Titanic Return For The King of Atlantis

Although he has already appeared alongside Conan in the Cimmerian's own title, Robert E Howard's Kull is getting his own four-issue miniseries early next year from Titan Comics.

Howardverse I.P. holders Heroic Signatures has revealed that Mark Buckingham - of Fables, The Sandman, Miracleman, Batman; Shadow of The Bat etc fame - will be the illustrator of this series, with colours from Dave Stewart.

The comic will be written by The Mask and B.P.R.D. scribe John Arcudi.

Vintage Guide To Conan's World Now In My Collection

Crom may not care, but I do! Hence the serious face

As we're talking about reading today, I thought I'd share my latest non-Amazon purchase that's just arrived: A Gazeteer of The Hyborian World of Conan and An Ethnogeographical Dictionary of Principal Peoples of The Era.

Compiled by Lee N Falconer and published by Starmont House in 1977, I have been after a copy of this (rare?) guide to the world of Robert E. Howard's Conan The Barbarian since I first heard of its existence several years ago.

Eventually, one popped up on eBay. But it was in a store in the United States. After a bit of umming and ahhing, I thought 'this could be my only shot at getting this book', and so I pulled the trigger.

As I found out a year ago, once you've accepted the shipping costs, it is very comforting ordering from the States via eBay because your trans-Atlantic package is tracked all the way from the seller to your door: every single stop, every depot, every sorting facility, as it passes from the USPS to DHL and finally Evri  in the UK (which delivered it far quicker than I was expecting).

And the 49-year-old paperback arrived in top grade, ship-shape condition, complete with that nice old book smell that takes me back to my youth and rifling through the shelves of second-hand bookshops.

The bulk of the 127-page book is an alphabetised catalogue of places in Howard's Conan and Kull stories, followed appendices covering chronology, key peoples, heraldry and cartography.

The book closes out with three maps of the Hyborian World, including one based on Howard's own sketch and one superimposed on modern Europe. 

This is a very exciting addition to my small Howard library and makes me very happy to think that, once again, my (rare) patience paid off.

Originally the Gazeteer (sic) came packaged with a stunning, full colour map.

However, I've never seen one of those particular maps for sale... and, anyway, I  don't have wall space for a 28" by 40.5" map (as much as I love fantasy maps).

Obscure & Underrated Sword and Sorcery Movies

In this recent episode of the Atomic Snack Bar, host (and author) R. Sterling Carody takes a look at some obscure and/or underrated sword-and-sorcery movies.

Turns out I only own two of these on DVD or Blu-Ray and so now I've got some more hunting to do!

DING! DING! ROUND TWO!

Yes, I am wearing my Conan The Barbarian t-shirt. 

Just over a year since the first glorious volume arrived from the Robert E Howard Foundation Press (via Amazon, I must confess), the second hardback collection of the prodigious pulp writer's boxing stories is now in my hands.

And on the weekend of 40th annual Howard Days over in Cross Plains, Texas, no less.

I was particularly keen to get my mitts on Fists of Iron: Round Two because it's wall-to-wall Sailor Steve Costigan yarns. 

Although Howard is best known for his swords-and-sorcery stories featuring the likes of Conan, Kull, and Bran Mak Morn: as I've declared many times before, Sailor Steve Costigan is my favourite of Howard's many characters. 

That's Steve and his bulldog Mike on the cover

This is only the second volume of a planned four-volume series of Howard's boxing stories. And money - and space - willing I'm all in for the complete set.

I'm not generally what you'd call a sporty person, but there's a definite fascination in Howard's journalistic, blow-by-blow descriptions of boxing bouts, be they legal or otherwise. 

And Costigan is a charming, hard-drinking, goofy lunk, prone to being led into chaotic misadventures by a pretty face, and who resolves his problems with his fists and his feisty bulldog, Mike. I mean, what's not to enjoy?

Complementing Fists of Iron: Round Two, I also picked up  the self-published Fight Card: The Adventures of Sailor Tom Sharkey by Howard scholar Mark Finn (he even wrote the introduction to Fists of Iron: Round Two!).

Finn's homage to Sailor Steve imagines a boisterous, pulp adventure-packed life for the very real, early 20th Century, boxer Tom Sharkey after he officially hung up his gloves. Sharkey, I believe, was an inspiration for Howard when penning the Sailor Steve tales. 

Mark Finn also wrote Blood & Thunder, the highly-regarded biography of Robert E Howard.

Sailor Steve has already found a home on my Robert E Howard shelf

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.

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.

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.

Conan The Barbarian Hits His Quarter-Century

Painted wraparound cover for by Alex Horley

The blockbuster Conan The Barbarian comic, from Titan and Heroic Signatures, releases its landmark 25th issue this October.

To mark the occasion, this issue will be a 48-page, standalon King Conan adventure from celebrated Conan scribe Jim Zub, fully painted by Alex Horley.

In his weekly newsletter, Zub stated:

"Solicits and preview pages are making the rounds and it’s so nice to be able to show people some of the jaw-dropping work I’ve been staring in awe at since Alex and I started working on this epic back in September of last year.

"This issue is my first King Conan story, it’s a self-contained adventure, and it’s a fist-pumping sword-swinging celebration of our series – past, present, and future."

He added:

"And just as a reminder – Conan the Barbarian will keep going after issue #25! I know a lot of current comic series seem to be getting cancelled or constantly relaunched, but we are going strong and our latest issues have defied typical attrition patterns and are going up in sales.

"There are many more adventures to come as long as readers and retailers keep supporting the series the way they have so far."

Fully-painted preview of interior artwork by Alex Horley

At last weekend's San Diego Comic-Con, it was also revealed that the popularity of Patrick Zircher's recent Solomon Kane mini-series means a second series is coming next year; and a new title called Savage Sword: Reforged is being launched, reprinting select stories from the original black and white Marvel run of Savage Sword of Conan but in colour.

A sample of Barry Windsor-Smith's coloured art from The Frost-Giant's Daughter

The first issue of Reforged comes with a choice of covers:

A new podcast, called Legends of Conan, was mentioned; Jim Zub hinted at his four-year plan (with annual 'event' pillars) for Conan The Barbarian, including the arc in issues 26 to 28 which will show how Conan became the king of Aquilonia; and a forthcoming, brand new Kull comic book series was also announced during the busy Heroic Signatures panel.

It's a great time to be a comic book-reading fan of the creations of Robert E Howard!

Art tease from Patrick Zircher's next Solomon Kane miniseries