How Conan the Barbarian began a fanfic empire

Duncan has asked me to correctly attribute the person who inherited the Howard Estate because it wasn't actually Sprague de Camp. It was Glen Lord who got the rights. He just let de Camp use them. So yes, that is another correction. I hope there won't be any more. And he goes to known press and over the course of the 1950s we get all of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories once again put out in bound hardbacks. Are they major hits? Do they take good literary world by storm?

The highest print number for one of these hardbacks was 3000. It's not terrible given the time period, given the lack of press. It's not like the modern day where you sell a million copies. So yeah, that's probably not a major disaster, but it's not a hit. It's not a revolution. It's certainly the idea of... That's probably more than the original run of Lord of the Rings sold in America. I think that might be true. That is shocking to actually discover that is true.

But it was still very much compiled by a fan for the fans. Remember this is like 15, 20 years later. This is for like the young men who grew up with these pulp fiction stories now wanting a hard cover to like store, read again in their older age. That's certainly how I see it. But lo and behold, oh, also fun fact, one of the known books was called Conan the Barbarian, one of the collections. And this is actually the first time that the name Conan the Barbarian was applied to the character.

Robert E. Howard never did it. It was for this collection. And these stories were also put in chronological order, or at least decamped chronological order for the first time. But something then happened. Right. So these come out, there's like five of them to collect all the stories. But then a fan, Geordie, a fan from... And I'm really sorry, he's from, I believe it was the Netherlands. This guy, Bjorn Nyberg. He was actually Swedish. His name was Ny-Bur-y.

But the pronunciation in English is Nyberg. He likes Conan. He likes him a lot. So he writes a fanfic. As one does, and he put it up on archive.org. He wrote a fanfic called The Return of Conan. And he even has a self insert character in it. Like how cringy is that? Never would have done that myself. But he writes it and he sends it to De Camp, who currently owns, obviously, is looking after the rights to Conan. And De Camp goes, yeah, that's pretty good. Shall we publish it? And that was it.

That was the first ever officially licensed, and if I was to wear first ever, obviously, a fan writer could have written something anyway and kept it in their attic. Conan the Barbarian story, not written by Robert E. Howard. Right. So this is really interesting. And obviously, I'm sure people who listen to this now, you know, this is a podcast about fantasy literature, probably big fans, probably big literature fans, and would be aware that this is pretty weird. That doesn't happen that often.

You know, fan works, for one thing, are in a legally grey area. And when I say legally grey area, they are pretty much all illegal. But everyone knows you kind of just be a dick if you stomped on them, so we don't. It's like jaywalking in America. It is illegal, not enforced. I know, it's so odd. When people talk about writing for a franchise now, it's like, yeah, you just have to be an established author and they will, like, invite you.

This guy just sent his book in and went, what do you think? And the rights holder just went, cool. It's official. Well done. Is it any good? The return of Conan? It's... Yeah. ...Germany not one of the worst. I actually think it's okay. He clearly has a love for the character and it often reads, I would say, more like a direct sequel to The Owl of the Dragon, which, by the way, was retitled and known press to Conan the Conqueror, and it keeps that title for, like, the next 70 years.

Well, 50 at least. Really? That's very strange. Very strange. And... but it seems to be moving. Then again, I don't remember there being any dragons in that story. The Owl of the Dragon refers to the fact that the neighbouring country's flag is a dragon, so The Owl of the Dragon is referring to the time that their flag flew above Conan's country. Okay, fair enough. So it'd be like if we named the story The Owl of the Fleur de Lys. Exactly. Ish. The Reign of the Lions.

I mean, there is actually three hearts, three lions. Yes. Well, we'll get into that sometime. That's probably connected to Conan. Oh, yes, it is. We'll get to that later. Well, we can't get distracted or anything anymore. Okay, return of Conan and then I'm assuming that's going to open a floodgate. Other fans are going to say, oh my god, I've been writing fan fiction on archive.org for years, now I can make money off of it? Hell yeah. Not quite.

It's still a little bit as the trickle started and De Camp then sees that this sells well. And so he goes back and he looks at the Conan stories. But what more? He goes back and looks at the non-Conan stories written by Robert E. Howard. And he thinks, wow, these aren't going to sell because they're not Conan. I can change that.

And so De Camp puts out a collection called The Tales of Conan, where he took, I think it was five separate stories of other Robert E characters from across time periods, somewhere like Crusader heroes, somewhere like set in Afghanistan, like the 1800s. And he rewrote them to be Conan stories in the Hyborian age. Oh, wait, hang on, what? That sounds super immoral. Well, rewriting another author's work and publishing it.

Yeah, going back and taking a dead, quite forgotten author who died tragically, taking their work and repackaging it to make it more palatable to a mainstream audience. That's disgusting. Hold on to that thought, Geordie, because I have a really complicated relationship with De Camp and what he did to Robert E. Howard's work. Because on one hand, he did that and he did that a lot.

On the other hand, there is a strong argument that maybe the world wouldn't remember Conan the Barbarian without him. Sure, I hear what you're saying. I'm a fan of Star Trek and I have a complicated relationship with both Gene Roddenberry and Rick Berman, because Gene Roddenberry, much like Robert E. Howard, is the damaged genius who created a classic story, which is still going today, but has a lot of gross, outdated elements and had a problematic life in of himself.

And then you have someone else who comes in the future. So Rick Berman comes along, he picks up Gene Roddenberry's legacy and he keeps it alive. But he also is a jerk, like a huge jerk, and in some ways bastardizes what remains. And then he makes a Phantom Menace too, which is just a real kick in the teeth. Yikes. I spanned to say De Camp does nothing that bad, but I'm not quite sure of those words. But let's continue with our story, Geordie. We're in the 1950s.

These are selling, you know, 3,000? That's the biggest seller. Some are as low as one and a half. I think there might be one which didn't break the thousand mark. This is still very niche. But in 1966, Lancer comes along, publishing house. They like the look. There's an idea. You don't need big hardbacks. They're difficult. They're expensive. We're going to go paperback. We're going to get a little known artist on board called Frank Frazetta. Yes, now we're talking, Frank Frazetta.

Frank Frazetta defined the look of Conan. Before Frank Frazetta came along, if you looked at an image of Conan, he looked like some sort of centurion in half the images. Very almost 1920s idea of what just a leading actor would look like. Folks, if you don't recognise the name Frank Frazetta, you do recognise the look. He's one of the most iconic, popular artists of the 20th century. He has this real great reverence for muscular physiques and skimpy cad damns into distress.

You could equally see him drawing a half naked barbarian and an astronaut with a ray gun. If you can try and find the middle ground between those images, yes, you're imagining Frank Frazetta. To be quite honest, if you take one thing away from this episode and you're like, I'm still not interested in reading Conan, just go and Google Frank Frazetta and spend some time looking at his artwork. Because I bet you, that's a good way to spend half an hour.

You will see his influence or you will see one thing and be like, I've seen that before. But he comes in, they start doing paperbacks. Another Sawyer's Swordsman author, a guy called Lyn Carter, he gets brought into the fold with De Camp and Nyberg. Nyberg doesn't go away. He continues to work with them and writes other short stories. And they produce the Lancer series. Now the Lancer series covers, I believe, 12 books.

Geordie, if the known press series, 3000, was good, do you want to know the numbers for like Lancer, just order of magnitude? Ah, sure. What is it? It's multiple millions. It's- Whoa! In 1969, the Conan Lancer series was second only to Lord of the Rings in terms of fantasy series sales. Really? That's crazy! It was an insane spike. Duncan, you introduced me to the world of Conan the Barbarian.

Eight years ago in 2016, I had no idea that even nearly close to one million copies of Conan had ever been sold. It's incredible. I think you look at the numbers and obviously this is the wildest back in the 1960s, but you're like, how did this hit such a range? And then so slow off. You think about it, Conan got a movie adaptation before Lord of the Rings was off the ground. Like, this was a known property, this sold. Yes, and recognisable names are always key to what gets made in Hollywood.

I want to just check in though, Duncan. We're talking about the Lancer series. Is this re- are these reprintings of Robert E. Howard or are we talking about fan fictions, pastiche stories? So we're talking about both. So in this era, we get re-releases of all Robert E. Howard's works again. Once again, put into a De Camp approved chronological order. And also the tales of Conan stories are a little bit sneakily just fitted in now with the Robert E. Howard ones.

