I kind of bristle at the use of the word "graphic novel" these days, through no fault of graphic novels themselves. I work in education, and there's a huge number of teachers who seem to use the term because they're embarrassed about the label "comic book." Everything with pictures becomes a "graphic novel" to these people. The emphasis on graphic novels as a gateway to more literacy has become kind of iffy anyway- I've started to notice students who never want to move on from Dogman and Captain Underpants and Amulet. I've got some 7th graders who still use the phrase "chapter books." That makes me chafe far more than a weird use of "graphic novel."

The term itself doesn't really have anything wrong with it, though it does carry with it a bit of a promise. Something billing itself as a graphic novel brings some associations along with it- that it will likely be larger in scope than this month's issue of Uncanny X-Men, or that it will maybe be slightly more challenging or literary than a random issue of Detective Comics.

The "Marvel Graphic Novel" line especially seems to be making these promises.

Jim Shooter pitched Marvel Graphic Novels in 1979 as physically and narratively different than your average Marvel comic. They would be in a larger format with a few dozen more pages, a cardboard cover and slick paper printing with some big story consequences. They started with a bang with The Death of Captain Marvel, which is still the definitive original Captain Marvel story, and have included undisputed classics like X-Men's God Loves, Man Kills. They had an insane bullpen of talent on these: Chris Claremot, John Byrne, Geof Isherwood, David Michelinie, Frank Miller, Dennis O'Neil. But some of this shit is still just... not good.

The three previous MGNs I've written about this blog have been a mixed bag at best. Horn of Azoth was disappointing and hampered by bad art, The Witch Queen of Acheron had a few moments but was hampered by bad art, and Conan the Reaver was decent: definitely the best of the three, no complaints about the art. Conan the Barbarian: The Skull of Set, the fifty-third graphic novel in the line, written by Doug Moench and drawn by Paul Gulacy, is definitely my favorite of these four so far.

Conan is captured in Messantia and made to buy his freedom by escorting a wagon full of weapons to a little Argossean port city which is at serious risk of invasion. The Cimmerian realizes quickly that the wagon is not exactly what he was told it was and is soon after saddled with the care of four people fleeing Argos: a wealthy merchant, his wife, a foppish aristocrat, and a priestess of Mitra. Word from Messantia is that one of them is a spy, selling out Argos to Stygia and Koth... but which one?

Chased by a bandit gang into a mountain range, Conan tries to buy the group some time by stranding their wagon on a plateau that seems out of reach for the pursuing hillmen. They're ultimately trapped: Argossean soldiers on one side, bandits on the other, a spy in their midst, and the group of five is holed up in the mystical Ruins of Eidoran. Before long it turns out that more than one of the wagon's occupants is not who they seem.

I love Conan stories with setups like this. A mysterious place, people you can't trust, and a coin-flip of which hostile force will arrive first.

I'd argue that The Skull of Set is a pretty darn good Conan graphic novel and its plot would fit right in with the upper-middle tier of Savage Sword issues. Its art by Paul Gulacy is very good but also sets it apart slightly from Marvel's 70s Conan heyday- it certainly looks more modern. Conan's sporting more of a mullet than a "square-cut" black mane, and one or two characters look like they were ripped from Motley Crue videos, but that's not a slight.

In action scenes, Gulacy sometimes unmoors his panels from the grid and places them in order or on top of one another, adding to the cacophony of battle. I read one review in which the author thought Doug Moench got too wordy with the exposition, and he certainly isn't light with his pen, but he's not edging out Roy Thomas for verbosity or anything. Honestly, I think this thing's a pretty excellent pick-up.

In terms of its chronology, I would put The Skull of Set right after the Karl Edward Wagner novel The Road of Kings, which is also set on the western coast of the world. In both of these narratives, Conan still seems young, but is very shrewd and it ultimately saves his life.

Of course, the only real difference between these MGNs and an issue of Savage Sword of Conan is color, so they probably aren't the most essential adds to a Conan collection.

While I have no burning desire to pick up the Conan of the Isles graphic novel, I'm definitely trying to get my hands on Conan the Rogue, which is the only Conan story John Buscema ever got a story credit on, so I'm really curious. Unfortunately, they're all going for $100-500 on the net, so we'll see.

To find my other posts about the Marvel Graphic Novels, go here.

I get to the local barcade, The 1-Up, about 6:15, a little early. There are a few of these around, but the ones in downtown Denver and Boulder are infested with hip college kids in jaunty hats so it's impossible to get a drink, and the one on Colfax is always crawling with creeps and cops.

​I feed fifty dollars into the change machine and fill up a plastic cup with tokens. I'm meeting some of my oldest friends, Adam and Mio, here to beat the 1987 hack-and-slash arcade game Rastan Saga, known here in America as just Rastan. I figure if we can't beat it with fifty bucks worth of tokens, we'll never beat it at all.

Rastan Saga is no Donkey Kong or Paperboy. Hell, it's not even a Bubble Bobble or a Tapper in terms of name recognition, but the game has a bit of a reputation as being really, really good and also insanely difficult.

From the moment I lay eyes on it, I know Rastan Saga wants to be a Conan game. In 1987, Yoshinori Kobayashi of the game developer Taito was reportedly a big fan of the Conan the Barbarian movie and wanted to release a Conan game for arcades, but they didn't have the rights. What they put out is clearly the Cimmerian with the serial numbers filed off.

Rastan is a loincloth-wearing, sword-wielding, sword-and-sorcery barbarian. Mirroring Conan's fictional life almost exactly, Rastan is now a king who sits on a golden throne a la the epilogue shot of Arnie as King Conan from the 1982 movie, but was in his youth both a thief and a murderer. Unlike Conan, the game tells you that this will be a chronological retelling of his path. In the Japanese version, there is a prologue that tells us Rastan is on a quest for a dragon's head, but those have been removed from the American edition. Most of the artwork on the cabinet itself makes Rastan look like a sandy brunette, if not a blonde, but some of the artwork is just Conan. The Commodore 64 cover of the game features a straight-up rip of Earl Norem's cover for Savage Sword #24.

There are six levels, each ending with a different boss. The barbarian starts out with a regular sword but a few power-ups along the way give you some extra oomph, like a flail with increased range, an axe with increased power, or flaming sword that shoots fireballs. While it plays really well, the eight-way joystick is a little annoying in tense moments as you can sometimes jump straight up when you mean to jump up and to the right, but that's just the sort of thing you have to deal with in 40 year-old arcade games.

The token machine spits out my fifty dollars worth of tokens and I palm them into a cheap plastic cup before I walk over to the bar.

"What's the cheapest beer you guys have tonight?" I ask the bartender. "It's Saturday night, so there's no happy hour... I guess it's a PBR can," she replies. That's fine with me, so I lay down $5 for my first tall boy.

It's a short walk to Rastan, where I see that it says "Kid Niki" on the side, which means this cabinet was probably converted to Rastan Saga from the Dragonball ripoff Kid Niki: Radical Ninja. Taito only issued Rastan as a conversion kit, so there are no dedicated Rastan machines at all. All the cabinets here at the 1-Up have shelves retrofitted to the side, so I plop my beer and coin cup on my left and play a warm-up round. As you put a token in, the machine plays this deep chooom sound that really tickles your vintage arcade fancy.

Just to my right, the Broomfield High School class of 1986 is supposed to be having a class reunion, judging by the paper sign on the reserved tables. So far, it's just one stony-faced looking guy in a Colorado Avalanche t-shirt and a bomber jacket with his arms crossed, waiting for the rest of his graduating class. To my left is a machine I've never heard of called Jungle King. Nobody touches it all night.

I play my first run at Rastan as a warm-up and am immediately reminded of what I learned last time I played this game. Don't even go for the power-ups on the first level; it's easy enough that they're not worth the time. I do okay for having prepared as well as a ninth-grader before a geography exam, which is to say I haven't touched this game in two months. I figure this practice run is a good sign- I've never truly tried to beat an arcade game in one go. At a Dave & Busters when I was 14, we played Time Crisis 2 for half of our year-end field trip there, but that's it.

The Broomfield High reunion guy steps over and introduces himself as Tom. He tells me that he used to play this game at a local arcade in 1987 and I fight the urge to tell him that I wasn't even born in 1987 and instead ask him if he has any tips. He says no because the arcade wasn't there for long. Drat. Oh well. He sits back down.

Adam and Mio arrive right on time. Adam orders a Coors Light and Mio gets a Dr. Pepper. They haven't been to this particular 1-Up before, so we do a lap of the arcade before we settle into Rastan. The whole place is decorated like you're inside a maze of warp pipes from Super Mario, with amateur murals of video game characters above the machines, the kind my mom paints for play scenes at Vacation Bible School.

