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By Crom, It’s Cimmerian September: A Plethora of Pastiches! In 2 Paragraphs Each

By Crom, It’s Cimmerian September: A Plethora of Pastiches! In 2 Paragraphs Each

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And we are wrapping up Cimmerian September. Which I think will be an annul thing here at Black Gate. Maybe I’ll do a broader Robert E. Howard month around his birth (January) or death (June). But it’s more Conan this week.

If you’re a regular here, you know that I post almost exclusively positive stuff. You can go anywhere on social media for negative stuff. I like to share things I like – with people who wanna comment on it sometimes. It’s cool.

A notable exception is that festering pile of garbage that was Max Landi’s Dirk Gently TV series. Sometimes you gotta call a spade a spade.

I’m gonna give some thoughts on twenty different Conan pastiches from over the years. And some aren’t good. So, not all happy stuff here. But I think a legitimate opinion is worthwhile. Even mine…

Not ranking them, but listing them in alphabetical order by author. I’ll give some info on the story in the first paragraph, and a very short review in the second. I’ve done in-depth reviews here at Black Gate. These are just light looks at a bunch of Conan stories, to put them on your radar. Hopefully, you’ll find this post useful.

There are others I haven’t read at all,

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Space Opera vs Sword & Planet: Flash Gordon

Space Opera vs Sword & Planet: Flash Gordon

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Flash Gordon is sometimes labeled Sword & Planet fiction. It meets quite a few of the characteristics. It has an Earthman, Flash, ending up on a strange world where he engages in battles with strange monsters and weird humanoid aliens, including winged men, bird riders, lion men, and others. However, it fails the S&P test on one major feature, the primary weapon used. When Flash is first challenged, if at all possible, he reaches for a ray gun rather than a sword.

John Carter, Dray Prescot, Jandar of Callisto, and Ruenn Maclang of Talera reach for a sword. For this reason, since “sword” is the very first word in Sword & Planet, I tend to classify the Flash Gordon stories as Space Opera and put them in a category of S&P adjacent. It’s a matter of taste, of course. I tend to be a splitter rather than a lumper, which means I tend to separate genres along narrower lines than some other folks. The images I’ve posted today, downloaded as public domain or as stills from the movie, illustrate this feature of the Flash stories.

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A Bloody Good Time for Young and Old: Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales

A Bloody Good Time for Young and Old: Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales

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These days, deciding what to get depressed about is like visiting a fabulous smorgasbord where the presentation is first-class and every delicious dish is cooked to perfection. Hmmm… what shall I have today? Let’s see… a generous spoonful of climate-change anxiety is guaranteed to make a good appetizer. Now let’s have some sides… umm… a little state of the economy worry is always tasty, and… where are they hiding it? Oh! There it is — it’s just not a meal without a steaming portion of AI apocalypticism. And now for the main course. Well, we all know that there’s nothing as filling as… er, let’s just stop there, shall we?

For myself, I tend to go in for the more exotic entrees. For instance, one of my favorites is a heaping plateful of “dammit, kids just don’t read comic books as much as they did when I was their age!” Though it might not be enough for a whole meal, it is something that I frequently find myself chewing on.

It’s true, too — in my role as a fourth-grade teacher, I spend every day in the company of elementary-age children, and I can attest that actual comic books play almost no role in their lives, certainly compared with the space those gaudy booklets took up in my life — and my bedroom closet — when I was a child.

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By Crom, It’s Cimmerian September: Rogues in the House

By Crom, It’s Cimmerian September: Rogues in the House

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We’re rolling through Cimmerian September here at Black Gate. Well, on Monday mornings we sure are! I was fortunate enough to be asked to do some Youtube panels for the Robert E. Howard Foundation folks this month. And we had a great time talking about the first Del Rey Conan volume – The Coming of Conan – in the first one.

I got to give my thoughts on “Rogues in the House,” which was my Hither Came Conan title. That had been a mid-level Conan story for me. But it moved up the ranks after I finished my essay project. So, with some tweaks, here’s my take on a pretty cool story. And HOW was this six years ago??

When I was pitching this series to folks, I was using the title, The Best of Conan. I didn’t come up with Hither Came Conan for about eight months, I think. Yeah, I know… The idea behind the series came from an essay in my first (and so far, only) Nero Wolfe Newsletter. The plan for 3 Good Reasons is to look at a story and list three reasons why it’s the ‘best’ Wolfe story. And I toss in one ‘bad’ reason why it’s not. And finish it off with some quotes.