A lot of these books go by the title of like Conan the Adventurer by Robert E. Howard and then it'll just go edited by De Camp. Yes, yes. You told me about this in the Cole episode about how like some of the Cole stories, it would just say like, what was it exactly said like? Yeah, it's so like I said, they always- their names would be edited by, but edited by sometimes means fully rewriting ends of stories. Taking half stories and writing the new endings. It's insane. Right.

And you said in the Cole episode that like De Camp wrote like a new backstory for Cole and then did like a huge paragraph in the opening page, like making up this old story that Robert E. Howard didn't come up with, right? In that particular case, it was Lin Carter. But yes, exactly that. They used to do between the short stories, they'd write like little paragraphs that'd be like, this is what Conan did between this time and this time. To try to build this sort of continuous narrative.

You know, this is the year where Thoth Amon became like the main villain of Conan. Sure. Now, a few new stories were written at this time. We had one book by Lin Carter called Conan of the Isle, where this is the oldest Conan we ever see. This is Conan when he finally leaves the throne, where he ends up at the end of the Robert E. Howard stories and goes off on new adventures. Old man Conan. Yep, sailing the seas, heading out for the Americas of the Hyborian Age.

We also get a really cool pirating story in Conan the Buccaneer. We also get Conan of Aquilonia, which I actually really like. This is a series of short stories with Conan and his son, Con. Dean daddy and son for four stories. Okay. Okay. So I'm getting a picture here. This is where they're just writing new stories, Lin Carter and De Camp and this other guy, this Dutch guy, they're writing him up. So how long does that go on for then? And also, is any of it worth reading?

So this goes from like 66 or even through to 77. Bear in mind, in this time period, this is when the comic books start. In 1970, like coming off 96, where it's like the second highest fantasy series of all time, Marvel, guy called Roy Thomas is like, we need to get in on that. But yes, back to what ones are worth reading. Great question. Roy Thompson is already working on this.

Yeah. Okay. I'm going to jump in here and I say, so I know the name Roy Thompson, because I'm pretty sure he's still working on Conan today, right? Yeah. Roy Thomas, he was an editor at Marvel in the 1970s. He wrote, I believe more in terms of actual page count, he probably has written more Conan Pastiche work than any other man alive. But he did it all in comics. And to this day, bear in mind, it's been 54 years since he first wrote Conan.

He is still often brought in by the comic book publishers as like a guest writer. It's very prestigious. When Roy Thomas steps in, you're like, okay, now the king's back. Let's see how he's going to do it. So this is really fascinating because we've gotten on like 40 years from the death of Robert E. Howard. And now it seems like it's changed hands twice. We've got a De Camp era and it's a long period of time, 40 years to be writing another author's work.

I was moaning about, I was moaning at our dude episode about Brian Herbert taking over from Frank. This is so much, this is so much worse. Oh, De Camp goes right up to the 82 film. De Camp writes the novelization of the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie script. Like he is there- 50 years. Yeah, 30 years. He really gets involved in the 50s with the known presses like being collected. And then he stays heavily involved up to the early 1980s. Okay, fair enough. But he was the rights owner.

He was managing the IP. When Roy Thomas wanted to make Conan comics, he had to go to De Camp and be like, hi, we can offer you this much an issue. Fun story, apparently. Let's- Yeah, sorry, we're getting off track. What stories? What- Yes. So, we've got an era here. From in the 1950s up to the 1970s, this is where Link Carter and Sprague De Camp and some guy in Holland are writing past these stories. We haven't gone to the comic books yet.

Is there anything good for fans of Conan to check out in that period? Not massively. And I'm going to say that sounds really mean of me, but I genuinely feel like this isn't the golden age. No offense to De Camp and Link Carter, but I just don't think they were quite the hottest authors. I think Return of Conan is very interesting to read from the... It's the start. It's the spark that sets the fire.

I also really do enjoy the Conan of the Isles book, just because it goes so left field in weird and bizarre. It kind of has its own fun campy charm. I once tried to explain it to someone when I'm reading this book, I'm not seeing the monsters. I'm seeing cheesy effects, the seventh voice of Sinbad, effects of these monsters in my head, because it's just got that weird vibe. But I don't think this is the golden age for Conan. Just not quite yet.

Not in Lancer, not in 1977. We've just got to go a little bit further, Geordie, just to the next era before we actually get works that I think people should start reading. So what is the next era? Is it a comic book? No, we're going to stay with the novel, the prose works, and then we'll come back to comics at the end. I think that's just the only way to do it. So Lancer finishes and we move on to Baiten books, 78 to 82. What happens here? So De Campe and Lin Carter, they've done their era.

They've run out of juice, Geordie. They need more fuel in the tank. They need to get fresh blood in. So in this era, Ace Moroto also had the rights for a little bit. It's quite confusing. I don't really understand it. Nonetheless, there are new people writing. And this is where they bring in Andrew Offit, Carl Wagner, and good old Paul Anderson of... Oh, Paul Anderson. There we go. There's our Three Hearts, Three Lions. Absolutely. And these guys come in and they write some excellent stories.

Carl Wagner writes Conan and the Road of Kings. Andrew Offit writes a whole trilogy. Only the first one do I recommend. Conan and the Sorcerer. Paul Anderson writes Conan the Rebel, which is the first time I think someone attempts to expand on the era between the chapters in Queen of the Black Coast, where Conan has this kind of piracy adventure off page. And finally, De Campe gets what I think to be his hurrah. De Campe, Lin Carter, and Nyberg write Conan the Swordsman, which is one very few...

Weirdly, Geordie. Weirdly. So very few times do people write original short story Conan fiction. This is like the only collection out there where people just... Okay, so up till now, it'll be novels, these extra stories they're writing? So there's the Tales of Conan that we mentioned earlier. Conan of Aquilonia is technically marketed as four short stories, but they're four short stories that follow each other chronologically, like back to back. It feels like a novel.

I don't care what people claim. So yeah, this is the first time short stories were back in. And it's called Conan the Swordsman. And I really enjoy this. Mostly because, guess what Geordie, Conan works really well in a short story format. Really? That's so weird. You'd think it would be... I know, right? Yeah. So very few people seem to understand this, or willing to go for this. Maybe it doesn't sell. Maybe it's just not what the market wanted. That's basically the same thing.

But it's one of the few instances where they just put out a short story collection. And what I really enjoyed about this short story collection is the fact that they actually do like little sequels or like additions to all the Robert E. Howard stories. If you enjoy Paul of the Black Ones, then we've got Jem in the Tower, which is him with the pirate crew just before that adventure. If you enjoyed Man-Eaters of Zambolla, because I don't know, you have issues, then you'll really enjoy Sarl Khorra.

You have just mentioned the two worst Conan stories back to back. But like the Sarl Khorra, I'm really sorry, I'm virtually in that fantasy pronunciation, written by Nyberg, one of my absolute favourites, we get like, there's a story where Conan's got this magic jewel and he wants to ransom it back to this princess who had it stolen from originally. But oh no, the princess has been captured and put in a tower. What's Conan going to do?

Well, now he's got to save the Danse and Distress so that he can then take her back to her ancestral home in Aquilonia and ransom her there and make money that way. And then so we get like a heist as he breaks into the tower to rescue the princess. We get a chase scene as he runs to the border. And we get this like legend style last stand where he can't make it, but he spots some ruins on the horizon. And he rides there, puts the princess in a little enclave and goes, wait here.

And he goes up and he takes his stand on the ruined battlements. And then asks Kron for help. And he does an answer to hell with him. Like these are really good stories. So that one you like. So what so one more time for clarity, what are the stories from that you recommend? I really recommend Angel Ofit’s, Conan the Sorcerer, Carl Ragnar, Conan and the Road of Kings and De Camp, Link Carter and Nyberg's joint effort, Conan the Swordsman. Really the jewel to their their crown.

Everything that they wrote really came together in that short story collection. I think since we're in the right era and I hate to distract you too much, is this an opportunity for you to talk about the Conan movie or would you have spent too much time on that and take up the oxygen of the episode? No, I can talk about that. This is 82. So this era when this when the publishing these Bateson books, that's when the film comes out in 82 and we get to the next year.