The first level of Rastan Saga (or "Round," as the game terms them) is a desolate mountain range with craggy rocks in the background. Rastan the barbarian drops down from the sky and we start slashing, jumping, ducking past waves of bad guys. While the game doesn't have a timer on any of the levels, the sun will gradually go down, causing a really pretty palette change in the parallax-shifting background. The light becomes a reddish dusk and the game gradually throws more enemies at you to encourage speed.

Every round has two sections: an outdoor portion and then an indoor castle / dungeon setting which is evidently the abode of the eventual boss. We manage to get through the outdoor portion of round one pretty quickly. I'm surprised, but pleased.

I head over to the bathroom and a guy is walking out when I'm walking in. He has on a black t-shirt that says in lowercase Times New Roman letters, "not eric." I ask him if his name is Eric and he tells me to fuck off.

​I hit the bar on the way back to the game.

There is apparently a Rastan Saga II (known almost backwards outside of Japan as "Nastar") and Rastan Saga III. Apparently, the second installment is boiled ass and the third is perhaps the best in the series, though the title seems to change by the minute. I've seen it referred to as Warrior Blade, Warrior Blade: Rastan Saga III, Warrior Blade: Rastan Saga Episode III and Rastan Saga III: Warrior Blade. The Conan homages (ripoffs?) continue with III, featuring a paint-over of Arnold's Conan the Destroyer pose on the promo materials.

It's becoming clear that Rastan costing only a quarter a play is a mercy, especially when most of the pinball games, even the old ones I love like Monster Bash and Twilight Zone, are a whole dollar. It's going to help us get much further.

We get to the boss, who's a long-armed axe-wielding skeleton with a horned helmet. After a few fruitless attempts, I tag Adam in. He's always been better at video games than me. We realize pretty quickly that he should focus on defense: dodge the swords thrown at you or the boss's axe swings and then sneak in hits whenever you feel safe to. He defeats the boss and we are told, "YOU ARE A BRAVE FIGHTER TO HAVE CLEARED SUCH A DIFFICULT STAGE." Apparently, this too was changed for the American edition of the game like the prologue. Other versions say, "MY JOURNEY HAS JUST BEGUN. THERE IS NOT A MOMENT TO LOSE. I MUST HURRY," which is, frankly, way better. As Adam kills the boss, I realize I've already killed my second beer.

The second round is a dark swamp and it introduces a new enemy type: snakes. The only way to hit snakes is to crouch before you swing your sword, but that's all fine and dandy since that's what we've been doing half the time anyway to avoid enemy strikes. Thankfully, the difficultly of this new level is down a little bit from the second half of round one, so we're really cooking for a moment.

The Broomfield High class reunion has not materialized and I'm starting to feel bad for Tom. If I were him, I would've tried to distract myself by playing some games, but he's barely moved since he talked to me as I first stepped up to Rastan Saga. He's sitting with palms in his pits, legs spread like he could need to stand up at any moment, and I wonder if his turnout will be better next year for their fortieth. His small eyes are scanning the room as though there's a chance the reunion has gotten in past the ID check and managed to make it all the way to arcade machines and perhaps he has just heretofore missed them.

As we play round two and cross a river in the swamp on slow-moving log flumes, Adam jokes that his favorite part of the Conan the Barbarian movie was when Conan had to carefully jump across slow-moving logs, a classic fantasy trope. We cross acid pits that look more like bubbling root beer than anything else. This environment certainly isn't as aesthetically pleasing as the first, though we're kind of finding our groove and are able to do better at re-tracing our steps every time we die without taking damage.

In the interior half of round two, I notice that we actually might be starting to get kind of good at this. There's a part where you're inundated with enemies from all sides, but to move on, you need to strike downward at a breakable tile to fall into a basement. We die a bunch of times, but eventually start making this buttery-smooth jump off a ledge right through the floor, and since all the enemies de-spawn when they leave the screen, we don't even have to fight them. I've drunk two more beers.

I know that arcades are, at their core, kind of a scam. Suckers like me pump quarters into a game designed to eat them efficiently. I try to convince myself that as long as I know that, it's better somehow. It mostly works, and we're definitely having fun.

​But we hit a snag. We get seriously stuck here for about a half hour: from the checkpoint, we climb a chain to an upper floor. At the top, there's a fire pit  spewing fireballs for us to dodge. I try to memorize the pattern, but each fireball has a different number of small and big bounces and I've had four beers at this point, so it's pretty fruitless. To make matters worse, on a platform halfway across the bridge, two enemies come at you from each aside and are all too happy to knock you back into the fireballs or into the pit entirely, so we die again and again.

It's 8pm now, so the bar staff comes over the loudspeaker to kick out anyone under 21. The music switches to mid-2000s club bangers and it's at that point that I realize the music for Rastan Saga is really, really good. There are only three songs in the game: one for the outdoor levels, one for the indoor levels, and one for boss fights. The outside tune is a propulsive little beat whereas the inside music's a lot more spooky and fantastical. They don't get old.

Adam opts for an Old Fashioned as his second drink, which here at The 1-Up is named after a video game character, but I can't remember which one (Max Payne? Solid Snake?) because I'm now four beers deep. I stick with PBR, which you know is good because it won a blue ribbon at some point.

I figured that the alcohol would be the greatest physical factor working against me tonight but I'm finding that my left wrist is developing a bit of a cramp. I guess craning one hand above a jump button and an attack button for two and a half hours continually doesn't make it feel so hot. Adam is feeling the strain too, so we start to switch off a little more often in order to give our poor, delicate hands a break.

I even convince Mio to give it a go and she passes the game back to me pretty quickly. She's never really gone in for the dumb shit that I plan (like blowing fifty bucks on a video game at the arcade just to see if we can do it) and I don't blame her. 

We do eventually get to the boss of round two and as we drop into a room (Rastan always starts things by falling from the sky) with curled snake pillars, I hope to myself that it's some kind of Thoth-Amon-style snake god or wizard thing. To my chagrin, Rastan decides to do that thing that 80s pop culture loves to do where every character has a personality except one: there's the wolfish, dangerous guy and the big, dopey guy and the little, nerdy guy... and then there's the girl. Her differentiating factor is that she's the girl. That's this boss, who is just Woman. She's an unremarkable lady in blue armor. If you look at the game manual it even gives her the boring name "Slayer," when the rest of the bosses are named cool shit like "Kentorous" and "Shukumas." Adam hits her around a dozen times and the game tells us again that we are brave fighters to have cleared such a difficult stage and we're on to round three.

At this point, it's about 9:30 and we've been playing Rastan Saga for three solid hours. Tom's high school reunion crew still hasn't shown up yet, and I think he's started calling people to see if they're coming. I feel pretty bad for him, especially because I start thinking that you couldn't even pay me to go to one of my high school reunions, and I ask Tom if he wants to help us along in the game. "Maybe you can work out some of those 1987 skills!" I tell him.

"No, I'm good," he says flatly. Hey, I tried, I guess.

We're now out of the swamp and into a deep cave full of purple stalactites and my notes about the experience that I'm taking in my phone are starting to get a little harder to understand after the fact.

We are now fully in sync with Rastan. The game presses in on you from all sides and forces you to react. If the game thinks you're stalling, enemies pour in from the sides to turn up the temperature on you. The music pulses you forward as the game pounds you into submission. Every time you die, you feel like you know exactly how to conquer the thing that killed you; you're not left wondering how to beat it, there's just the question of if you can pull it off. My heart thumps like a clothes dryer with shoes in it. The term "beating" the game has never felt more immediate to me than right now. I try to pound it into submission.

Even so, when we're not that far into the next level, we once again get completely stuck for what seems like forever. Rastan slides down a pretty long slope toward a pit, chased by a boulder. The boulder gains on you, so you have to dodge it before you can get to the bottom of the slope by jumping up and sort of back to the left, but timing it is proving to be really hard, especially when you're also trying to avoid a bat and the dinosaur man and manticore on the platform you're supposed to eventually jump to.

Soon after, you're sliding down another hill which is punctuated by instant-death fireballs instead of rocks and we get stuck here interminably.

It takes everything Adam and I have to get through this section. The first time we actually make it past, we pray that we've crossed the checkpoint and won't have to do it again. Our prayers are rewarded.

But our luck doesn't hold out for long. 

The next test is harder than it should be: kill an bad guy, jump over the spikes, kill another bad guy, jump over even higher spikes, kill more enemies. But that 8-way joystick is now our enemy as we can never seem to jump that second set of spikes without getting run through a few times. To top it off, the enemies on the top row keep coming down to hurt us while we're trying to do the high jump, and more shit is spawning behind us.

We are running low on quarters. It's 10:30 at this point. My hand is cramping, the edges of my vision are starting to blur. To make matters worse, I've read that the final round (which is still two rounds away) doesn't have any checkpoints, so you have to beat it in a single go. The despair is palpable, and far more powerful than the PBR.

I die one last time. "Fuck this game," I tell Adam, "I never want to look at it again." I watch the whole countdown to "GAME OVER" and have a few second thoughts about letting it tick all the way down. My right hand kind of twitches when it his three. But that's all. It reaches zero and I pick up my coin cup and my empties.

