Comic Books: Conan the Barbarian

Now I can approximately date my introduction to Conan the Barbarian comics, and I can precisely locate where it was. That first comic (#55) came out in 1975 (I’m sure it was ‘used’) and I was in Briesemeister, so I’d put it maybe in 1976 or 1977. I was in the Health classroom, over on the side of the gym that also held the girls’ lockers. We had a ‘free period’ as the year was almost up, and Denny Beicker was trying to raise a little money selling comic books (I know I also bought the National Geographic Shakespeare map from him; was it at this time?).

Anyway, I was already deep into LOTR and searching around for more fantasy. This comic seemed to have it: swords, an evil magic ring, and a vast all-devouring figure of shadow. So, I plunked down money for it, and this was my introduction to Robert E. Howard’s sword-and-sorcery hero.

Even so, my interest was never very strong in the color comic books. Starting in August 1978 (the summer between middle school and high school) most of my Conan dollar was going to the black-and-white graphic magazine The Savage Sword of Conan. Issue #32 of that marked our last family trip to the beach. I still bought the occasional Conan the Barbarian or related color comics, but it was more of an act of opportunity, as was getting any actual REH paperbacks. Perhaps I saw the ‘comics’ as more juvenile, and the ‘magazine’ as more mature.

Kull was actually an earlier similar character created (both in real-world and in-world chronology) by Howard. They’re always trying to pump him up into Conan-like popularity. It never quite seems to take, though in some ways I find his stories better than Conan’s.

Still, the Conan comic has plenty of its own magic and mythology, adventure and romance, by Crom. My tolerance and interest in Conan has always gone up and down, but I still have a sneaking fondness for the old freebooter, a fondness that extends to his creator Robert E. Howard. Even to a certain extent to Lin Carter and L. Sprague DeCamp, who rode and rewrote him into glory. Much of that feeling might stem from nostalgia for my days of innocency, well before my critical faculties had been fully developed and I could enjoy things more leniently, I could almost say more open-heartedly. But there you are.

Up next: all my Savage Swords of Conan, and there are a ton of them.