Search Results for: "discovering robert e. howard"

What I’ve Been Listening To: June, 2025

I continue to listen to audiobooks daily. I frequently drift off to sleep with a fifteen minute timer on. The BBC radio plays of the two Dirk Gently novels are regular late night listens. So is the terrific Marx Brothers homage, Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel. It was originally done by the Marxes themselves. BBC radio made a new version in 1990 and I frigging LOVE it. Since I often have an audiobook on while I’m doing other things, I re-listen…

Read More Read More

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

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…

Read More Read More

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

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…

Read More Read More

Four Things I Think I Think: May 2025

Time to share a few things I Think I Think. I mean, what’ the point of having your own blog column if you can’t share your opinion on whatever you want to? Right??? 1 – The Black Company Remains One of My Favorite Series’ I’ve written multiple times that audiobooks fit my lifestyle these years. I still enjoy reading a print book, and the digital format has made a LOT of long out-of-print Pulp, available. But I listen to audiobooks…

Read More Read More

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: 52 Weeks: 52 Sherlock Holmes Novels – Kurland’s The Infernal Device

So, Paul Bishop is a friend of mine, and he wrote the very first post in Black Gate’s award-nominated Discovering Robert E. Howard. He talked about Howard’s boxing stories. Before those Pulps dried up, Howard wrote prolifically for them, with Sailor Steve Costigan his most popular creation. Paul is a major Westerns guy, and with Scott Harris, he put together 52 Weeks: 52 Western Novels, in which a slew of folks wrote about their favorite Westerns. It’s a cool format,…

Read More Read More

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Weird Tales Rings in Conan

“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep (Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun) Back in 2018, I started A (Black) Gat in the Hand because I wanted to share my love of hardboiled Pulp. I’ve had some friends join in, and they’ve added some non-hardboiled Pulp, while I’ve…

Read More Read More

What I’ve Been Watching: May 2025

Wow. It’s been over half a year since I did a What I’ve Been Watching. I’ve already forgotten some of the stuff I watched since then! But let’s tackle a few more recent favorites. And what I’m re-watching, as usual. COUNTY LINE From 2017 through 2022, there were three TV movies (is that still ‘a thing’) in this series. I did not recognize the main actor away. He reminded me of Dan Dierdorf, but I had to look him up…

Read More Read More

What I’ve Been Reading: April 2025

I continue to listen to audiobooks daily. They fit my lifestyle and let me get to a lot more stuff than I would if I just read. I mean, driving with a paperback in hand is quite the challenge! I just re-listened to the entire SPQR mystery series by John Maddox Roberts (who I have written about several times, including here). No way I could have sat down and re-read all thirteen. And I plodded through listening to all 44…

Read More Read More

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: William Patrick Murray – Who was N.V. Romero?

“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep (Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun) Will Murray has graced this column multiple times, and he has delved into a mystery or two. He’s got another one today, looking into a Pulp byline from the nineteen thirties that has gnawed away…

Read More Read More

Windy City Pulp & Paper 2025 – ‘If Bob Were Here…’

“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep (Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun) It’s an early A (Black) Gat in the Hand, as I got my Pulp on week before last, at Windy City, in Chicago. I managed to resist the impulse to grab the microphone in the…

Read More Read More