now, before the damage gets worse.

"Because the house is on the National Historical Register and the State of Texas Historical Places list, the cost of repairs will be affected. All repairs will require contractors that have experience with this type of historical preservation, as we will need to keep the House as close to its original state as possible, during its historical period (i.e., when REH lived there)."

You can support this fundraiser here.

PROJECT 60: What Does The Future Hold?

As I race towards my sixtieth birthday next year, I can't help feeling that it's time I got my "collecting" hobbies under control before I end up on an episode of Hoarders or Rachel finds me buried under a collapsed pile of books, comics, and blu-rays!

I've already mentioned that my life-long love affair with roleplaying games is dwindling, thanks to the dawning realisation that I'm never going to run a "forever campaign" that comes close to my hopes and dreams.

I still want to keep playing, and won't - and can't - stop thinking about RPGs, but the constant need to be working on 'my next great roleplaying project' has definitely eased off. 

Picture, if you can, the amount of space I could create in our house if I sold off all the games (and supplements) that I own but which I'll never read or revisit.

That's going to take a lot of effort to do properly, but it might generate a decent sum of money to bulk up my ever-shrinking bank account.

On the other hand, I'm currently thinking of burying myself in Cubicle 7's Doctor Who RPG, just not with any expectation of running it (it's simply not a game I could imagine my group, The Tuesday Knights, taking to).

However, I quite fancy the idea of creating Whoniverse scenarios, settings, gadgets, aliens etc to share with the readers of this blog.

If I were to return to running a campaign, with any chance of it surviving more than three or four sessions, it would almost certainly embrace the simplicity of old school Dungeons & Dragons-style gaming. As I did many years ago with the Tuesday Knight's three-year Heroes & Other Worlds campaign.

Honestly, I'd just really love to run a hardcore dungeoncrawl at some point. Just not now.

For reasons of both space and finances, I also need to trim my comic book pull-list from its current 25 titles a month down to something more manageable.

Part of my problem has been that my osteoarthritis has made me feel so uncomfortable that concentrating on reading (and finding a good position to do so) has led to a four or five month backlog of unread comics.

Some, I fear, will have to remain unread if I ever want to get back up-to-date.

Going forward, I'm thinking of streamlining my reading to: DC's Superman (and family); Marvel's Fantastic Four; and Titan's Howardverse titles (Conan The Barbarian, Savage Sword, Solomon Kane etc)

There'll be a few odds and ends in there as well: such as Dynamite's "occasional" Fire and Ice.

I've also heard a rumour that the long-delayed Afterlife With Archie (the greatest unfinished zombie comic book saga of all time) might have finally - after a 10 year hiatus - clawed its way out of the grave to resume its run, but I'll only believe it once that new issue is in my hands.

Of course, on top of all this, there's still my monthly Judge Dredd Megazine subscription and odd runs of 2000AD (I'm still undecided on whether to wean myself off the latter or take out a subscription to sit parallel with my Megazine one).

So, that's still a lot of comics each month, but - as long as I can catch up - it feels like it'll be easier to keep on top of.

Books, Books, As Far As The Eye Can See

The shelving is finished, but the "stocking up" remains a work in progress

The highlight of this week has been the magical appearance of my new bookcase. Paid for by Rachel and assembled by her dad, I absolutely love these new shelves to display my stuff on.

For about a year I've been planning for a new book case, but had only pictured it going half-way up the wall - with room for a framed picture above - but then Rachel and her dad said it would be feasible to build one up to the ceiling.

I'm so glad I followed their suggestion, as I think I was very incredibly optimistic over how much I could squeeze into a half-size bookcase!

What you see above is the current state of affairs, and I've promised everyone that I won't fill every single centimetre with weighty tomes (as this is on the first floor and nobody wants to see it drop through to the ground floor!).

Given my current disability, I am unable to reach the top shelves, so managed to persuade Rachel to help fill-up top (and bring boxes of previously hidden books up from the lounge).

