Conan the Barbarian art dept. Mock up poster

I don't believe I've ever seen this version before or if it's even a real piece of CONAN film memorabelia but I do know I like it.  The looming head of DOOM in the background is awesome.  I was just prowling and browsing the web and came across it.  Thought I'd share this awesome piece of CONAN history with art by BORIS!.  I have not posted in a month or more and wanted to say hi.  HI!!!!

CONAN turns 80 - December 1932-2012

This morning I opened my e-mails to find a Happy Birthday wish to CONAN from a Gentleman ( Could'a been a lady ) who signed off with just an initial " T."
       Conan the Cimmerian was created and conceived in a little house in Texas 80 years ago.  In that time an ICON grew into a legend and is now a timeless household name.  Everyone knows CONAN whether they like it or not.  Those who don't " TO HELL WITH THEM ! "  
       When his first official story appeared in a December 1932 issue of WEIRD TALES
 ( the Pheonix on the sword ) it was the beginning of a long Brutal and Beautiful friendship between REH , CONAN and the fans.  Why do we love the big guy so much?  We can't really say any more than his adventures speak to us and we relate in some way to the Loner writer BOB HOWARD.

     CONAN is an icon and his adventures will be shared for 80 more years and beyond. Happy Birthday Big Guy now pull out your axe and whack that cake in half!!!

The Legend of Conan, How Excited should we be?

I received my copy of the Fall 2012 REH Foundation Newsletter today. As usual, it contains items of interest to the REH nut. What caught my attention right off was "The Letter from the Board" in which the "...recent announcement of the new movie The Legend of Conan, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger" was discussed.

This is old news to Crom! readers. Mikeyboy pointed us to the breaking news way back on 10/26.

As reported in Reuters, Legend (the most current working title I know of) is based upon the 1982 film staring Arnold and ignores Conan the Destroyer and the 2011 Conan the Barbarian. This means by default that it is only nominally based upon the writings of Bob Howard.

REH purists may rage, but I'm okay with it and I love me some REH. My wife calls it one of my many unhealthy addictions (I find it and many of my other addictions very healthy). It is my truest desire that Schwazenegger's involvement in a long anticipated film will bring new readers to the Conan/REH front and being that I am not a purist, I say bring on some new pastiche! And of course I hope that by summer 2014 Dark Horse Comics will smother us with new Conan/REH titles.

Again quoting from the latest Foundation "Long ago there was a poll, which asked what had brought people to read REH for the first time. Almost a third of those readers came to REH because of Conan the Barbarian". While my first experience with Conan was Marvel's Savage Sword of Conan, it was without a doubt Arnan which made me a Conan and REH fan for life. Furthermore, "An additional benefit...may be that more movie and TV interest in other REH creations will be generated". Here here! I truly hope so.

It may not be REH, but it can still be great and for a wonderful account of what The Legend of Conan should and should not be, check out this great post at The Conan Movie Blog. Read it, then come back. Good stuff wasn't it? And much of it I agree with, even though the concept of putting Conan in the corner is tough to take, in the context of Arnan's age it makes complete sense and I agree with the blogger, don't try to hide the age issue, we are too smart for that. The concept of Conan's son taking center stage is intriguing and combing through the possibilities of who could play that role riles up my nerd.

So how excited should we be? As excited as we dare.

Queen of the Black Coast Pt. 1

KING CONAN

KING CONAN

Could hardly believe it when I read it.  Check out the post at JIM SMASH and I'll let him fill ya' in.

The original art to the cover of "CONAN the barbarian" # 31

The composition was worked out by both the Great Gil Kane and John Romita together and inked to completion by Romita.  This is one of the best covers and one of my personal favorite issues.  The interior art...( Buscema and Chan ) is absolutely some of the best CONAN art since the inception of the chracter to comics.  I love the story,Love the art,love the cover...and I absolutley can't say enough about the beauty of B/W art...all that shading and contrast...WOW!

BLOD

BLOD: One shot -   Mike Destasio and  Cromsblood (Cromsblood : The best of us) of CROM the Ultimate CONAN fan blog  have gone and done it...they made a comic book.  Anybody interested in getting themselves a digital copy or a comic book they can hold in their hot little bloody hands can go to www.indyplanet.com and put BLOD in the search engine and order up a copy.  It's full of vilolence, action a spattering blood and a boat too.  It's got all the treachery , greed and vengeance you would expect from a comic book where a guy runs around with a sword and decapitates bad guys! So just go to
www.indyplanet.com and get yours NOW!!!

REH's: Savage Sword

I apologize for my long absence from this blog. Work has swamped me for the past several long weeks. My reading time has been sparse; however, I did manage to catch up on some comics.