Rastan is the natural state of life. My attempt to beat the game is unnatural, a whim of circumstance. And Rastan must always ultimately triumph.

It's not all bad. When we walked in earlier that night, the all-time high score on this Rastan Saga cabinet was owned by "???" and was about 230,000. Adam and I have destroyed ???'s legacy. We own something like the top thirty-nine high scores now, with our names switching back and forth- ADM, ADM, ADM, and the DAN, DAN, DAN every few scores. I enter my name one last time into the three letters allotted to claim your high score. It's about 960,000.

As I close out my bar tab, I notice that Tom has moved. They already took the signs away designating his booth as reserved for Broomfield High, so he's up on his feet and playing games. From what I can tell, he's killing it at Galaga, kind of moving his whole body with the joystick. He looks like he's having fun.

I've got just a few tokens left, so we play Mario Kart Arcade GP, which is technically drunk driving for me.

When I get home, I do the sensible thing. I drink some water. But also, I realize that Rastan Saga is available as a download on the Switch 2, so I buy it there for $6, which, if you're keeping track, is less than we spent at the arcade.

​I still haven't beaten it.

Photos in the above post were taken by Adam Moore.
Graphics were provided by Jake at Yergs Brand.

Critic Chuck Klosterman has this great bit in an exhaustive piece about KISS where he reviews every single album they ever put out, in a paragraph or so each. When he gets to their solo albums after Double Platinum and before Dynasty, he gives each one a lukewarmly-positive review.

Ace's is "about as vintage as any of these jokers are gonna get from here on out." Gene's has a lot of guest stars on it. Paul's probably should've charted better if not for weird, off-putting song titles. And then there's Peter's album. All Klosterman says is, "This record was released by Peter Criss in 1978."

That's kind of how it felt to find something to say about the new Conan novel, Spawn of the Serpent God.

I don't want to be too much of a dick about it. The book is not bad by any means. It just kind of ran through me. I read it over the course of three nights, and to its credit, it is certainly a breezy, quick read. But it just didn't really sick to me at all.

​Spawn of the Serpent God is ostensibly a light sequel to "The Tower of the Elephant" and sort-of prequel to Conan and the Spider God, referencing events and characters from both, but not in a slavish way where you'll be lost if you haven't read one of them (but let's be real- you've read "Tower of the Elephant" a bunch of times, haven't you?). It also bills itself as a tie-in to the "Scourge of the Serpent" comic series coming out right now, but doesn't really do that in a meaningful way. Tim Waggoner said in a blog post that all Titan asked of him was to include Set and ancient serpent men in the story.

Conan, just shy of 19 and thieving in Zamora, is currently partnered with the Zamorian thief Valja, and they're painting the town red. The whiz-bang opening in which they try to steal an idol from a temple of Ishtar is a pretty great start to things! Eventually, the two of them team up with a pair of mystics to try to take down a Stygian sorcerer who's set up shop in the ruins of Yara's tower.

There's eventually a time skip of about 15 years, moving ahead to Conan's 33rd year and reuniting of most of the principle characters. Valja and the villain Shengis are fun. I would certainly hope they would be, since Conan disappears from the narrative entirely for nearly sixty pages right in the middle of the book. The magical mountain fortress Ravenhold is pretty cool, but certainly doesn't feel very "Conan-y" to me. Oh well, it's fun.

There are a couple of light themes through the book about gender, sexuality, and the duality of good vs. evil. Tim Waggoner's characters all feel very flawed and very human, which is welcomed.

​I really try not to review anything on this blog unless I feel like have something new to say about it, and for this novel, I just never really found the angle. I'm inclined to agree with Gary Romeo's review over at SpraguedeCampFan. He said, "Someone, someday, might recapture the original magic. But for now, I’m mostly entertained. A night reading instead of watching Netflix." Entertaining enough, and yeah, better than doomscrolling for a night.

Those Titan books sure do all look good together, though.

I haven't picked up the other Titan release, Blood of the Serpent yet, but for the four with the silhouette covers that I do own, here's my ranking. Far and away the best of them is City of the Dead, followed by Cult of the Obsidian Moon, Spawn of the Serpent God, and then in a distant fourth place is Songs of the Slain.

It starts with a bit of a Roshomon: after rescuing a woman from a gang of would-be killers, their target Shahela spins a yarn about the recent history of her nation Ophir. Conan listens intently to Shahela as she paints herself and her all-female guard squad, the Iron Maidens, as the underdogs in a war against tyranny. The Black Cloaks, a veritable death squad that operated with impunity, cast a shadow over Ophir. They imprisoned the country's rightful leader, Queen Varia, and Shahela seeks to free the besieged queen.

But just a few pages later, Conan is told the same story with slightly different embellishments by another character, the administrator named Balthis. To hear Balthis tell it, the Black Cloaks were actually serving at the pleasure of Varia, and it was Shahela poisoned the throne against the Cloaks. It was the Iron Maidens, he says, who helped Shahela imprison the queen.

We're left wondering who- if anyone- we are to believe. 

It probably doesn't come as a surprise to the engaged reader that both Shahela and Balthis are vying for power and hoping that a certain steely-thewed Cimmerian joins their cause. Conan is a newcomer in Ophir and hears these two tales fairly soon after arriving in the country, apparently fresh from his Barachan pirate days, and probably a little prior to "Red Nails."

This Conan is one of my favorite incarnations of the character: he is now not only worldly but very strategically smart. He knows the ways of civilization and war so that he's not just a physical force to be reckoned with, but a cunning adversary with his sword sheathed, too.

It turns out that a little bit of what Balthus and Shehela both said was true. Varia was a good queen and did try to disband the Black Cloaks, but not through the influence of Shahela. Both the Cloaks' and the Maidens' leaders are vying for power in their own ways- Shahela needs to kill Varia and Balthis needs to marry her.

Sure, Conan has never really cared for politics, but he does have a streak of caring about justice and standing up to tyrants, so he enmeshes himself in the power struggle. Seeing the scheming, Conan chooses Door #3 and decides to play them against each other and act as a spy. He soon learns that there's another party here, Toiro, Varia's cousin with an equal claim to the throne as Shahela if Varia were to die.

​"Wheels within wheels," Conan thinks to himself.

When Toiro eventually gets captured, Conan gets into the castle to free both him and Varia, but is interrupted by Balthis and the Cloaks, and is ultimately dropped into a skeleton-laden dungeon with a twelve-foot-tall, man-eating ghoul inside. Conan manages to stun it long enough to get away, but doesn't kill it.

When we next see the Cimmerian, he's donned the armor of the nigh-mythical founder of the nation, King Thanus, and stirs up the people of Ophir against both Shahela and Balthis. There are some fun, though vague, "power to the people" themes here. 

Freeing Toiro and then setting his sights of Varia, Conan crosses paths with Shahela one last time. He has repeatedly said throughout the issue that he doesn't care to do combat with women when avoidable (thinking fondly of Bêlit and Red Sonja each time). He is spared that decision in the final moments by the return of the twelve-foot zombie creature. There's a surprising amount of pathos in Shahela's cries for Conan to help her, to not be devoured by this thing, and as Conan slays it, Shahela drops dead too. The panels don't make it clear whether he snapped her spine or broke her neck or if Conan's sword went just a little too far through the monster's gut. Either way, Ophir is saved.

This was to be Roy Thomas's second-to-last issue on Savage Sword for over a decade, and word was out that there would be someone new in the driver's seat. Issue #60, Roy's last continuous issue of his all-time 60-issue run on the title, didn't betray anything about his departure, but #61 sure did. In the letters section "Swords and Scrolls," new writer Michael Fleisher writes "A Special Note of Appreciation" to Roy's contributions on Conan through the years. It's probably the best send-off any writer could hope for.

Fan reaction was mixed- one letter published in issue #62 bemoaned that he felt Roy had been stuck in a rut for a few years. Fleisher and the editorial team took the classy route and said they disagreed- that all Roy's work had been excellent.

In the back of #63, a letter-writer really tore into Fleisher:

Dave Clark of Haddon Heights, NJ goes on for like six more paragraphs, ending with "Thank you for listening." Marvel just responded, "You're welcome."

​One more steamed letter-writer wrote in, "Can't you guys think up anything original?" Readers of any of my writing about Savage Sword will know that I'm inclined to agree with these writers-in.

Marvel didn't print any reactions to "Black Cloaks of Ophir" until issue #71, which were universally positive. Readers praised the suspense in the plot and Ernie Chan's art. Some proposed that Ernie take over John Buscema's mantle as the regular SSOC artist, which I wouldn't have minded, but only because Ernie is entirely a Buscema clone (I'm not joking, I got halfway through reading the issue before I realized they weren't Big John's pencils).