So yeah, this is exactly when the times speak. So what is what do you want to know about the film? I'm also watching it. I only saw it like this year last year for the first time. I thought it was enjoyable. Yeah, I have a really controversial opinion considering my love of the character, but I actually am just like it's it's OK. Yeah. It's not really a Conan movie, but it's a pretty good sword and sorcery desert movie. Yeah, I agree. I think Arnold Schwarzenegger is really fun.

To be honest, I would recommend it to more fans of Arnold Schwarzenegger than I would fans of Conan the Barbarian. I think I would say that very easily and quite controversially. I think I enjoyed reading the novelization of the film by De Kamp. Then I enjoyed watching it because he then takes the time to then work the film into the law like a lot more. I appreciate that. Yeah, the film was too successful. The character reached new heights.

By the way, the film was very much like the combination of like the millions of books being sold and the very successful comic book that had been running for a decade at this point. Not just a comic book, but three simultaneous comic books were coming out. Yes, you'll get into that later, I suppose. But that is going to be interesting thing. Right. Deep breath, Geordie.

Little aside, just so you know, if I made any mistakes, please forgive me because I live in the UK and in the UK, all of Lancer, all of Batem and a bit of Tor, which we'll get to now, weren't actually released by those publishers. If I look at my shelf, it will just say Sphere. Sphere Books collected all these series and published them in the UK in their own weird number ordering system. So my bookshelf is no help to me when doing this.

I'm specifically talking about a lot of American publishers because they were what were driving it. Duncan, I find it very interesting that you used the word bookshelf because I have been in your office when we were at university together. And I think you what you really meant is bookshelves, plural. Yes, that would be correct. I don't think I don't think your partner would have forgiven me if I had let that one slide. It was a hard time at uni.

I had a very small bookshelf and I did fill up the entire thing with Conan books. And once my partner kindly reorganized my bookshelf to help fit them all better by instead of having the books, you know, like a sane person, like spine running vertically, put them all into the spines for horizontal. So I could fit more in. And Jordi, she did this for when I like came home from work and then was like, look, I did this for you. Let's go have dinner.

I had to put my life down halfway through dinner and go, I'm really sorry, but I can't eat knowing that. I might have some slight issues. Okay. Well, that's that's a classic Duncan story right there. That just is we should really put that should really be the intro to all our episodes, because then people will just be like, oh, yeah, I know what this podcast is about. So Jordi, let's get on to the next, the biggest jump in our timeline. We're going to go from 82 to 2004.

And in that period, we're going to talk about probably not individually, the 43 Conan the Barbarian novels put out by Tor Books. Okay. So before you break down 43 separate novels, which is about equivalent to two years of us doing this podcast and breaking down various novels. How much time are you going to commit to each one of these? I am not going to go through every novel. Don't you worry.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to break this down by author, because there's a number of authors that kind of took turns during this era, I believe eight in total. So I'm just going to do a little bit for each of them to give an idea of the times and like what was driving this. Because this is an insane endeavour. This is this is like two books a year. Solid. Or roughly equivalent to one Brandon Sanderson. Absolutely.

I recently found out a little bit more about the Wandering Inn series or the Wandering Tavern and the insane length of that. And I assume I'm right. Everything's now in perspective. You're all not long. Don't worry. I'm sorry, Brandon Sanderson, you were being concise. How could I misjudge you? So, okay, okay, okay. So eight authors, eight authors. Starting off in 82, the movie's out. It's hot. Tor just got the license and they need fantasy. They need it now. The world wants Conan.

Who are you going to call? Who? Robert Jordan, obviously. Oh yes, Robert Jordan, of course. Robert Jordan. To write Conan the Avenger, right? Actually Conan the Avenger is a retitling of The Return of Conan by Nyberg. But let's not go into that. Motherfucker. Okay, fine. I'll try my best. Conan the Soldier, the Mercenary. What is it? Conan the Mercenary was the second in the trilogy by Andrew Offutt. Oh my god's sake. What did he write? What did he write?

He wrote Conan the Invincible, Conan the Defender, Conan the Unconquered, Conan the Magnificent, Conan the Victorious, Conan the Destroyer novelization, and Conan the Triumphant. How could you get that wrong, Geordie? And you know what? That's not even in my notes. That was off the top of my head. Okay. Thanks for flexing on me like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I looked so smug as I was like, it was Conan the Avenger? I'm on mastermind right now and this is my special topic.

Okay. What a fail on my part. Seven books, Geordie. How many years to write seven books? Well Robert Jordan wrote some really big books, so clearly he could write things pretty quick. Seven books, I'm gonna say five years. You insult him too. Oh boy, wow. He cranked these out and this is very much why he was picked for the job. He wrote a book, I believe it's called Daughters of Attila, and he didn't get picked because of the strength of that book. He got picked because he wrote it quickly.

And I would say- Sure, Isaac Asimov. If you want to know something about like why I think he managed to do it so quickly, it's that yeah, he wrote seven books. He maybe wrote two plots. And then just- Okay, because he was very repetitive? Oh, incredibly so. He had a good formula, to be fair, and this is a formula which a lot of the following authors would kind of adhere to to a certain extent.

He was very much about, let's make Conan, keep him quite young, keep him in his early days, as much as you can. Make sure that the villain is a POV character so we can literally just see what his evil plot's gonna be. And all the characterization is through his eyes. And also let's try and make Conan a bit more heroic. I think this is definitely his Conan is a bit more Superman. He's got that S on his chest. He's a little bit more like, I will just go and be the hero. Don't you worry.

Wait, hang on. Duncan, are you telling me that Robert Jordan starts to get a little bit repetitive? Was Conan tugging on his braid a lot? No, but all the authors know those volcanic blue eyes. They're the first thing you always describe. So he's heroic now. He's a bit more heroic. He's not really like a anti-hero character. And I don't mind it. It's fine. He's got the Hyborian age. He has respect and he's a good writer. That's a controversial thing to say. Robert Jordan is a solid writer.

He can handle this. I can't find out in time. Weird of time. All right, next four floats I'm going to talk about all at once because these are the guys. So Robert Jordan then steps away. 84. He's off the books. What we then get is four authors step up to the plate and these guys work together sort of like how the Call of Duty games are made by like three different studios. So they keep them yearly, but like they all get time off.

Except these four authors, it was two books a year and you get one year between them. So the pace kind of cools a bit. So now we're talking like early Star Wars stuff. We've got people saying Mara Jade is here. Mara Jade isn't here. Mara Jade took it with Lando. Oh, no, no, she isn't.

She's with Luke. Very much so because quite a few of these authors would come up with their own like bespoke side characters, except unlike in Star Wars where everyone's like just using other people's like characters and doing them in different ways. These guys are just like, they're so, this is how I imagine it. They're just so focused and so like, I've just got to get this out. They ain't reading the other guy's work. They have no idea.

So one will write in a side character and then the next bloke will just pretend they don't exist, write in their own side character and then because the timelines are wibbly wobbly you'll read them in chronological order and go, right, this guy's with Conan. He then just disappears for a book and then the next book he's just standing next to him again. Just like, oh yeah, I was here the whole time. Ignore me. How many like Red Sonya, Belit clones we get here in this era? A lot. A lot.

The strong sort of warrior women character runs through a lot of these. Robert Jordan had one that he used three times called, I think it was like Crilla the Red Hawk. Very popular. Carl Wagner did a really good one where Conan has to go to like this barbarian themed masquerade ball. That sounds so stupid saying it out loud. I actually really like that story. It does. It sounds, it got embarrassing you said that. Yeah. But there's a character in there which literally is a red Sonya insert.

A woman comes up to Conan in this ridiculous chain now bikini and then Conan scoffs at it because how silly. Come on. Okay. Okay. And we get, so let's actually talk about these authors. John Roberts. He wrote an excellent historical fiction series called the SPQR. You can guess what that's about. And he was a great author. He wrote eight Conan books and he's one of my personal favourites.