So, I’m going to take a somewhat different tack from those who have come before me (I doubt I could have measured up, anyways) and pick out two elements that make this story one of Howard’s best accounts of the mighty-thewed Cimmerian. Then, throw a curveball from the Wolfe approach and highlight a few items worthy of note.

OUR STORY

Obviously, you need to read this story, but here’s a Cliff’s Notes version: Nabonidus, the Red Priest, is the real power in this unnamed Corinthian city. He gives a golden cask to Murilo, a young aristocrat. And inside the cask is a human ear (remind you of Sherlock Holmes? It should.). We learn a little later on that Murillo has been selling state secrets, and the ear is from a clerk he had dealings with. The jig is up!

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By Crom, it’s Cimmerian September: Roy Thomas & “Out of the Deep”

By Crom, it’s Cimmerian September: Roy Thomas & “Out of the Deep”

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Cimmerian September (nod to Michael K. Vaughan for coining that) continues here at A (Black) Gat in the Hand. Spooky season is right around the corner, so let’s combine a little horror with our Conan (albeit, of the Marvel variety). I have been reading Savage Sword of Conan lately. But earlier this year, I finished my reading of the first 115 issues of Conan the Barbarian. Those comprised Roy Thomas’ first run of the series, as he left Marvel. I wrote previously about how he brought Conan to Marvel.

He adapted several non-Conan stories, such as “The Marchers of Valhalla,” The Lost Valley of Iskander,” and “Black Canaan,” among many others.

“Sea Curse” appeared in the May, 1928 issue of Weird Tales. It recounted the death of a young girl and an ensuing curse, in the small coastal village of Faring. That same year, he also wrote another tale set in Faring, but it was rejected by both Weird Tales, and Ghost Story. There was also a short poem called The Legend of Faring Town, which first appeared in 1975.

That second story, “Out of the Deep,” finally found print in the November, 1967 issue of Magazine of Horror. Whereas “Sea Curse” is a tale of revenge, this one is a sea monster story. And the reason I chose this of the two is because Roy Thomas adapted it for Conan the Barbarian.

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The Last Legionnaire: Jim Shooter, September 27, 1951 — June 30, 2025

The Last Legionnaire: Jim Shooter, September 27, 1951 — June 30, 2025

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Jim Shooter, photo by Alan Light

Jim Shooter, a precocious kid from Pittsburgh who started writing comic book stories at thirteen and who then went on to have one of the most consequential careers in the history of mainstream comics as Marvel’s editor-in-chief, has died at the age of seventy-three.

Shooter was appointed to Marvel’s top editorial position in January, 1978, and during his controversial decade at Marvel’s helm (he was fired in April, 1987), he left an unmistakable imprint on the company and on the comic book industry as a whole.

Most comics historians and many of the artists and writers who worked under him agree that Shooter made many positive and badly needed changes early on (such as returning art to artists and giving artists and writers royalties in certain circumstances) but later became increasingly rigid and dictatorial, and people have already spent many years and will doubtless spend many more trying to reach a just assessment of the pros and cons of his tenure at Marvel. (You can find a detailed account of those years in Sean Howe’s excellent Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, though of course some people say the book is too hard on Shooter while others say that it isn’t hard enough.)

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What I’ve Been Reading: June 2025

What I’ve Been Reading: June 2025

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Last week, I talked about the most recent audiobooks I’ve been listening to. After enjoying the Egil & Nix short story, two more Thieves World books, and finishing The Black Company again, I wanted more S&S. I have a Kothar book, but it’s an AI voice. Meh. So, I am listening to volume one of the Elric saga. Which I have read many times. Man – those stories are still terrific.

I’ve been watching a lot of movies and shows lately, so that’s probably gonna be a post soon. And I’ve been working on Fortnite levels. But I have also been sitting down with some books when I can. So away we go.

SEA OF GREED– Clive Cussler and Graham Brown

I used to stay up into the wee hours, devouring Clive Cussler and Robert Ludlum books. THOSE were page turners. Cussler ‘handed off’ his various series’ and seemed to be a franchise manager, rather than a writer. But they were still good (with one exception). Then he passed, so the lines are definitely just the work of the current authors.

