{"id":20596,"date":"2025-12-08T10:00:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T15:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/?p=20596"},"modified":"2025-12-08T10:27:24","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T15:27:24","slug":"robert-e-howards-conan-the-barbarian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2025\/12\/08\/robert-e-howards-conan-the-barbarian\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many creators often have several characters they have created, but usually have one that overshadows all the rest. This is true for many, including Robert E. Howard<\/a><\/strong> (1906\u201336), a pulp writer who is credited as the father of sword & sorcery<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Weird<\/a>While he worked in several genres, such as adventure, pirate, historical fiction, science fiction, western, spicy, weird menace, horror\/fantasy, and more, and created many characters, he is best known for creating Conan the Barbarian<\/a><\/strong>. Appearing in Weird Tales<\/a><\/em> magazine from 1932 to 1936, Conan could be a king, mercenary, thief, general, or corsair. All of the Conan stories were set in a fictional prehistoric era, known as the Hyborian Age.<\/p>\n

If people haven’t read his original works, they probably know him via the many comics, movies, games, etc. For myself, I discovered him via a set of mass-market paperback reprints of the Marvel Conan comic book, which included adaptations and original stories. When I was younger, his stories were available in a series of mass-market paperback books that strangely mixed in Howard’s original stories, organized by internal chronology, along with new and pastiche stories that often took unfinished works or even reworked other published works by Howard. I can’t think of any other fictional character, such as Sherlock Holmes<\/a><\/strong>, Tarzan<\/a><\/strong>, etc., that this happened to. Usually, the canon stories are kept sacrosanct from any pastiche works.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, today we can get all of Howard’s Conan work in a trio of excellent trade paperbacks as part of the Del Rey<\/a> Robert E. Howard Library: The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian<\/em> (2003), The Bloody Crown of Conan<\/em> (2004), and The Conquering Sword of Conan<\/em> (2005). All are about 400 pages, are illustrated, and contain not just unfinished works by Howard, but also introductions and supplementary materials. These volumes were first done in hardback for Wandering Star Books of the U.K. We’ll focus on these three volumes here.<\/p>\n

The stories of Conan are set in a prehistoric period lost to time, the so-called Hyborian Age of 10,000 years ago. Set after the sinking of Atlantis and Lemuria, the stories take place in the land that will be modern Europe, Asia, and North Africa: Thuria. But it’s one where there is no Mediterranean Sea, Great Britain is landlocked, only about half of Africa exists, the Arctic ice sheet is larger, etc.<\/p>\n

Conan, who is from the country of Cimmeria, represents the ancient Indo-Europeans and was based on the Scots-Irish. He roves the lands, having adventures and even becoming a king of the sort-of medieval Aquilonia. This is a world of low fantasy\/sword-and-sorcery where magic exists. Howard created the Hyborian Age because, while he wanted to set his stories in a historical period, if he did so using a real one, he’d have to do a lot of research. So it was easier to create his own, even though it is clearly based on, or inspired by, actual history, which he documented in an essay titled “The Hyborian Age.” Don’t worry: The essay, with the maps, is included in the first volume, The Coming of Conan<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The first volume is The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian<\/em>, which is the largest volume, coming in at about 460 pages. It’s illustrated by Mark Schultz<\/a><\/strong>. We get the first dozen or so Conan stories. The first one, “The Phoenix on the Sword,” was actually a rewritten Kull story that hadn’t sold. Thus, the first Conan story is of a middle-aged Conan who is now a king of a medieval-style nation.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>Among the stories are several classics, such as “The Frost Giant’s Daughter” and “The Tower of the Elephant.” I always remembered that last one from the Marvel Comics adaptation, where Conan meets the alien, Yag-kosha<\/strong>, who has the body of a man but the head of an elephant, and who is the prisoner of an evil sorcerer.<\/p>\n

In addition to the stories, there are several untitled synopses and fragments, as well as the essay “The Hyborian Age.” Series editor Patrice Louinet<\/a><\/strong> provides an excellent introduction, as well as an ongoing essay on the creation of these stories.<\/p>\n

