Of course, we also ought not forget Howard’s self-serving cynicism, his racism (a direct quote from one of his letters: “I know what would have happened to them in Texas. I don’t know whether an Oriental smells any different than a nigger when he’s roasting, but I’m willing to bet the aroma of scorching hide would have the same chastening effect on his surviving tribesman.”), is misogyny, the whole mamma’s boy thing (he committed suicide rather than live beyond his mother), his complete and utter real-life squeamishness (according to L. Sprague de Camp).
Oh, yeah, Howard was a true prototype honorable barbarian warrior (NOT!).
You don’t think there’s an element of wish-fulfillment in his stories? Remember that Conan himself was running away from what we take to be a…“troubled” childhood. He never talks about Cimmeria specifically and gets pissy whenever anyone asks, so I got the impression that he…got beat up a lot and decided to leave? Parents didn’t like him? At any rate, Conan being rather moody fits in perfectly with that.
The racism in his stories is pretty blatant, but for all I know par for the course for the time.
I know this element of Conan basically being the runt of his family (or whatever it was) and going to the southern lands, wether to prove that he’s a worthwhile Cimmerian, or just to escape his past and lose himself in drink and possibly fulfill a death wish is what made him interesting to me. Not going this route in the current comic was slightly aggrivating…although the rest of it was great.
Y’know, we could spend all night talking about authors’ bad habits and personal failings… but I’m not sure this reflects on the work of that author.
By current standards, Howard was a racist, sure. How many Americans were NOT racists in 1935? As I recall, the Army didn’t desegregate until Harry Truman ramrodded it down their throats after WWII.
True, Howard regarded the white man as generally superior to the other varieties. On the other hand, Howard also included non-white heroes in several of his stories, notably in his Solomon Kane stories, where Kane is saved more than once by a powerful African witch doctor who just happens to be on the good guys’ side. This is more than a great many of Howard’s contemporaries did.
I’m quite sure I remember references in various Conan stories to “Kathulos,” “The Book of Skelos,” and “Tsathoggua.” These references are reflected in the works of H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, two authors who created and added to the Cthulhu Mythos, respectively. Admittedly, HPL and Howard had rather different views on how a story should work – “The Black Stone,” for example, was one of Howard’s few attempts at a Lovecraft-style protagonist who jibbers and faints, rather than his own usual two-fisted kind of hero – and Conan never actually tangles with any of the major Cthulhu mythos deities – but the links are there.
There were also links to regular Marvel continuity in the comics. On one occasion, Spider-Man was sent through time to encounter King Kull, and on another occasion, Thor was catapulted through the ages to encounter Conan. True, Marvel doesn’t have the rights any more, but the comics that have already been printed are still around…
Howard did indeed refer to “The iron-bound book f Skelos” n the Conan tales, but I dont recall it in Lovecraft. Can’t ay that recall “Kathulos” in Howard, either. (It’s different enought from Cthulhu to provide deniability, in any ase). What’s “Tsathoggua?” I can’t recall that from either Lovecraft or Hward.
As for the SpiderMan and Thor cases, I musta missed them, because I certainly didn’t read them. But I quit Marvel in the early eighties, and I stopped reading Spiderman and Thor before that, so it’s not surprising.
tsathougga was indeed in Clark ashton Smith’s works. Sort of a small frog-like Cthulu IIRC. not sure about the spelling, Howard May have changed it. Smith was a Lovecraft student.
Kulan Gath has showed up in the present day a few times, and the spirit of Red Sonja possessed Mary Jane Watson once. And I think the immortal sorceress “Selene” might figure in with the Marvel Conan mythos, somehow.
Remember, back in the days of the Bullpen when everyone at Marvel was changing their names to make them more palatable to the kiddies (or less Jewish…Lee, Kirby…OK, that’s all I can think of). I imagine that BWS did the same thing and then, when his art got good, changed back to his given name for greater respectability in the industry (and among fans).
Ever so slight a highjack, but the talk about Conan and Cthulhu got me thinking.
There was a great Conan comic-book story I read some years ago, which has some evil types going out to a desert and raising a great, hairy (or possibly tentacled) monster from under the sand, all very gruesome and darkly ominous in a Lovecrafty way. I believe that this is the same story where Conan starts out as the military commander under some scantily-clad queen, and is later crucified and left for dead in the desert by the story’s black-bearded Arabian-looking villain.
Anyone remember this one, or could point me to a detailed biography of published stories? I’m curious if it was based on an original Robert E. Howard story.
The sorcerer Thoh Ammon also shows up in an issue of the Avengers when the head of Roxxon Oil uses the Serpent Crown to summon shades of all the crown’s previous wearers.
And we know what he can do to vultures.