I never did the Tom Clancy technical stuff, but I really like The Oregon Files. And I’m okay with Isaac Bell, though after the first one, I liked the concept more than the actual books. I’ve barely tried the Fargo series – meh. And I quit reading Dirk Pitt because Cussler gave it to his son (named Dirk) and he’s a bad writer. I read the first two and quit. Life’s too short to read bad books written through nepotism (Anne Hillerman is the poster child for this).

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Heroes and Humanity: Jack Kirby at the Skirball Center

Heroes and Humanity: Jack Kirby at the Skirball Center

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Last Friday, as an early Father’s Day gift, my wife arranged for us to spend the afternoon at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, which is hosting a wonderful new exhibition dedicated to the memory and achievement of a great American artist. Titled Jack Kirby: Heroes and Humanity and running until March 1, 2026, the show is a must-see for any admirer of the King of Comics.

Jack Kirby is arguably the most influential person in the history of mainstream American comic books; his work, more than that of any other artist or writer, defined the visual grammar of the superhero. Along with his partner Joe Simon, he created Captain America in the 1940’s, soldiered through the postwar superhero slump of the 1950’s doing work in all genres — science fiction, war, horror, western, and romance (it’s an often forgotten fact that Simon and two-fisted Jack Kirby created the romance comic book) until, in the 1960’s, when DC showed that there was a reawakening market for costumed heroes, he teamed up with Stan Lee to create the “Marvel Universe”, though they didn’t know that’s what they were doing when they did it.

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By Crom: It’s Conan…I Mean, Starr the Slayer!

By Crom: It’s Conan…I Mean, Starr the Slayer!

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Having finished the first 100 issues of Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian, I did a post last week on Roy Thomas’s memoirs and that series. Which OF COURSE you read, here.

I started reading the first Savage Sword of Conan Omnibus from Marvel, but I’m still in a CtB mood. So, I decided to write another post about it. Sort of…

The first issue of Conan the Barbarian actually followed the sandalled feet of Starr the Slayer.

Just for fun, Roy Thomas had written a sword and sorcery story, and he had Barry (not yet ‘Windsor’) Smith draw it. Starr the Slayer was a very Conan-esque barbarian. In the story, he was the creation of Len Carson (named after Conan pastiche writer, Lin Carter), who dreamed his plots. But mentally exhausted from this, Carson wanted to kill off his meal ticket. Starr somehow travels to Carson’s time and kills the writer for attempting to dispose of him. Uh, okay, sure.

Starr appeared in the fourth issue of the Marvel anthology, Chamber of Darkness, hitting newsstands in April of 1970 (CtB debuted in October of the same year). Smith both penciled and inked the entire installment for Starr, from Thomas’ story.

Thomas did not intend for it to be an ongoing character, though it seems entirely conceivable that if Marvel had followed form and developed their own in-house character (giving them all the rights), instead of licensing one, Starr could well have been Marvel’s sword-swinger.

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By Crom: Marvel, Roy Thomas, and The Barbarian Life

By Crom: Marvel, Roy Thomas, and The Barbarian Life

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So, back in January of 2022, I did a post on Roy Thomas and the Marvel Conan comic he created in the seventies. I never read that comic. But for some reason in 2019, I decided to buy the first of what turned out to be his three memoirs about the series (mostly about the first 115 issues, which constituted his first run with Conan), and also one of the Marvel Omnibuses that had been put out recently. I ended up getting four of the high-quality Omnibuses, which are those 115 issues he covered in his books.

And I just finished, a couple years later, the first 100, which culminated with the death of Belit, from “Queen of the Black Coast.”

I also recently started the Savage Sword of  Conan Omnibus, which ran around the same time, and was black and white. It’s a more ‘literary Howard’ comic, and definitely different than the color Conan one (also less popular). 

Below is the original post I did. Then, an additional section, having read through the first hundred. I think this comic is definitely a must for Conan fans.  I prefer some of these stories to the Tor pastiches. They’re not all good, of course, but I have enjoyed my read through. And I cannot recommend enough, getting Thomas’ three books. Read one comic issue, then the accompanying short chapter from his book. It’s a terrific experience. Read on, MacDuff (a little literary malapropism for you).

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