The title page of the issue says that "Black Cloaks of Ophir" was adapted from a plot by Andrew J. Offutt, whose work on Conan and the Sorcerer Roy had recently adapted in the mag, so I'd be interested in knowing how much interplay there was between the two of them. Roy had one more story ready to go, but had long-since moved on to DC Comics.

​It would be one of his best originals.

I've never seen anyone talk about "Black Cloaks of Ophir." It seems to be one of the issues that hasn't risen to the same level as most of the REH adaptations, and since it exists outside the first 60 issues of the title, I bet most readers haven't given it a go. They should!

"Rogues in the House" was first published in the January 1934 issue of Weird Tales, about three months after readers had been treated to their previous Conan story, "The Pool of the Black One." The story appeared seventh in the mag and didn't make the cover, suggesting perhaps a lack of confidence in this entry in the Conan saga. If that's what they felt, it was certainly misguided, as "Rogues" is a through-and-through banger.

All of the above leads me to conclude that within our chronology so far, "Rogues" should be only the second in the timeline.

1970's Conan the Barbarian title starts out a little weird. As young Conan putzes around just outside of Cimmeria in the first three issues, it's near-universally considered to be a slow start to one of the (eventual) best comics of the 70s. There are flashes of what is to come in #3, "The Twilight of the Grim Grey God," but most of it is rather tonally inconsistent, like author Roy Thomas isn't exactly sure what he wants to do on the book.

Even as the thief stories start with issue #4's adaptation of "The Tower of the Elephant," it doesn't automatically get better even though we're entering one of Conan's most fun life periods. Conan certainly improves quite a bit from issue #7-on, which would see free adaptation of "The God in the Bowl," "Rogues in the House," "The Garden of Fear" and a psychedelic crossover with Elric of Melnibone. Like its title barbarian, the book tends to wander for a while, and even though there are some great issues, it doesn't really have a clear narrative thrust.

Where it all really comes together about a dozen and a half issues in when Roy Thomas begins his "War of the Tarim" storyline.

The whole War of the Tarim is a Roy Thomas original... in a way. It's set in Conan's first mercenary period, which in the generally-accepted timeline comes in his early-to-mid twenties, right after his thieving. He goes east for the first time an enlists in the army of Turan, learning how to ride a horse, use a bow and arrow, and strategize militarily. As far as the Robert E. Howard original canon goes, there's not much there. The unfinished fragment "The Hand of Nergal" is all REH really included, though the period is fleshed out some more if you consider the L. Sprague de Camp stuff from the 60s. Roy says that from the start he was looking for a way to reenact the Trojan War in CtB, and this is where he finally got his chance.

Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith were planning an epic.

The War of the Tarim story arc, which more or less spans issues #19 to #26, is soft-launched by the creative team in issues #17 and 18 as they adapt Howard's "The Gods of Bal-Sagoth." These issues are a lot of fun and I honestly liked them better than the prose original (I found having Conan and Fafnir as the main characters a little more engaging) though Gil Kane's art can be hit-or-miss and sometimes his faces look oddly off-model. These two issues dumped Conan into the waters of the Vilayet Sea as he wanders substantially east for the first time. He crosses paths with an old bit-part character named Fafnir who appeared briefly in Conan #6. He begins as a rival, and eventually becomes a friend. Conan and Fafnir (who call each other "Redbeard" and "Little Man," respectively) are perfect analogues to that shot from Predator where Arnie and Carl are locking hands and flexing their biceps like oversized baseballs, only this time it's one dude with black hair and one dude with red.

The end of issue #18 lands the Cimmerian on the ship of Prince Yezdigerd, a royal up until then had never really been in the spotlight of stories. Rather, he had always been a more unseen force that worked behind the scenes to periodically throw a wrench into Conan's plans. As it's better than being thrown overboard, Conan takes up with the Turanian army.

Conan #19 kicks off the Tarim War for real. It's explained to our young northerner that spies from the city of Makkalet a few short weeks ago stole into the city of Aghrapur and kidnapped the "living Tarim," the current incarnation of an ancient god who freed the Hyrkanian people long ago and has been worshipped ever since in whatever form into which he is reborn. 

Conan just scowls and scoffs at the wooden carving of the Tarim lashed to the boat, and this is where the real dramatic rub comes in for the story. Not only is Conan not a true believer in either side of this holy war, but he feels bald contempt for both sides. He will fight, but his first question is what it pays. They land in Makkalet and Conan does what he does best.

Barry Windsor-Smith's art in this issue, "Hawks from the Sea," is a serious trade-up from the two previous Gil Kane-penciled books. His beautifully-hatched, rococo style works so much better for the Hyborian Age than Kane's action figure poses. He does great covers, but I always felt his interiors looked better for superhero titles. Because of comic creation's breakneck schedule, the team didn't even have time to ink the second half of the book and it leaves it with an interesting Prince Valiant feel. It certainly looks different than the inked work, lacking the strong outlines and deep blacks comics usually have, but it doesn't look worse.

Perhaps it's because Conan is not fighting for gods or glory, but the story is surprisingly not enamored with this war. It takes the time to show us the meaninglessness of the violence as Conan looks down from atop a wall, aiding an injured Fafnir. Even with a reader sobered by that scene, the skeletal soldiers summoned by the mysterious wizard, Kharam-Akkad, are sick as fuck.

The war continues in issue #20, "The Black Hound of Vengeance," in which Conan comes closer to Kharam-Akkad. Fafnir loses an arm, which Roy refers to as one of the "dark undersides of the glories of the Trojan War." They wanted to humanize our Cimmerian hero a bit.

​The real achievement worth talking about in this issue actually comes when the story of the book is almost entirely over: for a two-page epilogue, Barry chose to just draw about a dozen illustrations and Roy wrote in prose, placing the text in and around the drawings as needed. The resulting vibe is like reading the bloodiest picture book you can imagine, while Conan puts a permanent scar on Yezdigerd's cheek before diving off the edge of the ship. The epilogue paces the end of the book well and calls back to the pulp era that works so well for Conan.

"The Monster of the Monoliths," which follows in issue #21, features an all-time great Barry Windsor-Smith cover to go along with a story that Roy Thomas feels only treads water. It says it's based on REH's "The Black Stone," but I don't feel like the issue evokes "The Black Stone" at all. It feels far more like the L. Sprague de Camp pastiche "The Curse of the Monolith." Conan swaps sides in the war, but the city of Makkalet is not without its own problems. We see a betrayal and, as Conan is strapped to a monolith with an eldritch frog, he barely escapes with his life. Though he wants to ride west and away from the war, he keeps a vow he has made and returns to Makkalet to enlist friends for the conflict.

Fans in the 1970s had to wait a bit to see the story continue, as that aforementioned comic crunch claimed issue #22 in its churn. Without a story finished, but with a stellar Barry Windsor-Smith cover already sent to the printer, Roy sheepishly reprinted Conan #1, with the promise that the saga would be back in the following issue. It was, but with a noticeably less impressive Gil Kane cover. Though both issues #22 and 23 were intended to introduce Red Sonja to the Conan mythos, neither cover actually depicts her in the cover illustration, which seems odd today considering that she's clearly the breakout character of 70s Conan.

Roy says that it was nice to have Conan's life all mapped out before he even began writing. He knew that he would eventually introduce Conan's raven-haired Shemite love, Bêlit, in "Queen of the Black Coast" and his blond companion, Valeria in "Red Nails." So he decided to introduce a red-haired character as an occasional ally and occasional adversary to the big guy. In order to do this, he looked to the REH story "The Shadow of the Vulture" to adapt the WWI character Red Sonya of Rogatino into Red Sonja of Hyrkania. Much has been written about this already; you likely already know this bit.

Sonja's debut issue is actually probably one of least-exciting of the War of the Tarim, at least until Sonja and Conan exact some espionage-style revenge at the end of the book. The story just seems to go by a little too quickly: it introduces the character Mikhal Oglu, "the Vulture," and establishes him as a terrifying, shadowy menace for a few panels, but doesn't really do a whole lot with him. Roy wishes he'd stretched the story out to become a two-parter, and I think he's right. It would've hit a little harder.

Sonja feels a little off in this story. Not only is this prior to her acquiring her signature chainmail bikini, but she's also got more realistic orangeish-red hair rather than literal crimson, and she looks slightly older than she usually does today.

Issue #24, "The Song of Red Sonja," fares a lot better than #23. It's just a more fun time than its predecessor as Conan and Sonja sneak into a palace tower of Makkalet under the pretense that they're simply thieving. But Sonja has a hidden mission there as well. She introduces Conan to the magical phrase "Ka Nama Kaa Lajerama" which Conan will use periodically to ward off evil serpent-people of the god Set.

I am left wondering if the reason why this issue is so good lies with Barry Windsor-Smith. He had decided to leave the Conan the Barbarian title and wanted this issue to be his ultimate statement. Roy gave Barry the green light to play around a bit. That full-page dance at the beginning? All Barry. The tower and treasure and snake monsters? Barry again.