The current make-up of my bookcase is a shelf for Westerns, one for Planet of The Apes, three for Judge Dredd -related products (I still need to get a stand for my old Lawgiver Mk2, which used to sit - in its packaging - in a glass cabinet in my original gamesroom in our old house), a couple for Robert E Howard and Conan books, one for Stephen King, one for Dune books (which is shared with a Star Wars Sith holocron), one for my Fantastic Four merch from the cinema, and then a display of Funko Pops along the top, bookended by cat statues painted to resemble my late parents' two cats: Cookie and Rover.

The cat figures were gifts I got my parents decades ago, when I was still working for the newspaper. There was someone at our head office who had access to a variety of blank statutes that he would then paint to resemble people's cats, based on photographs you supplied him.

I'm glad I finally have somewhere to display the pair properly.

Health-wise, it's been an up-and-down week. After a frustrating phone chat with my GP the other week (my doc didn't know why she was ringing, even though it was her who had asked me to book the call), Rachel and I were directed to a self-referral site for NHS physio.

We filled it in, but then a day or so later I got a call to say I had been rejected and was better off going to the falls clinic.

Through gritted teeth I explained I was already going through the falls clinic procedures and was looking for something to supplement that and, hopefully, develop my strength and stability further.

Later that evening I got a text to say I was now being referred and the following day I got an email containing the phone number to arrange my appointment. So, that's a job for this week.

MORE THAN JUST A GAME, IT'S THE GAME!

With its rich storytelling, elaborate campaigns and characters, and immersive fantasy worlds, Dungeons & Dragons is the ultimate tabletop role-playing game.

In 1982, at just 14 years old, Dungeon Master Robert Wardhaugh began a campaign that’s still running many years later.

Based out of his basement in London, Canada, players from across the country gather to take part in one of the longest-running D&D campaigns in history. But how do you play it? And most importantly, how do you play it well?

In this episode, Great Big Story returns to Robert’s legendary game to explore its evolution, the secrets to a campaign’s longevity, and what it takes to play (and master) D&D for life.

Except, of course, it isn't really Dungeons & Dragons per se, as Robert Wardhaugh has replaced pretty much every rule from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons - ship of Theseus-style - with his own personalised houserules.

Not that that, in any way, detracts from the brilliance, and enduring appeal, of this campaign - I'm immensely envious of pretty much every aspect of the group's set-up!

The Game, as Robert's campaign is known, now has its own website (here) and Patreon (here).

This latest episode of Great Big Story is an update on its first visit to Robert's world in 2017, which you can watch here:

History professor Robert Wardhaugh has been continually running this campaign for more than four decades - almost certainly the longest continuous roleplaying campaign.

He began at a teenager in 1982 with his schoolfriends and now, four decades later, has a pool of around 50 players to call upon, both around his native Canada and in the UK.

The adventures, which so far have covered more than 600 years of in-game history, take place on an alternate Earth that includes multiple real-world pre-gunpowder civilisations, as well as Robert E Howard's Hyboria in place of South America, and Tolkien's Middle-Earth (400 years after the destruction of The One Ring) as a bonus continent.

The game has been houseruled from its beginning, and now only bears a passing mechanical resemblance to modern Dungeons & Dragons (I get the impression Robert has been, forever, cherry-picking bits from all kinds of rules systems as he discovers them over the years).

In an interview with the official Dungeons & Dragons podcast in 2016 (see below), Robert revealed an interesting ruling that has shaped the nature of the campaign: death means death.

If a character is killed, the player leaves the game... unless the character has a family member who can inherit the dead player-character's mantle.

This has seen some player-character lineages extend to 20 generations so far!

(Note: there are other ways round this 'harsh' ruling - such as taking over a member of another player's family).

Averaging one or two sessions a week, usually of four or five hours, Robert has pledged to run this campaign for as long as he is physically able.

As well as mountains of custom terrain, he has a tens of thousands of miniatures to help bring his obviously prodigious storytelling to life for his lucky players.

