Barry Windsor Smith Comic Splash Pages Spotlighted at Diversion of a Groovy Kind!

One of my all-time favorite comic blogs, Diversions of a Groovy Kind, had a blog post last week spotlighting the great, epic splash panels from Seminal Conan artist, Barry Windsor Smith, and I just thought that any Conan fan should take a look at such a glorious collection!

Having run my eyes over these classic Conan comics for so many years, I feel like these pages are like old friends and I'd know them like I'd know the back of my hand, but there was something about seeing them all in one place that made me take a moment and remember a little of what those old-school Conan comics used to mean to me.

You can see them all right HERE! Thanks to the Groovy Agent for such a great post!

Arnold Schwarzenegger Still Keeps His Conan Sword in His Office!

I stumbled on to this article from igeektrooper, thanks to a tip from Topless Robot, all about how Arnold Schwarzenegger's office (he's the Govenor of California, you know) is jam-packed with momentos of his long and prolific film career, including the actual prop sword he used in the movie Conan the Barbarian!

I imagine that this cuts down on people disagreeing with him. Look in the picture below at all of the people sitting there, trying to smile, but holding back a pants-peeing fear that at any moment the Governator is going to behead them.

"What is best in life? To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to get a bill passed through that provides more money for local education! Crom!"

I'll Be Taking a Small Break from CROM!

Hail Fellow Conan Fans!

As some of you may have noticed, I've run into some serious image hosting issues, mostly stemming from Photobucket being a bunch of douchebags. So, instead of seeing all of my images that I have posted over the past year, you're getting an "Exceeded Bandwidth" graphic.

To combat this, I finally bought a pro Flickr account, so I will never run into storage or bandwidth limits again. Unfortunately, this means that I'll have to replace every single image that I have posted, with a newly hosted copy. This may take a while. Especially as I have to take care of my other blog Geek Orthodox as well.

Sorry about all of this. So bear with me and all will be back to normal soon.

In the meantime, fellow CROM! blogger, Cromsblood, is doing a killer job and I have faith that you are in good hands until I return!

See you all again soon!

-Reis

Photobucket is Screwing Over Their Users...

Well, it seems like the bastards at Photobucket have done it again. I have occasionally run into exceeding bandwidth problems due to either uploading too many pics to a free account or other people hotlinking to my images, but now this is all on Photobucket. You see, they originally allowed free users a cap of 25 gigs of bandwidth each month, so I became quite adept at knowing about how many pics I could host per account before going over that limit. Well, they suddenly just dropped the cap from 25 to 10.

So, basically this means that no matter what, all the pics that I have posted on this blog are going to magically turn into "Exceeded Bandwidth" graphics every month. There's no way to stop it.

And for that, I've made Photobucket this sandwich...

With that said, you've probably guessed that I will no longer be using Photobucket. I have finally decided to man up, quit being a cheap ass, and plunk down the cash for a pro Flickr account, which will give me unlimted hosting and we won't have this problem again. Huh, look at that, Flickr is cheaper too, and they don't censor your images if you show the hint of a buttcrack or something, like another image hosting site that I may have mentioned before.

I apologize to you all for having to look at pictures that aren't there. I guess I'm going to have to go through every single post and replace the pics with newly hosted copies on my Flickr account. This may take a while. Sorry about this everyone.

*EDIT* Okay, I have calmed down a bit, the problem is solved an we can all move on. I've still got a lot of work ahead of me, fixing all of these posts. Ugh. I took out the majority of the f-bombs in my rant, but the fuck you sandwich stays for Photobucket to choke on! ;)

Even MORE Custom Conan Action Figures!

As many of you may already know, I occasionally go through the custom action figure archives of Figure Realm and get all geeky over the custom Conan action figures. then I cherry pick a few and show them off here. Well, it's that time again! Check out these one-of-a-kind sons of Cimmeria!

I love stuff like this! I keep saying that one day I'm just going to buckle down and make a custom Conan myself. I made a couple years ago, but they have long since been lost. Oh well. Thank Crom for these awesome action figure customizer, through which I can live vicariously!

You can see more custom Conan action figures right HERE!

The Official Handbook of the Conan Universe Download!

If you've been looking for the classic Official Handbook of the Conan Universe from Marvel Comics, you can now download it right HERE!

You'll need a comic book reader program to view it, and I strongly suggest this one. You're gonna want this anyway, when you realize that this site has TONS of Conan comics to download! Including the entire run of Conan the Barbarian and Conan the King!

Now, go get you some free comics!

More Conan Fan Art!

Here's a couple of sweet Conan pieces sent in by CROM! reader, Mike DeStasio, showing what Conan thinks of chains and monkeys! Thanks for sharing, Mike!

