They also know that he had an unsound relationship with his mother, and killed himself when she died. They’ll know he’s a barbarian, battles wizards and monsters, and that he has mighty thews, though not necessarily what thews are.īut if they’ve heard of Robert E Howard at all, chances are they’ll have the notion that he was a paranoid, gun-toting, redneck savant who locked himself up at night and typed up the stories dictated by his ghostly barbarian muse. It would be difficult to find someone who has not heard of Conan, be it through the comics, films or abundant paperbacks. With these words, Texan writer Robert E Howard introduced his most famous hero to the readers of the now legendary pulp magazine Weird Tales, 80 years ago now. “Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jewelled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet.” Frank Frazetta’s iconic cover for the first Conan paperback (This article appeared previously in Fortean Times, in January 2013, and was nominated for a Robert E Howard Foundation Award).
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