I'd actually say of this era, anything by John Roberts, John Maddox Roberts, because he maybe isn't the strongest author who ever touched Conan, but I do genuinely feel that he got the character. When he's writing like Conan the Valerius or Conan the Champion, you're like, yes, he's here. This is Robert E. Howard's Conan. What this guy does do though, which is a bit odd. So John Roberts, didn't mind we talked earlier about like short stories. Short, yeah. This guy gets it.

John Roberts used to said in an interview once, I'd write my Conan story. I hand it to my publisher. They'd just be like, oh, this is fantastic. It's only 120 pages. And he'd be like, yeah. And they're like, we need more. And he's like, but I'm done. That's the story. And they're like, yeah, you need more. And he actually, if you read his stories, you can really vibe this.

In Conan the Valerius, there's just this section where you get about two firsts through, and then Conan just goes on a side mission. And it's a good side mission. And you're almost like, well, this could just almost be its own short story, but it's so crowbarred in. And then as soon as it's resolved, Conan's like, no, don't mention it again. There's a moment in Conan the Champion, which this is going to sound really bad. John Roberts is really good.

There's a bit in that where Conan literally goes to a fey world. Like he's defending a village. A sorcerer pops up, creates a portal. A monster drunks the lady of the day back through the portal. Conan dies after her. And we get like 60 pages of the fey wilds and evil elves in like dark obelisk castles. And this is not very Conan. I know it's horrific. And we go for it.

But what's so kind of amusing is that the moment Conan gets back through the portal and it snaps shut, it's not mentioned again for like the next 60 pages. It just didn't happen. Moving on. OK, well, that's embarrassing. It's genuinely one, that sounds like the pacing of Bioshock Infinite. And two, I didn't realize that Conan in this period of time was being published by Shonen Jump because that's the shit they do. Being like, no, no, no, no, don't you dare end this series.

You got to keep pumping this shit out. What are the side characters up to, Taisen Kubo? Come on, we got to have maybe 100 more chapters of this battle. It is painful. You can tell these guys put for their paces. So let's just roll through the rest of them. I don't want to be here for like ever. Lenin Carpenter. I'm also, I really don't actually want to talk about these guys because like when I was making everything, I just want to spotlight on what I think these people did. Lenin Carpenter.

No, hurry up. Middleman, like Sea Grade, wrote really good ones. Conan the Renegade and Conan the Raider wrote really bad ones like Conan the Warlord and I can't even remember some of the others, but sort of very middle. When he's good, when he's fighting Conan the Raider and it's like this mummy's tomb, Egypt setting and he's like breaking in and then he's in the dark tomb and he can hear this slow shuffling of feet and you realize it's like one of the mummies of wandering about. Amazing.

But he can also just be really boring. Conan the Savage is Conan becomes Bear Grylls and Lenin Carpenter goes really hardcore on like Conan surviving. He like falls down a river and he has to like, you know, make a fire and then create a little shelter and he goes really super detailed. And I'm like, okay, I'm sure someone out there, this is their thing, but this is just dull, mate. Sorry. Not for Conan story. Steve Perry. Steve. Chris Ryan writes. Okay. Sorry. I joke. No, it's your joke.

Chris Ryan writes Conan. Whatever. Moving on. Steve Perry. We all know Steve Perry. Shadow of the Empire. He vote for Forgotten Realms. Oh yeah. Yeah. He's a name. He's a name. Do you want to know my favourite Conan story quote by Steve Perry? Is this the one about the demon being obviously male? Even a blind man could see how obviously male the demon was. That was very necessary for the story, Steve. Good job.

Steve Perry is one that's also like originally I hate her for you don't care for the character. You don't give a shit. You just keep going like views and thighs and sinews and strength and you don't get it. You don't get it. I mean, who cares? It's hilarious. This guy is off the charts. This is every parody but just it's official. In fact, it's better than parody to be quite honest. Wait a second. I just realized something.

The fact that like actual people were writing fan fiction and then sending it to Lynn Carter. That means that... Oh, the Eye of Argonne. Yeah, the Eye of Argonne. That could have been official Conan. To quote Carl Wagner who wrote Conan the Road of Kings, to be quite honest, everything that we write for Conan is just fan fiction and is as much legitimate to the canon of Robert E. Howard as something you write yourself. I'm paraphrasing slightly but that was his sentiment.

If you don't mind Duncan, after the episode try and find the exact quote because I feel like that'd be nice to add to the episode. I will look for it. Duncan has to unfortunately admit that he searched everywhere from interviews to fan sites and the very book itself but he could not find the actual quote which this was attributed to so he apologizes. And then we have Throne and Green. He wrote seven Conan novels. I have very little to say about him.

I think he's just a bit dull but not atrocious. But in some respect, being boring is probably worse than being Steve Perry levels of fucking insane. Sure, because that's the one thing the Conan stories aren't and the reason why we recommended them in the first place and said they're worth reading. They're exciting. They're quick. Quick is the word. So talk about speed. So we said like average two books a year? Yeah that's average. 89. 4 novels. 1 year. 2 by the same bloke. Jesus Christ.

This literally, your stone just sound like, your stone just sound like Hamilton at this point. Yeah anyway, I'm not going to wrap this, I should write Conan now. Wait, hold on. Who said, I'll do it, hang on. Rowling Green wrote the other four. Maybe it's not that impressive this time but you know, you get my point. Yeah let me come to 11 books. Rowling Green, 7 books. Like they are coming fast. But then things do begin to calm down a little bit. We get some new blood in there.

Sean Amore wrote 3 books. Apparently they're good. I haven't been able to track them down. Sadly. He also wrote the Cold Conqueror novelisation. Again, haven't been able to track it down. Then we get two names, which I think are quite interesting. Harry Turtledove writes the last Conan novel published by Torv. Turtledove, okay. Famed writer of alternative histories which are sometimes quite bad. I've heard he's written quite a lot of, what if the American Civil War went the other way?

He writes alternate history stuff. So I'm most familiar with him based on the shit stuff he wrote because I follow some guys who do alternate history stuff on YouTube and I've seen this thing. It's a summarisation of a book series he did where it's like, what if the Americas were a collection of small islands and then he just writes American history again and makes no changes. He just changes the names of individual characters and it makes it so much less interesting.

He sounds like a bad writer just from my understanding of his work. I'm going to tell you now, he wrote Canon of Velarium and it's not regarded as a very good book. Well there we go. He had very little care for barbarian culture. Something that John Roberts definitely loved a lot. He wrote an excellent Samaria. But there's one other name who came just at the tail end of tour and this name I think is actually the most important from this era.

Despite my love for John Roberts, despite how good Robert Jordan is an author, this guy I think is truly important and that's John C. Hocking. Okay, I have never heard this name before. Really? Because, Geordie, if you look to your bookshelf you'll have a book by him on it. Are you trying to tell me about the Dark Horse collections because I have those on Comixology? I'm telling you about the book that was published this year.

Conan and the City of the Dead was written by John C. Hocking as was Conan and the Emerald Lotus, the second to last tour book that came out I think in the early 2000s. Are they good? They are, quite possibly, the single greatest grasping of the character of Conan outside Robert E. Howard. Wow, okay. That's crazy that that's the guy whose name I didn't recognise. I recognise Harry Turtledove and not this guy. John C. Hocking has written, as far as I'm aware, two novels and one short story.

There's two Conan novels and it's one Conan short story. Wow, okay. So this guy is legitimately a fanfic writer, he's not like a published author. Absolutely. Apparently, he sent in, so I'm sorry I am trying to, a little bit from here say so, I do apologies John if I do get this story right, incorrect. John like wanted to get published by tour because he felt that they were getting off character. He was unhappy with where it was going so he did a night, and Nyberg.

He wrote his own Conan story and he was like submitted it. He's like, please, can this go out? And they went, damn, that's good. Absolutely. This is every fucking Star Wars fan's dream to be able to write to Disney or George Lucas and be like, you need to fix the story. I'm the genius who's going to make it happen. And then for them to go, wow, you're actually this guy is better at Star Wars than us. Let us all bow down and give him a million dollars.

And just say John C. Hocking, he seems to be a really great guy. He's really active on the Reddit pages. He's even responded to a few of my posts. He seems like a really nice man. Well, that's nice. So he wrote Conan the Emerald Lotus, the one name I want you to remember from the tour era. That is the Conan book to read. I've already been on it. He then wrote. What was it again? The Citadel of the Emerald Lotus. Conan and the Emerald Lotus. Oh, that's close.