Roy and Barry seem to have liked what they did for the epilogue of issue #20, because the combination of unbordered illustrations and straight prose returns twice in this issue for brief asides. They kind of tie the War of the Tarim era together under one style, so it's cool to see it return. I wish more comics would break up their formula in ways like this more often.

Sonja gets the best of Conan (this time, anyway!) and disappears. 

The intricate piles of treasure in the tower and the bejeweled snakeskins were among the final Conan the Barbarian images Barry Windsor-Smith would ever draw. Barry did a few Savage Sword books, some Conan Saga covers, and a Conan Vs. Rune one-shot decades later, but "The Song of Red Sonja" would be his last time penciling the regular Conan title. Comparing his work in the first few issues to what he was doing just three years later is astounding. He'd grown from the friendly, square-jawed Jack Kirby figures to an unmistakably unique skillset in just a few years.

I would mourn his exit from Conan, but finally made room on the roster for John Buscema to finally step in as the regular Conan penciller. Buscema draws Conan the way John Romita drew Spider-Man: crystallized and perfectly. Not only was Buscema destined to be Conan's long-term artist, but his interiors and covers took a title that was already climbing in sales and then kicked it into high gear, eventually becoming one of Marvel's bestselling series.

Big John's first issue as artist sends the War of the Tarim careening toward its conclusion. Issue #25 finally allows the sorcerer Kharam-Akkad and the Cimmerian barbarian to face off in a riff on the Howard classic, "The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune." As Conan does battle with the wizard, the crazed faces of the Turanians march on Makkalet yelling, "For the Tarim!" 

With Kharam-Akkad dispatched in spectacular, prophesized fashion (foreshadowing Conan's future tenure as Amra the Lion), all that is left is to see who will claim the living Tarim once and for all.

"The Hour of the Griffin" in issue #26 serves as the war's epic conclusion. Issue #25 had brought the Roy Thomas / John Buscema team together, but issue #26 would bring about the final piece of the puzzle: longtime Buscema inker Ernie Chan would inks Big John's pencils for the first time.

​Finally bringing that whole Trojan War thing back around, the Turanians invade Makkalet by sneaking through tunnels into a horse statue in the city. With the gates open, pandemonium fills the streets. Conan reluctantly rescues some royals before retreating to the chamber which happens to house the Tarim himself.

Conan scoffs at the robed figure and commands that he reveal himself to an unbeliever. He knocks over a brazier which fills the room with light and throws the Tarim's image on countless mirrors, which was apparently Kharam-Akkad's preferred home décor choice. What Conan sees is not a god, but a drooling, inbred old man.

Once he processes what he sees, Conan involuntarily throws his head back and laughs. He is vindicated as men fight and die in a holy war which he's seen right through from the start. The Tarim is struck by a stray arrow from the invading forces, causing him to fall into the uncovered brazier and burn to death. Prince Yezdigerd and the Turanians find the body, re-cloak him, and prop him up for the coming procession. "The city that houses the living Tarim lays claim to homage from all Hyrkanian peoples. My faithful troops expect a procession, come the dawn... and by dark Erlik, they shall have it!" spake Yezdigerd, revealing that this was a political power grab, never a sincere attempt at a rescue.

Roy intended to use Conan #26 to set the Cimmerian on a new path, which he does, sending our hero riding out of Makkalet, westbound and away from all this holy war bullshit.

His time in Turan was not over, but Conan the Barbarian the character, and Conan the Barbarian the comic book series would go back to wandering. However, the next 91 issues would be an adventure worth reading. And eventually, Roy would find a special spark again, greatly expanding on REH's stories to once again put his own stamp on things, this time by pairing Conan with his greatest love for an astounding 40+ issues of pirate marauding.

Ever been to NYC or San Diego Comic Con? I certainly haven't. Those two cons are holy grail conventions for me- something that I think I'd have to plan over a year in advance to get to, but have never had the pleasure of attending yet.

My friend Angel was at NYCC this past weekend with the Colorado Ghostbusters, though, and while she was there, she was able to visit Jim Zub to pick up a signed NYCC-exclusive variant of Conan the Barbarian #25. Jim Zub was even nice enough to pose with a picture for it! What a mensch!

This brings me up to a ridiculous four different covers of Conan #25, so I'm realizing I have a problem. The New York convention variant is by artist Alfredo Cardona and depicts Conan with Belit and what are presumably the bat-like creatures that eventually kill her at the end of "Queen of the Black Coast."

Thanks, Jim!

I used to do YouTube video essays with my brother back when I was bored during the pandemic. I feel like there are people who might not be super keen to read a long essay, but they might listen to a video while they cook or mow the lawn or something, so I adapted one of my blog posts into a video here. 

I might do this from time to time, who knows. Video editing sure takes a lot longer than writing, though!

​Anyway, give it a look-see if you like. I hope you enjoy!

I don't really do a lot of what I think of as "reviews" on this blog. I know a lot of times my writing about Conan stuff verges into review territory, but I usually think of them as essays. I try to come up with an interesting take, something to actually say about the story and engage with its themes. I try to place them in chronology. And yeah, I usually include how good I felt the story is, but my goal isn't really to review.

Especially not contemporary stuff- I feel like I would lose interest profoundly fast if I had to come up with a unique angle on everything, especially just a 24-page comic each month. Sounds like a grind. And if I ever fall into the pattern of just summarizing a plot and then telling you what I liked and disliked? Take me out back behind the barn and shoot me.

But Jim Zub and Alex Horley's Conan the Barbarian #25, which came out today? Brother, I had to rush to my keyboard so I could tell you about this thing.

Most discussions of this book are starting with its unique art, understandably so. Each panel is a hand-done oil painting by longtime Titan Conan artist Alex Horley. They are universally gorgeous. Oil paints present such a different feeling than traditional comic book art. For one, it's a single artist working all the way through rather than a collaboration of a penciller, inker, colorist, and letterer. They lack the traditional outlines and blacks of de rigeuer comic book creation. They feel so tactile; in the two-page spread with the title, you can literally see the texture of the canvas under Horley's work. His deep blues, unearthly greens, and vivid reds seem to glow on the page, like the creepy, yellow eyes of the the comic's title character, "the Nomad."

I don't mean to imply that comics are a "low" art or anything (I adore them!), but there's something incredible about seeing comic art rendered as a painting. I had this Alex Ross painting of Plastic Man framed as a poster on my wall when I was like 13, and I think it was because of this hard-to-name feeling that painted comic books instill in me. It elevates everything.

I'm not usually a variant cover guy (you ever feel like comic companies are trying to scam you out of another four dollars with them?), but I had to pick up a few here. I grabbed the standard A cover, the Roberto De La Torre "Frost-Giant's Daughter" cover, and the black-and-white De La Torre sketch version too.

As much as Horley's art is going to be the hook that draws a lot of people to this issue, I don't want the spotlight to avoid Jim Zub's writing here. He's been fantastic for the last two years on both Conan and Savage Sword, but this story feels like a victory lap. 

Surprisingly, it's Zub's first King Conan story for Titan, which surprised me. Folks like Jason Aaron wrote the great "Ensorcelled" two-parter for SSOC, and I know that Jim tends to write younger Conan a little more often, but I guess I never realized he had never actually penned a King Conan yarn. With as many times as I've heard Jim in interviews and podcasts refer to the very first moment of Conan's literary existence- filling in lost corners of maps in a library in the towers of his Aquilonian castle, I guess I'd just assumed that of course he'd written an elder Conan tale.

As the gorgeous wraparound cover implies, Conan revisits many portions of his life in this issue, sprinting us through a greatest hits (and greatest stabbings and greatest crucifixions) of Conan's life. In the end, it becomes not only a celebration of what the current Conan creative team have done for the last two years, but a celebration of what keeps bringing us back to this Depression-era barbarian for a hundred years, and even of storytelling itself. Jim has some great, poignant lines in here like calling Conan the "philosopher barbarian." I have no such banger lines. Suffice it to say: this shit rocks.

Jeff Shanks's essay in the back goes down as a fitting desert to this celebration of Conan, stories, and the way they're told. I love the way Jeff is able to communicate his passion for the world of the Hyborian Age.

If this were the last Conan issue from Jim Zub and Titan, it would be a fitting way to go out. But I'm so glad it's not. Pick it up now!

There's a weird little pleasure that hits whenever someone mashes up sci-fi, horror, and fantasy elements. Vampires? Cool. But Planet of the Vampires? Sign me up. I like both Red Sonja and Vampirella, but Red Sonja and Vampirella Meet Betty and Veronica? Yes, please.

​Eerie magazine was a fun genre playground like that for nearly 20 years in the second half of the twentieth century. From 1996 to 1983, it pumped out extremely brief stories in body horror, the macabre, dystopian futures, Gothic romance, sword & sorcery, and planetary adventure. In contrast to its sister magazine Creepy, which told one-and-done stories throughout, Eerie told serialized sagas in which characters returned from time to time for more installments.