Gamesmaster Robert Wardhaugh discusses his campaign - aka The Game - with Dragon Talk hosts Greg Tito and Shelly Mazzanoble.

You can watch The Twitch videos Robert mentions in the interview here:

Wired produced another mini-documentary about The Game (above).

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Conan and The Fox

Last week I wrote about how I encountered Conan The Barbarian in comic books (courtesy of the wonderful, old digest releases), but I reckon this must have also been around the same time I discovered him in literature as well.

This was reminded of the first Robert E Howard books I ever owned.

It must have been the very early 1980s when I found myself, during a shopping trip to Maidstone with my parents, as a young teenager in a discount book store (I seem to recall it was one of those shops that sold remaindered titles and craft bits and bobs, kind of a forerunner to today's The Works) and my eye was immediately drawn to the exciting covers of The Howard Collector and The Gods of Bel-Sagoth, which turned out to be anthology titles focusing on the output of Robert E Howard, father of Conan.

I also acquired Wereblood and Werenight, which would turn out to be game-changing sword-and-sorcery titles for me.

These short and pacy novels had an air of Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser about them, and I strongly suspect Fritz Leiber's dynamic duo were a major influence on author 'Eric Iverson'.

At that time, I was deep, deep, deep in the early bloom of my love of Dungeons & Dragons and all things RPG and those two novels were a major influence on me.

But then I could never find anything else written by Eric Iverson. I always hoped he'd continue the adventures of Gerin The Fox, the protagonist of Wereblood and Werenight.

It was only about a decade or so ago that, thanks to the creation of the Internet, I discovered that Eric Iverson was actually just a pen name of alternate history aficionado Harry Turtledove... and that there were more Gerin The Fox tales.

They turned out to be reasonably easy to track down at the time, on Amazon and eBay, but given how much I loved the original duology as a teenager I still haven't cracked open these later books for fear they can't recapture that magic.

It's probably about time I tried though...  

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Conan Digests

When we were readying ourselves to move house half-a-dozen years ago, I was shifting boxes in the 'office' part of my attic-gamesroom and 'discovered' a long concealed bookcase; squirrelled away in the corner, on which was my collection of eight, old Conan The Barbarian digests.

These were pocket-sized, British reprints (in black and white) from the early '80s, of Conan's original stint in the pages of Marvel Comics, each around 50-pages long.

These were my first exposure to both Conan The Barbarian and the works of Robert E Howard, I would have been about 14 or 15 when I picked these up.

I guess I was a comparative latecomer to the exploits of the mighty Cimmerian, having cut my sword-and-sorcery teeth - soon after being introduced to Dungeons & Dragons at the tail-end of the '70s - on Fritz Leiber's Nehwon tales with Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Harry Turtledove's stories of Gerin The Fox, and then Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné, years before I encountered Conan The Barbarian.

In truth, I think, after the comic book digests, my first actual Robert E Howard book was a remaindered copy of The Gods Of Bal-Sagoth, an Ace Science-Fiction collection of non-Conan stories, that I purchased in a discount book store while out shopping with my parents.

Like pretty much everything at that time, my early interest in Howard's work - and Conan - was fuelled by my desire to make everything about my blossoming passion for roleplaying games, and particularly Dungeons & Dragons.

A passion they still serve today.

Conan the Barbarian: Kingdoms and Stories

Dive deep into the savage world of Conan with a full breakdown of the kingdoms, cultures, and lands where his greatest adventures took place!

From The Frost-Giant’s Daughter and Queen of the Black Coast to The Tower of the Elephant, Red Nails, and The Hour of the Dragon — we cover every iconic tale by Robert E. Howard.

Venture across the Hyborian Age, from the brooding hills of Cimmeria to the golden spires of Aquilonia, the haunted jungles of Kush, and the sun-scorched sands of Stygia. Where did Conan face his most brutal foes? Which land tested the Cimmerian’s steel the most? Find out here — your Hyborian journey begins now.

Courtesy of Heroic Signatures