He then wrote a sequel, Conan and the I believe it's called The Living Plague. Alrighty and he wrote it. It was finished. And before it was published, all were like, oh, we're handing over the rights. Sorry. And they went back in a draw. Wait, is that is that the City of the Dead? Is that he's had it in a draw for like the 20 years? Yes. 20 years. In fact, in like, I remember reading like 2017, I think Beaver's on the Blackgate website. They literally put up a review.

They went, yeah, we contacted John. He sent us the manuscript. Here's our review for it. And I'm like, thank you for reviewing a book I can't read. So when I found out it was actually going to get published, I was thrilled. And we will get to that later, I'm sure. So tour has ended and do you want to see the twilight years Conan's about to enter a lot. We had amazing 60s, 70s, 80s, but the 90s oversaturated on books. Quality was dropping.

Before we jump in there, Duncan, I think I'm going to have to ask you to crack down again. Give me the rapid rundown of the good stuff from this era. The absolute best is Conan the Emerald Lotus by John C. Hocking is available in a collection with the City of the Dead. If you buy the hardback today. My two favourite authors on this era is John Roberts. I think he got the character of Conan perfectly. And Robert Jordan, he's just a really good writer.

Robert Jordan, you can read his work in the collection Conan Chronicles. John Roberts, some of it's available on Kindle, some of it's harder to hunt down. He is worth it though. And you'd say those are the guys to watch out for. You don't really have to mess around with the others you mentioned. I really don't think so. I have read some of their books and I like their books. Len of Carpenter, I like Conan the Renegade and Conan the Raider. But listen, that's like the next level.

You've got to get through the really good stuff first. Get through the A and B tier and then I'll tell you about the decent C tier stuff. Okay, so earlier you mentioned we're in the 2000s but now you've mentioned the 90s. What time period are we going into now? Okay, so TOR was from the 82 to 04. So in the 90s, things were kind of building down. We had the big splurge of the films. Marvel in the early 2000s sold the rights or didn't renew the license. The Dark Horse took on the license.

This is very much a new era. In this era, the first things we get are actually the first time Geordie, Robert E. Howard's Conan is collected and released as he wrote it. This is really important. Delance put out their big black hardcover of the complete Chronicles of Conan and Delray put out their three paperbacks. It's a wonderful book. I remember having a wonderful holiday in Greece, reading it on the beach.

To this day, if I run my finger along the spine of that book, there are small pebbles embedded in between the spine and the book from that beach. It is a beautiful collection. The Delray versions are equally nice if you want to go down that route. Geordie, this is really important because during the whole of this, ever since even the known press stuff, that was edited by De Camp. This is Robert E. Howard's actual words finally coming through, good and pure. That is really important.

Hi. I'm putting my hand up. Professor Nicol, is that because De Camp is dead? Yes. You had to wait for this guy to die before Robert E. Howard's actual work could be experienced by the general public. I will just say it could be a coincidence, but when looking at it from the outside. I think I might just take that but and amplify it like 10 times. It's like the Star Wars legends, EU getting put into legends. It could be a coincidence it just so happened to be at the Disney buyout.

But. But. So we finally get this. Wonderful era. A New Dawn, Dark Horse has started their legendary run at this time on the comic book side. But before we go over to comics, we've got to hit a few more quick books. I'm listening. I think we should hit this quite quickly. Cool. They made an MMO. Massive Mudflat Online Game and they cracked out. The famous penis slider one. Absolutely. They had 12 novels come out literally all within like the same year to time with the release of the MMO.

They had four trilogies commissioned by different authors and across the board I generally say these weren't very good, but they are interesting because for the first time they wanted to tell stories that were set in Hyboria but not starring Conan. Here's the weirdest thing, Duncan, of all the things that I cannot remember, like where I left my keys and what is my mother's birthday.

I have a vivid memory of you describing this series to me for the first time and like talking about how like this one book is about like the tribe which Conan comes from after he's left and about how like this one hero has to leave but once you leave Samaria you can never come back and you complaining that that's not true because Conan's granddad came back. Yes, I have that complaint. It bothered me the entirety of the Legend of Kern series.

They're like when you're out of the tribe you're out of the tribe. I'm like well that doesn't work because then how could have Conan's grandfather gone on adventures to inspire his grandson and not come back to the tribe? Just doesn't make sense, does it? And then you pushed your glasses up your nose and you snorted. Exactly, and also in this particular book all the Samarians wear ponchos and that's hilarious. Yes, I remember you told me about that, the ponchos. They wear ponchos and kilts.

That's the classic, yeah, everyone wears ponchos and kilts. That's like they go together like ham and cheese. So there's that, there's a one about heretic and Stygian which is kind of cool but it's not very well written. There's another one about an Aquilonian soldier which again is kind of cool, not very well written and another one which I can't find without some of the orders somewhere. Yay, moving on. So 12 shit books, whatever. Yep, 2011 there's a film tie-in by Michael Stackpole.

Michael Stackpole wrote the X-Wing books for Star Wars. He's a pretty decent writer and the book is better than the movie but that's not a high bar. All right, can you give us some, can you give a review of the movie in 45 seconds? Jason Momoa is a good actor, it's a shame he was given nothing good to do. Ron Perlman is also a good actor, again a terrible shame he had nothing good to do. It's vaguely more related to the book series than the Arnold Schwarzenegger ones but not really that related.

They don't know how to pronounce Acheron and it's actually just not very well filmed and I watched it with my little sister once. I spent £1.50 in a used shop to get the DVD and I felt like I wasted my £1.50 but it was fun to laugh at with my little sister a little bit, I'm not going to lie. Well there we go. Okay. And the real problem with that movie and this is a bitch is that even today you're like who should play Conan? Jason Momoa. Jason Momoa, obviously, obviously.

And I wasted a shot with it. Shake my damn head. So we then get a real dead period which is really kind of ironic because the next, so this is 2011 that comes out and then we have 11 years, the years in which I got into Conan with nothing. Funny, yeah. And then finally to the current present day, 2022, heroic signatures through Titan start putting out new Conan stories. They kicked it off with SM Sterling's Blood of the Serpent which is written as a direct prequel to Red Nails.

I've had it on my bookshelf for about a year and a half. I haven't actually read it yet. Oops, sorry. I'm sure it's good. I'll get around to it. So is that like the story of Valeria then? Yes. It's about Conan meeting Valeria and to be honest it's a bit kind of funny because you read this opening to Red Nails, it actually goes Conan was happy to be on this adventure because he had been having a really boring time in a Stygian outpost and it's like, well that doesn't sound like a fun set up.

But okay. And if you buy the hardcover you get Red Nails in the back which is kind of cool, I'm not going to lie. But what we also get is Conan and the City of the Dead by John C. Hocking. It finally came out, Geordie. It took 20 years. This is the only Conan story I have ever purchased before you. I know I can't wait to get it and read it, probably talk about it with you.

If you buy Conan and the City of the Dead the hardback edition you will get both Emerald Lotus and the new story in that single hardback. This is the purchase. What should I read first? I know. A conundrum we will grapple with in the future. And finally, gosh this is taking me a while to get to, we're here at present day, currently being put out by heroic signatures.

This is their heroic series, I can't remember the exact name of the series, but they're putting out a series of Conan short fiction, short stories once again are being released for Kingdom Lonely at the moment. I presume there might be a physical collection further down the line. But they're literally £1.50. Allow me to amend that. Boo unless we are now sponsored by Amazon, in which case hooray. This has been really cool to see.

It's like the original spirit of Robert E Howard again, lots of different authors, we're getting one a month. They're literally like £1.50, £2 or $3 or your equivalent. And it's not just Conan, we've also got Solomon Cain stories, Brown Mac Morn and some Bay deck stories focusing on the character from Queen of the Black Coast. And they're really cool. It's a great time to be a Conan fan. Okay, we got to the end Geordie. I did it. Very nice. Now that was our episode everyone.