Some of these characters have become cult classics among fans of Silver and Bronze Age comic fans: Hunter, Darklon the Mystic, the Rook. Thankfully, the Warren Publishing comics- Eerie, Creepy, and Vampirella- have been collected into accessible "Archive" editions in recent decades, so they're not that hard to read. But there is not a fiendish fandom for Eerie the way that there is for many Big Two comic characters.  As such, every little, unexpected horror nugget you discover in Eerie feels like you've stumbled onto something great, like finding your new favorite album in a dusty crate at the back of the record shop.

I was in Loveland, Colorado a few weekends ago visiting Grand Slam Sports Cards and Comics (despite their name privileging the cards, they've actually got a pretty good comic selection), and I was digging through the mags to find any back issues of Savage Sword of Conan. They had a few, but what really caught my eye was a damaged copy of Eerie #80 from 1977. That Ken Kelly cover was unmistakable. A greenish-yellow vampire with bat wings, a Voltar helmet, a Conan loincloth, a Frank-Frazetta-nearly-nude victim, and a dramatic background of vivid red? You know I bought it.

There are few taglines that absurd, and I mean that as the highest compliment.

What I discovered in the issue's cover story was "Tombspawn: Pieces of Hate," which was actually part of an ongoing story. I hopped on Comic Vine to see if I could figure out in which issue the first part appeared, and it was a few issues prior, in #73 (Side note: I feel like it would be kind of frustrating to read Eerie at the time. If you dug the first "Tombspawn" story in issue #73, it would have been like ten months before you saw the next mere eight-page entry. These things are short!). I couldn't believe it for a second- I've had Eerie #73 hanging in a frame on my wall for a decade now. Back in 2015, I was playing in a punk band called the Ghoulies, and as a send-up to my all-time favorite band The Mummies and their Runnin' on Empty Vol. 2 comp, I bought a horror comic for us to mug at, and it became the back cover to an album we were putting out. I'm sure I read the comic like ten years ago, but hadn't opened it since. It's been displayed along with an issue of Creepy and Vampirella in my office ever since. 

But let's get back to "Tombspawn." Gerry Boudreau wrote the series, while artist Gonzalo Mayo did the pencils and inks.

​The world of "Tombspawn" is an interesting mash-up, like its genres. Set in 1992, it is the distant future of our recent past, taking place around fifteen years on from when it released. The world has bombed itself into oblivion, returning its technology and lifestyle back to something comparable to the stone age. A post-apocalyptic wasteland of irradiated monsters is left where the United States used to be. Craggy rock faces and rotting stone ruins dot the landscape. High above, unbeknownst to any characters, a space war cartel watches the remnants of humanity, responsible for keeping the world dependent on war.

Maybe it's just me, but Gonzalo Mayo's landscape design conjured sickly greens and unnatural purples in my mind to fill in his grayscale landscape. In this world, humanity is limping by.

Stevie, of course, decides to chance it with the vampire girl of his dreams and chooses to press the button labeled "REVIVE," placed right next to the better option of "DESTRUCT." I'm not kidding.

The vampire woman is immediately revived, and as vampire stories often go, Stevie is thrown into a spiritual and physical ecstasy while his body is drained of blood by the vamp in question. She, in turn, flies all the way up into space where she is spotted by the alien space cartel. The space cartel nukes her out of existence in an instant. This short ten-pager ends with Stevie, now a vampire, completely overtaken by the idea of vampire superiority, deciding to turn Biff as well. We conclude on a freeze-frame as he leaps forward with one more reference to horror movies and stale popcorn. 

The Howardesque sword & sorcery themes are apparent from the first few pages. Society is destined to destroy itself while staying focused on superficial comforts like beer and circuses. We have destroyed all our progress and don't even seem to be capable of processing it- we just grab bows and arrows and feel nostalgic for easier times. Americans have been reduced to a state of barbarism, which they're adjusting to with varying degrees of success.

Readers liked the story, with the letters column "Dear Cousin Eerie" in the following issue featuring several positive reactions of "Vampire 1992." One mixed review was mostly whinging at the Eerie editorial staff because he felt like they didn't know whether they wanted to be a horror mag or an adventure mag. He felt "Tombspawn" and another story leaned too hard into adventure.

The second chapter, contained in issue #80, was the "Pieces of Hate" story with the Ken Kelly cover I was initially drawn to. After six panels of recap, we pick up with Stevie and Biff on a campaign of vampire supremacy, convinced that they need to turn as many remaining humans into blood-suckers as they can. These vampires grow not only fangs and an uncontrollable vampire-chauvinist mindset, but a set of heavy metal bat wings bursting out of their shoulder blades. I find it spine-chilling on an existential level when genre fiction has characters retain their fundamental personality while horrifyingly changing one key aspect (in this case, they're pretty much the same characters, just ravenous for their vampire cause now) without comment.

Issue #80 is very much a middle chapter, and two pages shorter than its predecessor for a slim 8-page run, but ends by setting up a conflict between the space cartel and the vampires. Initially mistaking the cartel UFO occupants for a mystical enemy called "Russians," the two groups decide on a "Most Dangerous Game" type of contest to see who gets the US. It's the classic mashup like Yankees v. Red Sox, Taylor Swift v. Katy Perry, and vampires v. space aliens.

What the second issue lacks in plot it makes up for in philosophical discussion. Author Gerry Boudreau goes in deeper on the themes of the first issue, mostly unchanged since the 30s but somewhat updated​ for 1977. Stevie narrates, likening the wave of vampire infections to a rekindling of the pioneer spirit, but realizing immediately the self-destructive path its set them on. 

Letter-writers in "Dear Cousin Eerie" were now raving about "Tombspawn." They loved its lack of clearly moral characters, the Gonzalo Mayo art, and painted Ken Kelly cover. "This is going to be an excellent series!" wrote Jack Marriot of Toledo, Ohio. 

For those following "Tombspawn," the wait was significantly shorter for the third issue than it was for the second. Chapter three, titled "The Game is Afoot," appeared in issue #82 just two months later and Gonzalo Mayo is joined this time by legendary artist Carmine Infantino.

The recap is contained to one page, spiraling in on itself while you turn the magazine to view it from all sides. At the page's center, our vampires Stevie and Biff shake hands with the Space CIA agents against whom they've decided to compete. The vampire everymen then fight an atomic pterodactyl, and I need to pause for a moment because I'm afraid I may never get to write a sentence like that ever again.

The aliens try to contend with the barbarian vampires' physical superiority by using holographic tricks and mind-control guns. Between bouts, Stevie once again waxes philosophical while turning a sort of Cro-Magnon man into a monstrous neanderthal bloodsucker ("cavampireman?" "australopithenosferatu?").

Humanity is still quite literally sifting through the fallout of its own bad choices, and it can't help but plot its next downfall. Stevie and Biff, our two himbo Joe Schmo vampires, are able to ask the question of what their wanton consumption might bring, but are never focused long enough to think it through. They can't investigate, can't plan. Instead, they're once again consumed by bloodlust and you turn the page.

In the final pages of the third issue, Biff is bitten in half, seemingly in one devastating chomp, while the friends navigate what they think is another illusion from the space aliens. Stevie vows to avenge his fallen friend and that space cartel will not win. 

But that was the last we saw of the barbarian vampires in space.

In "Dear Cousin Eerie," one reader proposed an "all-Tombspawn" issue for the future of the mag. After one letter-writer expressed a desire to see "Tombspawn" continue in the very next issue, Eerie editorial responded that the series would return, but it would be a while since Gonzalo Mayo was working on a "book-length VAMPIRELLA epic" in the meantime. Since the Eerie team frequently responded to concerns about the return of well-liked series (around this time they spend a column inch or two assuring readers that their time-travel trilogy will indeed conclude, it just got delayed a bit) that they could have communicated a cancellation of "Tombspawn," but it was quietly dropped. I searched through the next two-dozen issues' worth of letters pages and couldn't find another mention of it.​

​We never got a fourth chapter of "Tombspawn," so we'll never know who won the game or what happened to Stevie. Gerry Boudreau teamed with Gonzalo Mayo for more horror adventures in Eerie #90, but this time told an 8-page story called "Carrion" rather than returning to their previous creation (reader reaction to "Carrion" was not pleasant). I'm sad to see that it never concluded; I could've gone for ten more chapters of "Tombspawn" just to see what other misadventures a couple of former couch potato vampires could've gotten into. To see the logical conclusion of the vampire epidemic would've been fun, too. I can't help but speculate whether it would've ended all life on Earth, like Marvel Zombies, or if the aliens would have launched even more nukes. I guess I'll never know.

