In late 1932, Robert E. Howard published the first of his Conan stories, “The Phoenix on the Sword.” It was soon followed by “The Scarlet Citadel,” “The Tower of the Elephant,” “Black Colossus,” and 13 other stories, all published originally by Weird Tales.
In a letter to Clark Ashton Smith, Howard wrote:
Conan seemed suddenly to grow up in my mind without much labor on my part and immediately a stream of stories flowed off my pen — or rather, off my typewriter — almost without effort on my part. I did not seem to be creating, but rather relating events that had occurred. Episode crowded on episode so fast that I could scarcely keep up with them. For weeks I did nothing but write of the adventures of Conan. The character took complete possession of my mind and crowded out everything else in the way of story-writing. When I deliberately tried to write something else, I couldn’t do it.
The last of Howard’s Conan stories published in Weird Tales, “Red Nails,” appeared during the month that Howard took his own life. It ran in the July 1936 number of “The Unique Magazine.”
More than ninety years after the first publication of “The Phoenix on the Sword,” Robert E. Howard’s sword-and-sorcery stories continue to resonate through popular culture. They have inspired motion pictures, comic books, television and animated series, action figures, role-playing and video games, and even heavy metal music and a live-action show at Universal Studios Hollywood.
We hope you’ll join PulpFest 2023 on Thursday, August 3, at 9:45 pm for “Conan the Multimedia Barbarian,” a look at Conan in the movies, comics, and throughout popular culture. Part of our celebration of the 90th anniversary of the great pulp heroes, our presentation will feature Ohio-based writer, editor, and publisher Jim Beard.
Jim Beard became a published author when he sold a story to DC Comics in 2002. Since that time he’s written official Star Wars and Ghostbusters comic book stories and contributed articles and essays to several volumes of comic book history. His prose work includes the novellas Green Hornet: How Sweet the Sting and Kolchak: The Last Temptation; co-editing and contributing to Planet of the Apes: Tales from the Forbidden Zone; a story for X-Files: Secret Agendas; three books of essays on the 1966 Batman TV series; the Sgt. Janus occult detective series of novels; Monster Earth, a shared-world giant monster anthology series; and Captain Action: Riddle of the Glowing Men, the first pulp prose novel based on the classic 1960s action figure. Jim also provided regular content for Marvel.com, the official Marvel Comics website, for over seventeen years. He is now the publisher at Becky Books and the co-publisher at Flinch Books with John C. Bruening. In recent years, Jim has presented at PulpFest on such topics as Fiction House Comics and The Shadow — Multimedia Hero.
The general public is welcome to attend our evening programming events free of charge. To learn more about our programming, please click the Schedule button at the top of this page.
For those who also want to enjoy our dealers’ room, you can join PulpFest by clicking the Registration button at the top of this page. And don’t forget to book a room at the DoubleTree. They’re going fast!
Our featured image was excerpted from Barry Windsor-Smith’s cover art for the October 1970 issue of Marvel Comics’ Conan the Barbarian, the first issue of the long-running comic book. Windsor-Smith’s art was inked by John Verpoorten. The first of 275 issues, Conan the Barbarian #1 features “The Coming of Conan,” scripted by Roy Thomas, with pencils by Barry Windsor-Smith and inks by Dan Adkins.
Our lead image was adapted by PulpFest advertising director William Lampkin from Renato Casaro’s poster art for John Milius‘ 1982 movie, Conan the Barbarian. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Earl Jones, Conan the Barbarian was produced by Dino De Laurentiis.
Lancer Books began reprinting the Conan stories in paperback in 1966, starting with the volume Conan the Adventurer. Featuring cover art by Frank Frazetta, Conan the Adventurer was originally the first volume in the series. It was later shifted to the fifth book in Lancer’s eleven-volume series. A twelfth volume was planned, but Lancer went out of business before publishing it. Conan of Aquilonia was subsequently released by Ace Books.
For more on Robert E. Howard and Conan, please visit our YouTube Channel to view “90 Years of the Great Pulp Heroes #6” — Conan — created by PulpFest‘s Craig McDonald. You’ll also find our video Weird Tales Celebrates 100 Years and a dozen videos about the great pulp heroes. While you’re there, please be sure to subscribe to the PulpFest Channel.
