Robert E. Howard Mega-Post Tribute.

[proteus_lives]

Greetings True Believers! I decided to do a REH mega-post. Why? Because he's awesome. I'm a devotee of his work and characters. His work has spawned entire universes and inspired generations of readers and writers.

The latest Dark Horse Conan series (Conan the Cimmerian, which is boss BTW.) has these great little cartoons in the letters page called, "The Adventures of Two-Gun Bob". They are stories about Howard's life, drawn from his letters, biographies and friends/lovers memories.

They are funny, sad, smart and thought-provoking. They show what scary-intense dude he was. Enjoy them by Crom!

Edit: Sadly, I must take down the strips. The creator has requested it. Still, look for them in Dark Horse's Conan the Cimmerian!


Suggested Tags: title: conan the cimmerian, publisher: dark horse, char: conan the barbarian



Here are the strips from issues 0-18. Plus an intro from issue #0.




I raise my glass to Robert E. Howard, The Last Celt.

Comments

[chipsnopotatoes]

Wow. Conan's series does look good. I collected his stuff back in the Roy Thomas/John Buscema days in the 80's when this book was still owned by Marvel.

Will have to check the Dark Horse one out. Don't see much of Conan in these boards. Thanks for posting.

[proteus_lives]

The Dark Horse Conan trades are worth a look.

[majingojira]

I forget, were the adventures of two-gun bob collected?

[rhythmbandit]

I never read any Conan (my friend is always telling me to watch the movie), but REH seems like an awesome guy.

[proteus_lives]

He was. If you're interested in getting into Conan, let me know. I'll give some tips.

[rhythmbandit]

I am, I could use a good fantasy. I figured I'd start with a collection of the original stories?

[proteus_lives]

There are collection of Howard's original Conan stories. Start there for the verse version. After that there dozens of Conan novels by different authors. Pick and choose.

If you're interested in the comic book version, Dark Horse has collected edition of the '70s Savage Sword of Conan comic-magazine. SSoC were comic versions of the classic Conan stories. Very awesome. '70s Marvel fantasy, B&W, uncensored and mature. I highly recommend them. There six volumes so far at 500 pages each for about $20 a pop.

[rhythmbandit]

That sounds like a sweet deal, thanks!

[glprime]

A lot of these are just kind of sad given the full story of his tragically short life (the gun story in particular).

[joecrow]

Y'know, I've seen folks wondering why REH's mom was so important that he didn't want to live without her. I always got the impression from his letters and works that what it was, was that she was the main thing that kept him from topping himself, and without her around for him to take care of and worry about, there was nothing big enough in his life to keep him from saying "fuck it all" and pulling the trigger.

Family's more important than you think, y'know?

[mynondw]

Knowing that about him explains a lot about Conan's character to me. There's a total desperation in him that makes him want to save the girl over and over again, yet he always walks away from the chance to settle down. I wonder how much we can amateurishly psychoanalyze REH from that (or Conan)? Maybe that loss is inevitable, so don't settle down or you'll just get hurt?

[proteus_lives]

She was the only thing anchoring him to a world he felt horribly out of place in.

[northstarfan]

The last panel of the eighth strip is now my desktop. Seconding the question: are these collected anywhere?

[proteus_lives]

Not to my knowledge. It would be sweet though.

[cainofdreaming]

I've always found it kind of amazing how the two masters of horror/fantasy literature of the era both worked on Weird Tales and came to start this whole mail friendship through that. Though I've also found it pretty weird, given how different they were as persons.

But anyways, Howard/Lovecraft OTP. ;)

Mod note: creator request

[skalja]

Proteus, we've just been contacted by Jim Keegan asking that you remove his strips from your post. We'd rather not delete the entry outright and lose the comments, so you have 6 hours from the timestamp of this comment to take the strips down. If they're still up at that point, we'll have to delete.

Thanks!

Re: Mod note: creator request

[proteus_lives]

Tis done. How sad.

Did he give a reason? Even so, if you reply to him; please convey my respect for his work and the reasons behind the post: I wanted to get people interested in the Conan the Cimmerian and Robert E. Howard.

Re: Mod note: creator request

[skalja]

Thanks! We'll reply to him. He didn't say much about why he wanted the strips removed.