I really enjoyed Gerry Boudreau's world-building and characterization in this series. It's not often you get to see a barbarian with gigantic bat wings and a death's head emblem on his loincloth make Elton John references. The themes evoke Howard, Lovecraft, and Burroughs while also transplanting the darkness of Depression-era fantasy into the consumerist 70s. But I think my favorite thing here is Gonzalo Mayo's art. He conjures Frank Frazetta using just black and white. But he also mixes it with what feels like a recreation of Marlon Brando's Jor-El in Superman, and old (even then!) science fiction TV like The Twilight Zone. He uses stark contrast between black and white to create a dark, salacious, damned planet that I want to spend more time on. Character designs just don't look like that anymore.

For the rest of the late 70s, Eerie was dominated by The Rook, its time-travelling Bill Dubay character who pretty much became the magazine's flagship series for a while. The popular "Hunter" series returned for "Hunter III." Eventually, creative teams found the grind too hard to keep up with and Eerie began publishing issues with fewer stories in each issue. There was always a lot of talent behind the mag, and always a wild variation in quality between the stories. 

I'm really glad I happened to crate-dig my way to Eerie #80. Who knows what other incredible nuggets are in the archives of Warren Publishing? I know there are a few send-ups to 70s anthology horror out there like Vampiress Carmilla, but Eerie will always feel special. Is there more sword & sorcery goodness out there to find? Let me know if you've got a good one you want to share.

September and October 1933 in Weird Tales were a one-two punch of short Conan stories, with "The Pool of the Black One" coming just one month after "Xuthal of the Dusk." Both of them are a bit of a downturn from the highs of "The Tower of the Elephant" and "Black Colossus," but things would bounce back soon enough with "Rogues in the House" in January of '34. Unlike the last two stories explored in this series, "Pool" didn't make the cover and it wasn't the lead story in the October issue; instead, it appeared third.

"Pool" was the first pirate Conan story to be published, but it wouldn't be the last. It features one of the coolest entrances Conan ever makes, swimming up and onto a boat out of seeming nowhere.

Honestly, I think the thing that is most illustrative about the placement of this story along the timeline is Conan's characterization himself. He is so eminently controlled, so smooth and unbothered. He keeps his mouth shut and is content to just smile and leave comments unremarked upon. We see some of his fabled "gigantic mirth" when he's gambling with the rest of the sailors. It's a Conan much more similar to the King Conan of "The Phoenix on the Sword" and "The Scarlet Citadel" to the brutish outlander of "The Tower of the Elephant" or "Xuthal of the Dusk." He seems to be even more smooth than in his considerable growth shown in "Black Colossus."

​For now, I'm placing this before the King Conan stories.

I will stop short of saying that Robert E. Howard was obsessed with the idea of ancestral memory, but I will at least say that he was preoccupied by it. The concept of reincarnation, and the reincarnated being able to in some way perceive their past lives through the veil of time, should be familiar-enough to Conan fans. The very first Conan work, the poem "Cimmeria" begins with the words, "I remember," implying a truth in it passed down through the blood of generations.

Even earlier than that, ancestral memory was the key plot point in Howard's "People of the Dark," published in the June 1932 issue of Strange Tales. Even just on the Contents page, it advertises a tale ripped "out of the past." As would-be murderer John O'Brien of the present takes a blow to the head, he accesses a past life from hundreds of years ago. Now, this story's "Conan of the Reavers" is not considered by modern consensus to be entirely the same character as Conan of Cimmeria (despite Conan also being characterize as a "reaver" in the Nemedian Chronicles), but they bear great similarities. 

In addition to the above-mentioned poem and story, Howard would use the concept as the key plot conceit in his James Allison stories, which featured a somewhat fictionalized version of himself remembering his past lives. Of these past lives as a stint as Hunwulf, the Aesir raider living in Conan's Hyborian Age.

There are a handful of James Allison stories, but only those scant two were completed or published during Howard's lifetime. 

James Allison appears in the Conan comic event "Battle of the Black Stone" from last year, and is the framing device in the novel Conan: Cult of the Obsidian Moon, released about the same time. The framing device presents this Conan story as one of James Allison's remembered tales which is being submitted to the fictional magazine Anomalous Adventures, a fun little send-up to Weird Tales.

Both the comic event and the novel follow in the tradition of smashing Howard elements together, combining the characters into classic team-up. "Battle of the Black Stone" puts all of Howard's best-known characters into a type of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen across time: Solomon Kane, El Borak, Conrad and Kirowan, Dark Agnes de Chastillon, etc. Obsidian Moon, which is subtitled "A Black Stone Novel," has Conan encounter Hunwulf and Gudrun of "The Garden of Fear." It also postulates that the winged creature who stole Gudrun in her original story was also related to the creature that killed Belit in "Queen of the Black Coast."

Conan and the Aesir couple become fast friends and Conan is goaded into training their son in combat. Of course, it's not long before things go sideways and send the adults after a cadre of kidnapped village children, all taken mysteriously by winged men.

In the novel, Conan is recognized as a pirate, lately of the Black Coast, and is even named Amra by a character early on. Elsewhere Conan refers to the plots of "The Tower of the Elephant," "The Frost-Giant's Daughter," and "Rogues of the House," by mentioning an elephant god and a giant spider, a snowy woman who disappeared from under his hands, and an ape-man dressed as a priest. There are several places that this novel could go, chronologically. Many stories seem to be set some time in Conan's early-to-mid career as a mercenary, mostly in Shem. It fits in nicely alongside John C. Hocking's Conan work, so it probably belongs right before "Hawks Over Shem" and "Black Colossus."

There's quite a bit to enjoy in Cult of the Obsidian Moon. The couple of Hunwulf and Gudrun are really likeable, but would definitely qualify as a Gary Stu and a Mary Sue, respectively. The novel puts Conan in proximity to children, which is kind of unique for a Conan story, so we see how he interacts with Hunwulf and Gudrun's son, Bjorn. And I'm always down for a cult of zealots and a lost city.

There's a fair bit that I think will turn off longtime Conan readers, too. The Conan of Cult of the Obsidian Moon makes me think of the cover of Savage Sword #36's cover by Earl Norem: square-jawed and mostly clean-cut, this is Conan at his absolute most friendly and superheroic. He's perhaps a bit too good with kids, instantly winning young friends effortlessly as he goes. It's also much more of a fantasy novel than a sword-and-sorcery story. There's magic abound and it's noticeably less dark than some Conan fare.

I found it a little odd that the titular Obsidian Moon cult isn't even mentioned until 189 pages into a 286 page novel. It's not a deal-breaker, I was just sitting there wondering why it was called that for at least half of the book.

Additionally, I'm not trying to nitpick too much, but if James Allison's genetic memories are supposedly of the life of Hunwulf, why is Conan the point of view character? It makes less sense the more I think about it. The novel isn't strongly connected to the comic event at all; you could read both without ever knowing the other title exists and you'd lose nothing (which I think is a plus- complicated reading orders are a scam), but the connections basically make for little Easter eggs if you've read both.

I'm not trying to dissuade you from checking out Obsidian Moon. It was pretty decent. I'm left wondering if I found it at the right time- I spent a bunch of a weekend at a campground near Buford, Wyoming reading it while people drank ale and engaged in mock combat since my wife is a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism.

​Out of Titan Books' recent Conan novels (I'm starting to think of them as the "silhouette cover set"), it's easily the middle of the pack. It doesn't reach the excellent heights of John Hocking's City of the Dead work, but it easily clears the more recent Songs of the Slain. I wouldn't mind seeing more crossovers between Howard properties, which we may see soon enough with what's happening in the pages of Savage Sword these days!

★★★☆☆

It's Cimmerian September, so it's appropriate that the next story in publication order first appeared in the September 1933 issue of Weird Tales. Appearing a few months after "Black Colossus," "Xuthal of the Dusk" was published under the title "The Slithering Shadow." Most people that I know prefer to use Howard's original and (in my opinion, at least) more unique title. Like "Black Colossus," it was the cover story, with the Margaret Brundage illustration on the front showing the characters Natala and Thalis.

So far, our entries in this series have been pretty simple to order: Conan is very mature or very young, or right in between the two. "Xuthal" is going to require a lot more interpretation than the King Conan stories or some of his first.

Here are the contextual timeline clues we have.