Killer Conan Art by Kekai!

CROM! reader and all around cool dude, Dan Van Cool, sent me a link to the blog of artist Kekai, who whipped up this "quick Conan" sketch that makes the art I spend days and weeks on look like a dog crapped on a thrown up pizza. AWESOME! Thanks to Dan!

Red Sonja & the Hyborian Players!

Hey! Let's keep this Red Sonja thing going, shall we? Onward!

Fellow blogger, cartoonist and genius Halloween prop-maker, Dave Lowe, who's been a Conan fan for a very long time, sent me a link to a page documenting the history of the Hyborian Players. I remember reading about this group in the back of an old issue of Savage Sword of Conan about this zany gaggle of people doing something theater-like while in strange costumes.

The group is basically made up of a guy in a wizard costume and several hot chicks dressed as Red Sonja. Not a bad way to spend your weekend, if you ask me.

Of course, it's got to be mentioned that one of the many actresses to play the part of Sonja was none other than Wendy Pini, co-creator of the Elfquest comics!

Here's a shot of Wendy back in the 70s all dolled up as the She-Devil with a Sword...

And you can still find photographic evidence all over the web of Mrs. Pini in her Red Sonja garb.

Dig these crazy actors, man!

To read the full history, just make the mouse go click right HERE. Thanks to Dave Lowe for sending us the link!

Custom Red Sonja Mego Figure!

My fellow blogger homie, Calvin, from Calvin's Canadian Cave of Coolness posted a slew of custom Mego action figures and the one that totally caught my eye was this brilliant (and quite busty) Red Sonja figure, clearly designed after the classic Marvel Comics representation of the character.

Hmmm... this is starting to turn into Red Sonja week here on the blog! I'm sure you readers don't mind. ;)

If you're unfamiliar with Mego action figures, here's a shot of my very own original Conan Mego that was a birthday gift from my good homie and CROM! commenter, Acorndog!

*UPDATE*

CROM! reader, Kal, was cool enough to send me a link to more pics of this awesome Red Sonja custom by Jason Roberts! Thanks Kal, and mad props to Jason!

Shaky, Bootleg Footage of the Solomon Kane Trailer!

Looks like somebody swiped this from the SDCC, so it's pretty shaky and the sound is bad and there's some nerd's head in the way, but it's Solomon Kane! Special thanks to The Evil DM for the heads up!

Conan Soundtrack CD Autographed by Basil Poledouris!

Here's another eBay find, an actual autographed copy of the Conan movie soundtrack, signed by the composer himself, Basil Poledouris! I know, this isn't exactly like have a copy of Electric Ladyland signed by Hendrix, but it's still pretty cool. I can't remember the going price for this but I think it was kind of low. Of course, most people would go "Basil who?" and then offer you $3 for it. But we know the truth! Basil is the man! Well, was the man. He died a couple of years ago. Which should make this autograph worth millions! No? Oh well...

Age of Conan Costume at SDCC!

I have no idea what the explanation behind this display is, because it was a random pic found in an SDCC Flickr group with no description. It looks like the Age of Conan people were making a half-assed attempt to remind convention goers to revive their game accounts when they get home.

Still, it's kind of cool, I guess. But why a mannequin wearing armor worn by a video game character, and even then, mostly on the box art? And why is the mannequin standing like a male chorus line dancer? And where the hell is his face?!

So... well... there you go.

Red Sonja Cosplay at the San Diego Comic Con!

This is the famous (in cosplay circles) Belle Chere at this year's SDCC dressed as the one and only She-Devil with a Sword, Red Sonja! After seeing these pics, I needed to go locate a defibrillator in order to restart my heart. Enjoy!

Big News Here on the CROM! Blog!

Hail Fellow Conan Fans!

Many of you may remember our good friend Cromsblood who linked us to a bunch of excellent foreign Conan releases never before seen here in the States, and then subsequently began his own blog REH Illustrated. Truth be told, this guy may very well be a bigger Conan fan than myself and certainly an excellent researcher!

Well, considering his devotion to Conan fandom and the contributions he has made in bringing so much awesome Conan media from all over the world to our attention, we talked it over and have decided that, starting right now, Cromsblood will become a permanent contributer to the CROM! blog!

I figured that between the two of us, we could add so much to the world of Conan fandom as a team, making this blog even better and thus making great Conan information, artwork, downloads, etc. even more easily found for the thousands of Conan fans that have visited this blog.

I'm quite pleased to have found someone who can compliment this blog so well and am honored to share this little bit of cybernetic space with him. So everyone please give a hearty welcome to Cromsblood (he has a real name, but I'll let him decide if you need to know it or not!) and get yourselves ready for the CROM! blog to be kicked into overdrive!

Now, on with the blogging!