There's nothing else left to cover. Duncan thank you so much for that informative ride. Sadly we're not done yet Geordie. There's still one thing, I say one thing, quite a few things we've got to hit. And that's Conan in comic books. Because some of the best past-age writing has actually been in the Conan comic books. And he's well suited for comic books.

Like this is a character who there's so much emphasis on action, that one story in particular I would say is actually better as a comic book than it is a story. The Jewels of Gwahlur. Yes, or the servants of Bit Yakin or whatever title you want to go for it. It's an Indiana Jones story. It's a Tomb Raider story. It is, it is.

And it's so much less confusing when you can just see what's happening instead of having Robert try to explain, okay so this is happening in this room and there's a shortcut over to this room and just like I can just draw these locations there. Are you happy? And like oh my god I finally understand what happened to that story. So okay let's hit this. Let's go back in time. We're not in 2020 anymore.

Back in 1970. 1970 Roy Thomas goes to Stanley and goes, Lee we've got to get on this like fantasy stuff. It's going to be big. And Lee's like, man are things superheroes? I don't know. I don't know. And Roy's like, no. We do superheroes and we do space cars. Roy's like, no you've got to do this. And Lee's like, okay but this is your budget.

And Roy looks at it and goes, I'm going to have to sacrifice my own salary because that budget is so laughably small I'm embarrassed to go to the rights holders with it. Wow. How low was the budget? Like could they even afford a colourist? So they could have a colourist but they couldn't. He couldn't have the original, his top pick for an artist. He wanted John Buscema. He got Barry Windsor Smith. Gold there. The man's a genius when it comes to comic book artwork.

He did his own work called Monster. Beautiful. But literally I think it was something as low as $150 per an issue to the rights holder. Which although there was more money in the 1970s, was still laughably little money. Right. So it's sort of a point where like it's not even worth the money to put the reputation of a brand on the line to tell like extra Conan stories. Pretty much.

And it got to the point where Roy was actually going to go to Link Carter who had his own barbarian hero called Thongor of Lemuria and see if he could negotiate that character instead. But he did his best. He sacrificed his own money. He didn't get John on it. He got Barry Windsor Smith and he did get Conan. And it had a solid five issues before sadly cancelled it. Okay. So this is not one that I've ever heard of or read. No. But it's a two coloured Marvel Conan the Barbarian from the 1970s.

It is a great comic book. If you like bronze age comics to be honest. It's not really for the like the super Conan fam. I would say first and foremost this is for people who kind of like comic books of that era. I loved the original Marvel Star Wars run. I think has a lot more blood with that. That said it does the best adaptation of Queen of the Black Coast. Better than Howard. It's amazing. Roy Thomas is a genius. But that well, that's very high praise for that one then.

Um, so the reason why I made my joke Duncan about not being for the colourist is I assumed what you're talking about is the black and white version of Conan. Is that the next one to come along? Yes, 75 we get Savage Sword of Conan. A spin of from Savage Tales. Anyway, Savage Sword of Conan was what Roy wanted to do because it was going to be in a magazine and a magazine didn't have to adhere to the comic code of the times, which means you could have nudity and blood. Blood.

Yes. So what Roy did is that the coloured series would do like Conan's early years from, you know, Samaria just up to Black Colossus and then Savage Sword started at Black Colossus and kind of went forward, although it was a lot more episodic in nature. Okay. And both Black Colossus got adapted twice at the very end of the coloured and the very start of Savage Sword. Okay. So we're talking about those five issues then that's what you're talking about right now. Oh, sorry.

Yeah. I know I'm getting confused now. You made me jump. Yeah. Stanley cancelled it for five issue five and Roy literally got on his hands and knees and went look the last issue sold moderately better. Can we please have it back and Stan relented and it went on to run for 275 issues. Stanley is kind of justifiably commemorated within the comic space, you know, is incredibly influential and important figure. But man, did he make some mistakes.

He didn't in I think Roy Thomas' said interviews like Stan, great man. He didn't see what they were doing because what they were doing was quite different. Roy wanted to do this barbarian almost antihero magical figure and Stanley's like mate our best seller is Fantastic Four. What is this? But time would tell Roy Thomas was pretty much right on this. It was a huge seller for them.

Roy wrote the first 115 issues of Conan the Barbarian, the coloured one and the first 60 issues of the Black and White Savage Sword and we return later to write the ends of them. Okay, worth noting adaptations Roy Thomas like adapted every Conan story before the start of the tour books. So all of that thing that I spoke about everything apart from Road of Kings shame on you. That would have been amazing to see but every other one and Conan the Rebel. Okay, those two. Oh my god.

Okay, take that what I said. He's he's adapting these pastiche works into it as well. Yeah, absolutely. He's following De Camp's remember this is 1970. It's all one thing mate. So he was adapting the pastiche works things that De Camp had rewritten. He adapted Nyberg's books, Link Carter's original stories and not only that Roy he did De Camp. He did the same thing. He rewrote other Robert E. Howard stories into Conan stories for the comic book. I see.

So you're talking about him doing like what the veil of lost women like something like that. No, I'm talking about him doing the Valley of the Lost People or the Valley of Iskander which was a historic fiction of Alexander the Great getting lost in a time warp but rewriting it to be a Conan story.

I'm talking Roy. I'm talking about him buying the rights to other authors work like I think it's called the Flame in the Wind and another one which I think is called the Valley of the Bear Gods and writing them as Conan stories. I mean, it's better that he's like paying these people to do it. I guess but still I don't know this like the whole history behind it. He was carrying on the tradition because like Roy said Conan was what was selling. So he wanted these stories to see publication.

They had to star Conan but he also gave us Fred Sonia. So I really let him off. Okay, so that and what you're talking about there is that both coloured and black and white that is in both coloured and black and white and black and white. He adapted so many of the link Carter to camp Nyberg era stuff. Do you want to share it? So and for personal stuff, so the coloured one the Marvel one you're talking about is the one that you lent to me back in second year of University, right?

Yes. Okay, so my brief bit of insight can get into this because I read like the first issue of one of those and I got up to like, what is it not maybe not Shadows are is it Shadows are no not Shadows are Shadows are shadow of a Shadows are yes shadow of a Shadows of is a bat monster and at that point I was like I just some knowledge on this because it's not bloody and it feels kind of kids-glovey and it feels like a Fantastic Four story somewhat.

It's not as gritty and dark as I hope for from a Conan story. I cannot argue with you the colour comic definitely has that vibe. I think and that's why the black and white one Roy knew this and that's why he pushed for the black and white one to be created. So he could use a lot like something like he man or the Legend of Zelda cartoon like where swords don't actually cut things swords are all blunt or they shoot laser beams.

So you don't have to so show someone being slashed definitely the case if you read any of the interviews with Roy, so when Dark Horse collected this series Roy actually took the liberty of going back and changing things that he got really annoyed with the sensors for and in all the backs of the Dark Horse collections. It's Roy's basically going. Yeah, I had a fight with the sensors over there. So I had a fight with them over that they wouldn't let me do this.

So there's loads of instances as one where he wanted Conan to behead a guy, but they said we can't so what he did was he had the guy be really fat and then he told the artist in the panel. I want you to show his head and then don't show like it's been beheaded but the fact that we can't see his fat body in that one panel would imply we've cut it off. What okay, I don't really get we're putting down that but I know it was weird.

There was also an instance where he wanted Belit to be like the mating dance is like and then Belit will do the mating dance for Conan and the sensor was like you can't do that and he was like, what's the matter and they're like you need to write love dance and he's like that means the same and the sensor was like, you know, it's not. Okay, that would be a fucking funny conversation to be on the fly in the war for anyway.

So he did that if you're interested in that Savage saw the black and white stuff was amazing. It is a bugger to find collected these days, but it has been collected multiple times.

If you want the hardcore Conan the coloured stuff I love for the deep passion but Geordie's right is a little bit more watered down in terms of like visceralness, but if you can just buy into it, it's like any I think it has enough of that vibe like a really good kids show, you know the Vanaheim section of it at the beginning though genuinely. I liked it. It's weird. It's out there. It doesn't feel like a faithful adaptation, but it's just like a good Saturday morning cartoon barbarian story.