• Conan is primarily acting as a mercenary. "He and the girl were, so far as he knew, the sole survivors of Prince Almuric's army."
  • Conan is enlisted in Prince Almuric's army, of which he and his companion Natala are the last survivors. Almuric sounds very similar to Amalric, the general in the previous story. I had to wonder if Almuric and Amalric were intended to be the same person- after all, the former king of Aquilonia is known as both Numedides and Namedides, and the capitol of Aquilonia changes names from Tamar to Tarantia, so he's made similar spelling and name changes. However, because Amalric is stated in "Black Colossus" to be a general and Almuric is a prince, they're likely different men.
  • It's never stated exactly who Conan is fighting for in this story. Almuric's army is stated to be fighting the "defeated rebel prince of Koth," and sweeps through Shem and then the outskirts of Stygia, but we're not exactly sure where they're coming from. Ophir? Khoraja? 
  • Conan and Natala are have been pursued by Stygian horsemen, but managed to shake off the pursuit and Conan isn't recognized by anybody or implied to be in any special position in the army. If Conan was a highly-ranked commander in Almuric's army like he is in "Black Colossus," I don't think he would've abandoned the rest of the army.
• Conan is clad very simply. "Though his only garment was a silk loin-cloth, girdled by a wide gold-buckled belt from which hung a saber and a broad-bladed poniard." With only a loin-cloth (though a silk one! A gentrified loin-cloth!) and gold-buckled belt, Conan is lacking the more elaborate outfits he has in some stories. He does seem to be much better outfitted than in "The Tower of the Elephant," though.
• Conan has learned Stygian. "On a venture Conan replied in Stygian, and the stranger answered in the same tongue." In "Black Colossus," Conan had learned Kothic, spoken in a "barbarous" accent. While Natala's limited Stygian language skills are noted, Conan's are not, suggesting perhaps a proficiency at the language. 
• Conan is always a competent fighter and survivalist, but Conan doesn't seem as confident or sophisticated in this story to me as he does in "Black Colossus." He's a little more brutish. The fact that he seems like just a regular enlister in the military leads me to believe that this story probably take place prior to "Black Colossus." 

This is my first sort of big shakeup to my original chronology. I originally had "Xuthal" much later, based on what I would now consider a misreading of the original story. A year or so ago, I called Conan an officer in Shem's military, but I was making assumptions there that aren't really that supported by the text. It never explicitly says he's an officer. I'll be placing this one earlier in Conan's mercenary days and prior to "Black Colossus."

A lot of stories put this one much further on in Conan's life, usually just before his pirate period with the Barachans as seen in "Red Nails." I wonder if there's something I'm missing. Shoot me a comment if you think there is!

"Black Colossus" is the fourth Conan story to reach publication, hitting magazine racks in the July 1933 issue of Weird Tales. Howard earned $130 from Farnsworth Wright and came three months after the previous publication, "The Tower of the Elephant." As a first for Howard, the story graced the cover and was the first story in the issue's contents.

"Black Colossus" features one of the best openings in any Robert E. Howard story but Conan isn't even seen until well into chapter 2, at which point, his physical description is made clear immediately.

• Conan is clad as a captain of mercenaries, including a scarlet cloak: "He stood facing her, his hand on the long hilt that jutted forward from beneath the scarlet cloak which flowed carelessly from his mailed shoulders. The torchlight glinted dully on the polished blue steel of his greaves and basinet. A more baleful fire glittered bluely in his eyes. At first glance she saw he was no Kothian; when he spoke she knew he was no Hyborian. He was clad like a captain of the mercenaries, and in that desperate command there were men of many lands, barbarians as well as civilized foreigners. There was a wolfishness about this warrior that marked the barbarian."
  • In "The Tower of the Elephant," Conan was a young wanderer with just a worn tunic and a hand-me-down scabbard, so he has clearly made lots of progress in his career. 
  • The scarlet cloak Conan wears in this story is sometimes considered a chronological marker for Conan readers as he is noted as wearing a scarlet cloak in other stories, possibly placing them next to one another. However, they could be different red cloaks.
• Conan now understands not only social conventions of taverns, but local politics as well: "I've but come from the last wine-shop open. Ishtar's curse on these white-livered reformers who close the grog-houses! 'Let men sleep rather than guzzle,' they say—aye, so they can work and fight better for their masters! Soft-gutted eunuchs, I call them."
  • In "The Tower of the Elephant," Conan failed to understand several social cues in his interactions with others. He apparently now has a grasp of reform politics. He also understands the diplomatic relations between Ophir, Koth, and Khoraja, mentioned later in the story.
• Conan mentions having served with mercenaries of Corinthia: "When I served with the mercenaries of Corinthia, we swilled and wenched all night and fought all day; aye, blood ran down the channels of our swords." This time period in Conan's life is never explicitly shown in Howard stories.
• Conan identifies himself as a captain of mercenaries: "'Who are you?' she asked abruptly. 'Conan, a captain of the mercenary spearmen,' he answered, emptying the wine-cup at a gulp and holding it out for more. 'I was born in Cimmeria.'" He has evidently had enough time to rise in the ranks for the Khorajan army.
• Conan's kingship is previewed: "'By my fingerbones, Conan, I have seen kings who wore their harness less regally than you!' Conan was silent. A vague shadow crossed his mind like a prophecy. In years to come he was to remember Amalric's words, when the dream became the reality." 
  • "Black Colossus" must obviously take place prior to Conan's kingship in "The Phoenix on the Sword" and "The Scarlet Citadel."
• Conan's Zamorian thieving days are mentioned by a Shemite thief as a thing of the past: "By Derketo, Conan, I am a prince of liars, but I do not lie to an old comrade. I swear by the days when we were thieves together in the land of Zamora, before you donned hauberk!" This obviously places "Black Colossus" after "The Tower of the Elephant."

"Black Colossus" is not just very easy to place in our timeline so far, but it may be the most geographically-focused of all Howard's stories. Perhaps the "Hyborian Age" essay was helping him keep things straight, because the geography of the central Hyborian Age kingdoms is extremely well-crafted.

Also, Conan's birth on a battlefield is mentioned for the first time, an oft-cited characteristic of his youth. 

"The Tower of the Elephant" was the third Conan story published, appearing in the March 1933 issue of Weird Tales, which followed two months after "The Scarlet Citadel's" publication in January. According to biographers like Willard Oliver, it was not the third story written. By the time Howard banged out "The Tower of the Elephant," sitting at his computer late at night and reading his words aloud as he typed them, he had already written "The Phoenix on the Sword," "The Frost-Giant's Daughter," "The God in the Bowl," and his "The Hyborian Age" essay. Unfortunately, two of those would be rejected by Farnsworth Wright at Weird Tales and the essay wasn't intended for publication. 

Though Howard sent WT "The Tower of the Elephant" before "The Scarlet Citadel," it would ultimately be published third, netting Howard $95 and the votes from the readership as the best story of the issue. If you put a gun to my head and told me to pick a favorite Conan story, it would probably be this one.

Whereas the first two published stories are at the end of Conan's life during his kingship, "Tower" zooms way back to the start, when Conan is a penniless thief who's new to civilization. Most of the chronological clues happen at the very beginning of the story.

• Conan is described as a tall, "strongly made" youth in a cheap tunic: "He saw a tall, strongly made youth standing beside him. This person was as much out of place in that den as a gray wolf among mangy rats of the gutters. His cheap tunic could not conceal the hard, rangy lines of his powerful frame, the broad heavy shoulders, the massive chest, lean waist and heavy arms. His skin was brown from outland suns, his eyes blue and smoldering; a shock of tousled black hair crowned his broad forehead." He's clearly lived his whole life outside of civilization, like a wild predator compared to city bottom-feeders.
• His equipment is sub-par: "From his girdle hung a sword in a worn leather scabbard." Seeing as Conan is just a "youth," this scabbard is likely not of worn leather because Conan has used it so much, but because it's either a hand-me-down or something scavenged. He evidently hasn't had the time, money, or ability to replace it.
• Conan can speak the local Zamorian language, but he does so with the accent of a foreigner: "'You spoke of the Elephant Tower,' said the stranger, speaking Zamorian with an alien accent. 'I've heard much of this tower; what is its secret?'" He must have been in Zamora for enough time to pick up the language. Future Conan stories will imply that Conan has an innate gift for language.
• Conan is too much of an outsider to understand the social trappings of the tavern in the Maul, and becomes embarrassed about it: "The Cimmerian glared about, embarrassed at the roar of mocking laughter that greeted this remark. He saw no particular humor in it, and was too new to civilization to understand its discourtesies. Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. He was bewildered and chagrined, and doubtless would have slunk away, abashed, but the Kothian chose to goad him further." Not only does this contain one of the most famous lines in the Conan canon (the head-splitting part) but it shows that Conan is really young and really green. He simply doesn't understand why he's being laughed at.
• The Black Lotus powder is mentioned for the first time: "'They died without a sound!' muttered the Cimmerian. 'Taurus, what was that powder?' 'It was made from the black lotus, whose blossoms wave in the lost jungles of Khitai, where only the yellow-skulled priests of Yun dwell. Those blossoms strike dead any who smell of them.'" For chronologizers like myself, the Black Lotus is a bit of a conundrum, as we'll get to in later entries. While he comes across it here, he doesn't appear to recognize it in "Xuthal of the Dusk," where it is a central plot point. Perhaps it's because Taurus doesn't describe the effects completely (or accurately?).
• Yag-Kosha hints at Conan's Atlantean ancestry: "I know your people from of old, whom I knew by another name in the long, long ago when another world lifted its jeweled spires to the stars." This is likely referring to the city of Valusia, where Kull was king in the pre-Cataclysmic Thurian Age. In Jim Zub's Conan the Barbarian run, an older Conan travels back to Valusia where he meets Yag-Kosha again.