Fan Made Conan Digital Short!

Crom reader, and digital animator, Jim Drakopoulos, sent me a link this morning of his latest project, in which we see a CGI son of Cimmeria going head to head with a giant snow ape! This is great work and much thanks to Jim for sharing this with us!

Get your 3D glasses ready for the scene at the end!

Stumbling Upon Some Real Live Conan the Barbarian Movie Props!

So, as some of you may know, I am currently on vacation, having flown down from the rainy, gray skies of Seattle to the sunny, dry heat of Arizona, visiting my wife's Mom and just generally hanging out in her Dad's kick-ass vacation home. The land here looks like the arid scrub-lands through which Conan and Subotai trekked in order to reach Shadizar, talking about gods and eating fried chicken on the way.

Anyway, last night we went over to (now, try to follow me here) my wife's mom's cousin's house for dinner. My wife's mom's cousin's husband, a genial fellow with an easy laugh, turned out to be an avid movie fan, his house filled with all kinds of movie collectibles, mostly signed theater one-sheets, and many of them relegated to his "game room", complete with pool table and obligatory dart board.

While we we hanging out in the game room after dinner, talking about movies and whatnot, I noticed three swords sitting in the corner, just leaning up against the wall. Being a bit of a sword guy, I said, "Hey, I have to ask, what's the deal with those swords?"

He replied, "Oh, those were the swords used by the stuntmen in that movie Conan the Barbarian. You know that movie?"

Do I know that movie? ;)

He told me how one of his old buddies was a stunt man in the '80s and worked on Conan the Barbarian and then later went on to play Conan in the Universal Studios stage production. Apparently, according to this stuntman, these swords were used in the making of the first film, which he managed to hang on to and then eventually gave to his friend, my wife's mom's cousin's husband.

We then each picked one up and clanged them together a few times, had a laugh and then all the women looked at us like we were giant children, which made us laugh more.

Take a look...

The prop swords themselves were quite simple in design and construction, but made of a sturdy, weighty metal (probably stainless steel) with "battle notches" all up and down the blade edges. The handles were wrapped in basically the same kind of tape you'd wrap a baseball bat's grip with.

Having gotten a close look at them, I am a little suspicious about their story, not that I'm calling my wife's mom's cousin's husband a liar, but I think the origin story of these prop weapons may have gotten a little jumbled over the years. Considering what I have learned about the making of the movie, and the props' low level of detail and how much they seem to have been used (as in perhaps a nightly basis, with matinee performances on weekends), I suspect that these props were used in the Universal Studios stage production, and not the movie. But I could be totally wrong! This is just a guess.

Still, either way, it was quite a killer find for such a huge Conan fan like myself to stumble upon after a spaghetti dinner with some people I have just met.

Thanks for reading fellow Conan freaks!

Conan in Brazil! Part 4!

So, according to these killer comic book covers Marcos sent me, it seems like heroes of any theme are just published together willy-nilly, which gives rise to such gems as these issues featuring Conan alongside characters such as the Silver Surfer, Warlock and the Master of Kung Fu! Awesome stuff...

 

Conan in Brazil! Part 3

Today, our good friend MArcos has sent us some pics from this classic Conan the Adventurer sticker book. Now, don't get me wrong, I know that cartoon was ridiculous and all, but it's now part of Conan's collective pop-cultural history and all I really want to know is WHY THE HELL DIDN'T WE HAVE THESE IN THE STATES!?

Conan in Brazil! Part 2

We've got more killer pics from our friend Marcos, and this stuff just may be more priceless than the Eye of the Serpent!

Fist off, we see a few different Conan (or Kull/Koll) comics found in the land of Carnivale, the latter two clearly being comic spoofs of the son of Cimmeria.

Man, I would love to get my hands on some of these. And I know that Cromsblood is probably dying to translate them into English! Now you have some more comics to search for, my brother!

This next piece is pretty close to a holy grail of Conan collectibles as far as I'm concerned. Back when this blog was still on Myspace, I had posted about a mysterious barbarian figure that I spotted somewhere on the interwebs, and MArcos came to the rescue, explaining that it was indeed a Conan figure that came free with the purchase of... get this... a DVD of the 1966 Batman movie! Wait... what?!

What a bizarre combination! You'd think it would have come with a Conan DVD, which it may have for all I know. Still, this is a killer (if strange) collectible and I can't thank Marcos enough for sending pics of it!

More Conan from Brazil on its way, you Hyrkanian dogs! So keep yer eyes peeled!

Conan in Brazil! Part 1

Hail fellow Conan fans!

I received an email from a fellow Conan collector down in Brazil named Marcos, who was unbelievably cool enough to take some pics of his killer collection and send them along to me, so I can share them all with our dear readers on the CROM! blog.

I love seeing Conan collectibles from other countries as they are usually so different than anything we're used to seeing, often prompting me to ask, "Why weren't these released here in the States?!" Once you see some of Marcos' collection, you'll see what I mean.

He sent me so many pics that I decided to break it all up in a series of a few different posts, so expect a slew of killer Conan stuff all the way from Brazil to pop up over the next few days.

The first pics he sent me kicked off with a copy of the Brazilian version of the classic (and infamous) NES Conan video game...

Marcos even has the instruction book!

One of the pieces that really caught my notice was this brilliant Conan puzzle that was released back in the heyday of the Conan cartoon. I would kill a thousand Argosean sea dogs for one of these!

The artwork is actually pretty kick-ass, and reminds me of the classic HeroQuest art. Marcos was kind enough to put the puzzle together for us!

But the real gem in this treasure horde, is this killer Conan board game from around the same period. Seriously, why didn't we have a Conan board game here in America? NOT FAIR!

It's a little hard to tell what the game looks like from the back of the box, but it's enough to tease us Conan fans. Are those three-dimensional figure cutouts? EPIC!

That's it for today, but more to come soon! Extra special thanks to Marcos for sharing these great pics with us and thanks to you all for reading!

**** Update ****

Marek saw this post by Reis and sent us more pics from the boardgame Jogo do Conan, along with a bit more info...

Jogo do Conan was published by Estrela in 1996, it’s a two player game for ages 10 and up, and is summarized as follows over on BoardGameGeek (here):

Conan the Barbarian must destroy a magical talisman and kill the monster on the mountain, going across a forest and avoiding fireballs, before the night falls. It is really a two-player game, but the rules state it can be played by more players as two teams.

Check it out!

And if you’re playing Jogo do Conan for endless hours, pass out on the board, and your eyeballs pop open in the middle of the night, you might be faced with this!

Thanks Marek, Marcos & Reis…and sorry for not getting back to you sooner Marcos...big thanks for hooking Reis up!  Cromsblood.

**** Update #2 ****

One more from Marcos!