The second volume, The Bloody Crown of Conan<\/em>, is the shortest at 360 pages, and is illustrated by Gary Gianni<\/a><\/strong>. It contains the three longest Conan stories: “The People of the Black Circle,” “The Hour of the Dragon,” and “A Witch Shall Be Born,” all of which appeared in Weird Tales<\/em> between 1934 and 1936. The first and third are novellas, but I am pretty certain the second one should be considered a novel.<\/p>\n

This time, Rusty Burke<\/a><\/strong> provides the introduction, though Patrice Louinet continues with his ongoing essay on the creation of these stories. The volume is rounded out with more untitled synopses and fragments.<\/p>\n

The third and final volume, The Conquering Sword of Conan<\/em>, comes in at around 390 pages, and is illustrated by Gregory Manchess<\/a><\/strong>. It has the rest of the published Conan stories that appeared from 1935 to 1936, including classics like “Red Nails” and “Beyond the Black River.” The volume is rounded out by drafts and synopses of these stories.<\/p>\n

Patrice Louinet concludes his essay on the creation of these stories, as well as providing the introduction.<\/p>\n

Movies and TV<\/h3>\n

\"Arnold<\/a><\/p>\n

I think it’s safe to say that most people, if they know about Conan, it’s due to the 1982 movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger<\/strong>. Strangely, this movie pitted Conan against the sorcerer Thulsa Doom<\/strong>, who is actually a foe of Kull. The movie did get a sequel, Conan the Destroyer<\/em>, in 1984, which was even less true to Howard’s creation.<\/p>\n

While a third movie was planned, to be called Conan the Conqueror<\/em>, Arnold was not willing to do it, so it never happened. Instead, we got another movie in 2011 starring Jason Momoa<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

On TV, there were two animated Conan series, as well as a live-action one. I don’t recall ever seeing any of them, and from what little I know of them, I don’t think I missed anything.<\/p>\n

Comics<\/h3>\n

Conan has appeared in many comics over the years. He first started at Marvel Comics<\/a> with a color comic series written by Roy Thomas<\/a><\/strong>, with artists including Barry Windsor-Smith<\/a><\/strong>. This series had both adaptations of Howard stories, along with original stories by Thomas.<\/p>\n

Later, Marvel added more adult, black-and-white comic magazines such as Savage Sword of Conan<\/em> and King Conan<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Later, the rights went to Dark Horse<\/a>, which both reprinted the Marvel series as well as published its own. Now the rights are with Titan Comics<\/a>, and, again, it has reprinted the original Marvel series, as well as put out new ones. So one can find both hardcover omnibus volumes and trade paperback reprints of both the color and black-and-white comics.<\/p>\n

Games<\/h3>\n

There have been several games using Conan, including board games, role-playing games, and video games. I haven’t played any of them, so I can’t comment on them.<\/p>\n

I encourage people to check out the original Howard stories. While there are several pastiches of Conan, it’s always good to start with the originals, even the comic adaptations.<\/p>\n

At this point, there are probably several comic adaptations of all the Howard stories. And we can expect to see more, as I am sure someone will be trying to do a new movie or TV adaptation, or more comic adaptations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many creators often have several characters they have created, but usually have one that overshadows all the rest. This is true for many, including Robert E. Howard (1906\u201336), a pulp writer who is credited as the father of sword & sorcery. While he worked in several genres, such as adventure, pirate, historical fiction, science fiction, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":21287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Pulp Super-Fan takes a look at Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[18,146,1,135,14],"tags":[2450,998,788,2273,2224,2451,2449,892,2448,81,1062,1862,991,2291,304],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-20596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comics","category-movies","category-pulps","category-reprints","category-review","tag-barry-windsor-smith","tag-conan","tag-dark-horse-comics","tag-del-rey-books","tag-gary-gianni","tag-gregory-manchess","tag-mark-schultz","tag-marvel-comics","tag-patrice-louinet","tag-robert-e-howard","tag-roy-thomas","tag-rusty-burke","tag-sword-and-sorcery","tag-titan-comics","tag-weird-tales"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2025\/10\/conan-featured.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-5mc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20596"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22015,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20596\/revisions\/22015"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20596"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=20596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}