So moving on quickly. So Marvel Comics has some good runs. There was a King Conan series for a bit. I really love that too. We get a lot of Conan and his children. That's a story for another day. I should could do a whole episode on just that but and Marvel of this again because this was you said this in the section where it was a bit confusing but the Marvel coloured run. I think you're saying is the one where you say it's the best version of Queen of the Black Coast, right? Absolutely.

It's 42 issues long and it gives the time to the characters to really see Conan and Belit actually fall in love like nothing else and in fact the four-part story arc. I believe it's I say I believe I know issue 60 to 64 is I absolutely adore it Conan meets gets his name Amra in that story on and it's absolutely fantastic. So after coloured Marvel and Savage Sword the black and white one. What's next?

We get a short-lived King Conan comic coloured by Marvel and then as we get into the 90s Marvel, they're sputtering a bit they're resetting to issue one a few times. They're trying to get the juices flowing. Kind of the juices flowing trying to get the engines revving again, but ultimately it's a bit of a lost cause. Roy Thomas comes back. He does brilliantly but by the start of the 2000s Sword and Sorcery is kind of done Marvel aren't interested.

So Marvel at the time I believe that's like the major downturn for Marvel like that's when comic books were just not making money anymore. That's when they were like, let's sell off our superhero rights because we're not making our own movies anytime soon. So they give up the rights and Conan ultimately ends up with Dark Horse with a launch in 2004 by the fantastic Kurt Buseyuk and Cary Nord.

Nah, it's Buseyuk. Geordi I can finally give my voice of S tell everyone why this series is fantastic while I sip some water. So thank you Duncan for letting me take over here. This is the first thing that Duncan ever introduced me to after I finished Conan because I asked the exact same question. What should I do now? And Duncan said there's a really good comic book.

It follows Conan's basically his entire career from the very very beginning with the Rime of the Frostmaiden with the Frost Giants daughter all the way up to and now we get a little confusing but basically it begins with this absolutely gorgeously drawn section where you see the very first adventures of Conan and then as it jumps from story to story so Frost Giants daughter to Tower of the Elephant.

They much like other authors Duncan has mentioned before they take those like little sample stories like stories that Robert E Howard maybe never finished and they implanted in a they they tell other stories in the meantime to bridge the gap. So we go we're basically following the journey of Conan like his his winding road trip all through the Kingdoms of Aquilonia and I forget the place's name. I'm sorry some more about a Turan. Yes. Thank you.

I don't think he goes to Turan in this series actually, but there is also some cringe early 2000 shit. Yes, I think that's fair to say beautiful art occasionally this one like hey, we're going to do our own version of Red Sonja, but she's edgy and dark and white Geordie don't throw it away. She's gone. Okay, we won't show her again for like a hundred issues. Don't worry. But there's some just really great adverting to stories.

They do some great stuff in like giving continuity to the tales really making it feel like Conan is actually experiencing these various adventures and he remembers that he's been on them and friends from prior adventures will show up and like throw away characters who are mentioned as story. Oh my God, that was actually like a long-term ally of Conan and it's now actually tragic in Rogues of a House where Conan's allies hanged his crimes. He was like our friend for a long time.

Do you know what and this is something so I'm actually going to go back and praise Marvel again because this is isn't exclusive to Dark Horse like Marvel did this as well Roy Thomas sets up things. Generally, there's one character who gets his setup like a hundred and eighty issues before it gets pay off because Roy Thomas was like this character is reference in Jaws of Galore that he'd met Conan before or when did that happen?

So something he meets a guy in like issues in like issue 30 that we generally don't see again for nearly like 200 issues to do the same thing. Now speaking of Jewels of Gwahlur that's pretty well established in fan chronologies of Conan. That's like in the latter half of his career. How do we know that because it takes place in Vendya. Vendya is in the deep south. So it take him a long time to get there. The Dark Horse run never makes it to Jewels of Gwahlur. No, not chronologically.

So this is a bit upsetting. It does peter out. Yes. So the Marvel run basically covers it between the coloured and savage sword. Dark Horse does and Dark Horse does a really solid run of about a hundred and fifty issues, but we get to I think it was Iron, no not Iron Shadows and Moonlight, Devil in Iron, which is a story of Conan, it was about the midway point. I don't think we even got to Devil in Iron, did we? It did indeed. Conan the Slayer adapts Devil in Iron. It sadly died.

I do think it was running out of scene for me and this is why I actually still have that love for the Marvel even though it has that kid cartoon vibe and when the fantastic Jim Osley was writing it felt very Saturday Norn is cartoon, but like the best one. I really want to emphasize that. So what Marvel did so well was Belit, 42 issues, a brilliant romance of a pirate Queen and her barbarian lover. They sail up and down the coast.

When Dark Horse decided to do this things went a little wrong in my opinion. I'd like to hear this Duncan because for very specific reasons despite loving your series. I haven't actually read this part and I'll get into my reason why but you go ahead first. Okay, so the first sort of 180 issues, not 180, 80 issues. We get great run by Cary Nord. We then get a second run working with Timothy Truman also an excellent writer and Roy Thomas comes back for a few issues.

So then the stories are we covering there? So we're talking about in chronological terms. We're talking about Conan every day does up until Queen of the Black Coast by the dark storm chronology. So Black Colossus, Iron Shadows in the Moonlight, all the three stories all happened. That's all that's this such good bits in Dark Horse. That's true. They are perfect.

But then Brian Wood who I have some issues with he wrote some Star Wars I didn't like takes over for the Pirating Arc full until night berserk. He gets on the boat and you can't make that joke. You haven't got there yet. It's not all and this was really interesting because I felt although we had different artists and different writers Dark Horse felt like they had one continuity.

Brian Wood felt like he just started afresh like he was issue one and no one had written anything before Conan looks different Conan acts different. The artwork is widely inconsistent. And I know that's subjective, but we both agree on it. It gets very 2D and fuzzy and dirty the early the very very earliest of the Conan run went for quite a distinct photo realistic style, which is not necessarily like in any way necessarily better than more stylistic or exaggerated stars.

I don't mean that in slightest that imagery in fact gets sort of toned down and gets a bit more comic booky like standard modern comic book styles. It's something that you see in the early issues and one of great kind of stylistic choice that choices that were made is that they didn't actually ink they used to colour straight over pencil sketches. So you wouldn't have hard outlines. Yes, that's right. It has a slightly ethereal feel to it.

It's soft and it feels round and warm that all goes out the window at this stage in the comic like thick lines. In order to stylistic but to God I hate it. They have like black eyes like they the eyes aren't even drawn with like colour.

It feels like something out of like Darkest Dungeon almost and I think it really upsets the mood of the series because after this point it felt like it was in continuity and although I do feel like the next arc kind of the Avenger every time a new writing King comes in they give him a new moniker at the end. They do get more back on track. This is I felt really just rocked at this series.

Conan the Avengers that like the witch trial section followed up which thing goes up to like Slytherin shadow, whatever. Yes, you get Slytherin shadow. You get a witch shall be born and you get oh, what is it called? It's the Robert E. Howard story that he never finished like Tusk in the dark that car. That's not it. I don't know what you're talking about. Sorry. Whilst Duncan's looking for stuff. I'm going to just lay out my issue with the Belit section.

And this has nothing to do with the comic book itself. It is completely down to a problem. I don't know what I'm talking about either. Okay, there we go. So I read all of this. I siphoned the very first part which Duncan generously gave to me as a comic book. I read all of this on comics ology using the comics ology app Duncan. We will save your rants about a comics ology app for another episode because you will go on for about the length of the episode so far if I let you rest in peace.

We love you. You have now died. There is a thing called guided view or there was a thing called guided view. I think it's gone now, right? It is not as it once was again rest in peace. So guided view in comics ology meant that even though you're looking on your phone, which is not big enough to do a full comics page and be able to appreciate it as you swipe across like you're turning pages. It will focus in on individual panels.

So you get a nice close-up view and you can read everything and then it will zoom out and open up so you can see more of the page and you basically go down like you're holding the page up really close to your face and not only is that a way to make it accessible to people who are reading on their phone on the bus. It's actually sometimes legitimately a better way to experience comic books because someone like me Duncan my eye is prone to wonder.

I often ruin stuff myself on a comics page because I open a page. I read everything at once and I ruined the pacing of jokes or like I ruin a surprise that's coming on the next page. But if I get guided view, I get to just read it piece by piece as the author intended and that's great until we get to this section of comic book where it just stops working.

They would just open up with a full establishing shot of the full page so you can see everything and then if it did zoom in sometimes it was just like half the page is shown or like it's literally out of frame like you would just see like half a text box being cut off sloppy. I bought it. I wasted my money. I skimmed through that section bail it died and I was like eh, whatever.

It's what killed it and it's actually why despite the fact that obviously from a modern reader's perspective, I would recommend Dark Horse over the original Marvel. There's still that little bit of me that goes to the original Marvel when Belit died Duncan. Did you shed a tear? I have to be like, yeah Roy got me. He got me good. That is the only thing that you've ever explained to me about the Marvel run has made me actually interested in reading it.

So I may pinch that from you at some point in the future. So that is Dark Horse. We can gush about it. It's a little hard to come by now, but Marvel did collect in epic collection format and Dark Horse did their own omnibuses and volumes is worth seeking out if you are a fan. Then we did move over the rights went back to Marvel for a little bit. They didn't adapt any of the do so they didn't do adaptations of any of the Robert E. Howard stuff again. They got Conan quite marvellized.

They did Savage Avengers. They brought into the modern day. It was a very weird four years. I think it's 2019 to like 2003. Was it even that long? 2023 you mean? Yes. I don't know. I only read some of those stories. They were okay. I never read any of the modern stuff because I was like I have better things to do with my time. Yeah, they did a real good like for everything at the wall.

They tried to this thing with a good age of Conan where they'd have other characters like Valeria and Bailey to be the leads of the comics and I love this concept. I think I boring age is a cool setting that can be explored through other characters. It's just yet to be done. Well anywhere unless it's being Dungeon Mastered by you. Absolutely. Thank you, Geordie. That is the right answer. You'll get another session one day.

So then pushing on because I don't want to waste time end of the Marvel run when it returned after it. So when Marvel Dark Horse Marvel a great writer called Jim Zub came along and he wrote the last of 12 issues of that Marvel run and they are very good. The last sort of eight fantastic. He really hit his stride and then he was cut down. They saw the rights were taken away from them again Marvel.

I don't think they didn't renew the rights is their correct term phrase and you're like, oh no, but Jim Zub he had such good ideas. What's going to happen? Well, the new rights holders at Titan. They went hey Jim, you got a lot of Conan stories planned and he went yes and they're like cool you want to write for us and he went yes and here we are today. Let me just quickly file off some names. All right. We're good to go.

These are wink wink totally original stories that I was not trying to sell to Marvel. I'm sure that wasn't the case, but you know what if it was Grand tradition, let's rename some things. Let's make some edits. Yes, but this is something he came up with and it's still using Conan, but that's a whole kettle of fish and the new run is a great way to start and get onto its original stories.

Some of the artwork really invokes a blend of that classic Marvel stuff at John Buscema and a more modern approach. They've also done savage sort of Conan the black and white magazine from like 75. It's back. I have like three issues. They're doing a black and white magazine again, Geordie and it's amazing. I did not know that it is incredible. If you they're doing some collections, they're free issues per collection, but they're releasing black and white magazine.

So you get a black and white Conan story. You get a poem with an illustrated picture. You get a short story and then at the back of the issue you get a section of a Solomon Kane story. At least that's how the first three issues have been paced and they've been incredible. So basically they said what's our business model going to be? Well, I think we should specifically pitch this series at Duncan Nichol. I think he'll like it and if anyone else buys it, that's okay. Very much the case.

I literally went into a comic book shop and I was like: “do you have the new issue?” and he's like guy was like: “yeah, we have all of them. No one's buying them.” Like “I will take every issue you have,” not multiples. Obviously. I was just like, “yeah, if you got issue one, two, three, I'll just take a lot. Come on find them.” The guy was so keen because he went through a shop and was like, “I know I have issue three. I can't…. no…. you said you would buy it. I will find it for you.”

And he literally made me give him my number and he was like, “how long are you in town?” I'm like, “I don't know? For the next three hours?” He's like, “I will ring you if I find it.” Wow. So that's that man. He needed to his craft. He needed to sit in stock. I will say this.

So you just reminded me of my comic book story regarding Conan, which is no way nothing like yours because when I was living in America, I was had an amazing comic shop near me and I wouldn't know all the time and I was reading stuff. I'd never read before. I wasn't picking up any series that I was like actually invested in like even like manga I was reading.

I was dropping, but what I got really into was I just started picking up indie comic books and what started to happen is the guys who run the store are such cool guys. Sometimes when you buy books, they have paid attention to what you are reading and they just throw in a free first issue of a comic book and they're like you want to read more of this right and I'm like hell yeah, and that's how we end up reading a lot of like feminist sports comic books.

I can't remember the names of many of them because I don't think they were that successful, but I had a really great time. And so one day when a new Conan comic book came out, I'm like, oh I’ll take it. I put it down on the counter. The guy looks down and says “Conan?! From you?!” and he was so shocked and appalled. It was so unlike everything else I'd ever purchased from him. That's that classic masculine toxic masculine representation coming through exactly.

Like wow, I thought this guy was pretty woke, but I guess not. Geez. Anyway, anyway, let's move to a wrap up because we have rambled on about our love for long enough. So to answer to your question, Kilhouser, what do I read after the Robert E Howard stuff? Well, firstly glad you read it. If you haven't read it and you're listening read it.

If you want to know what happens next and you've heard that whole long story of publication history and comics and books and you're just like I don't I don't know guys. This is too much. I'm in the car. I can't remember anything you said Duncan keeps throwing out Conan the and random words. What do I buy? This is what you buy people you go to your local water stones or whatever your main brand bookshop is these days. Maybe I'm not selling any of these water stones quite possible.

Most certainly right you go and buy Conan and the City of the Dead by John C. Hocking. You get to go. One might be in one. It's fantastic better off going to forbidden Planet if you're in the UK then if you want to dig a little deeper, I highly recommend you go and read Conan the Road of Kings by Carl Wagner. It's a little harder to come by but you should be I find it quite cheaply in youth bookstores across countries.

You go and read Conan the swordsman to get a good idea of short story collections by the camp and link art and just that era get flavour for that era you go and read Conan and the sorcerer by Andrew off it. You do not read anything else by him. They're very much bad in comparison to the first one. And finally you go and read any Conan and this is a bit of a cheat by Robert Jordan or John Roberts. Both of them did an excellent job.

Robert Jordan is much easier to come by because it's available on Kindle very rare for any Conan past day to be there and you give that a shot and then finally on will mention you go and read any Conan comic ever, you know who you are. You know what your taste in comic books are.

If you want a beautifully coloured detailed bloody adaptation of Robert E. How his work you go and be Dark Horse and you accept that after 80 issues of amazing this it falls off a bit it picks up a little their King Conan is also pretty solid.

If you know that you love that Saturday morning cartoon vibe, you'd love 70s comics Bronze Age comics Marvel has got you covered and if you just want something that's coming out and it's fresh and you want to part the site guys going by Titan read any Conan comic but not the Samarian. I actually quite like the Samarian but I'm not going to get into that. I hate it. Oh and before we leave the Samarian has reminded me that

Conan's in the public domain in Europe. So we don't have to care anymore about rights and IP write your own story. That's how you got to read more Conan make and fight xenomorphs like that one up run fanfiction. I tried to read an archive. Org because I was interested to see what Conan short stories people writing fan fiction about today and I don't think any of it is any good in the words of Carl Wagner. And I'll insert the quote. Okay. Well, I've been your host Geordie Bailey.

I love episodes where I don't have to do any reading or research in advance and I think Duncan Nicoll I am exhausted and cannot wait to get back to a racial kind of say things anymore and I'm Duncan Nick and I cannot wait to get back to a regular schedule for viewing just one book instead of trying to review 70 of novels that I have read over the past decade. Dear God, it's become a confused mess. I'm sorry. I hope you've enjoyed listening. So long. Bye. Thank you again. Fair listeners.

We look forward to being back with you again when we discuss The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle and maybe Priory of the Orange Tree. We’ll see. I'm gonna I'll try I'll try and finish it. All right, so long.