First, I make no apologies, but I am a Dark Horse Fan-Boy. They publish some of my favorite current titles, not the least of which are the further adventures of my favorite barbarian. Among my various DH titles is the sparsely published comic Robert E. Howard's Savage Sword.

In case you have not been keeping up with this book, it is an anthology that features stories based on and/or staring various REH created characters and stories, to include Conan, and all are written and drawn by a variety of folks. It is a full color book. Some of the stories are original and some are adaptions of original REH stories.

The current issue, issue 5, features "Bran Mak Morn: Men of Shadows,  Part 1 of 3" written by Ian Edginton with art by Richard Pace; "In the Forest of Villefere" written by Steven Niles, art by Chris Mitten; "King Conan: Two Birds" drawn and written by the legendary Howard Chaykin; "Dark Agnes: Sword Woman, Part 1 of 3" written by Paul Tobin, drawn by Francesco Francavilla and a reprint of "Kings of Night" written by Roy Thomas with art by David Wenzel. Each issue also features Jim and Ruth Keegan's "The Adventures of Two-Gun Bob: True Stories from the Life of Robert E. Howard" which is a strip that brings to life the volumes of letters written by Bob Howard (and is a favorite feature of mine in all of DH's Howard books). This is the first issue to feature a letters column, "Savage Salutations",at least to the best of my muddled memory it is the first issue to have letters.

As can be seen, that is a good line up. My favorite feature of this issue was Chaykin's King Conan tale, but Tobin and Francavilla's adaption of "Sword Woman" is very attractive and I look forward to parts 2 and 3. I also have to give a shout out to Richard Pace's art work in "Men of Shadows" and I must give credit to the coloring of Moose Baumann in the same tale. I am also smitten with the art of Chris Mitten (not so clever pun intended) in the tale "In the Forest of Villefere".

The rest of my review will be short, as I wish to not give spoilers. The stories, to include issues 1 to 5, have ranged from so-so to "HELL YEAH!". Savage Word is an average of 80 pages, and should be with its hefty price tag of $7.99 (in paper, I believe a digital copy can be purchased for less, but I'm not sure--I am a paper snob). The bad, it is an anthology, so the art is uneven by nature. Some has been great, some, to my tastes, not as great. My major quibble is that each issue has featured a reprint of REH stories, from such classic Marvel books as The Savage Sword of Conan, Conan the Barbarian, King Conan, etc.. That is not necessarily a bad thing; however the recent issue features "Kings of Night" by Thomas and Wenzel. It was recently reprinted in the Dark Horse book The Savage Sword of Kull volume 1. These reprints typically take up half or nearly half of the 80 pages of the book. For my $7.99 I would rather see more original material or at the very least works by REH that are not often reprinted. The good thing about the reprints are, many of these stories were originally printed in black and white, and here they are colorized, but again the purist snob in me that loves me some old-school Savage Sword of Conan, likes these stories in their original black and white.

My snobbish quibbles aside, this is an enjoyable book and I hope it sticks around. Its publishing schedule is infrequent and erratic. I had given up on ever seeing an issue 5, but I do hope it is here to stay, and the fact that this features two part one of three stories gives me hope that Dark Horse will at least publish up to 7 issues. If you have not read this book, issue 5 is a good jumping on point as all the stories are either part one of three parts, or one shots.

A furious flurry of CONAN covers from foreign lands!!!

More CONAN fan art...by Salvatore Oliviero

 : Below please see the correspondance from a CROM follower from ITALY....he included two drawings he did himself and I love them.  They are great pieces of work and I encourage Salvatore to send us more as he finds the time we will share with the followers of CROM and the world. 
    If anybody else has some art they'd like to share please feel free to send it on in.  We'll get it on the blog.
Thank you Sal for sharing your work with us!!!

"Hello Mikeyboy,

I'm Salvatore Oliviero from ITALY, I follow you always, Crom! is a great
blog!!!
I love Conan and in my spare time I like to draw, it's my passion so I send
you two of my recent works for Conan
These are my versions of two wonderful stories of R.E.Howard : "The Frost
Giant's Daughter" and "The Tower of the Elephant", using pencil and colored
(the first) with Photoshop. I hope you like it

Thanks and compliments to your other blogs

My artblog: www.toreoliviero.blogspot.it

Bye"

TALON : The once and future barbarian epic!

Jim Steranko created a barbarian hero for Marvel Comics named Talon. Marvel rejected Steranko's concept and Jim planned to publish Talon on his own. Although that graphic story has yet to materialize, some great drawings were produced.

The way I interpret this little tale of half truth and possible fact is this way: Jim Steranko had a concept and drew up some fabulous pieces of work and pitched the idea of a Barbarian hero to Stan Lee...the last word at Marvel comics in 1969. His concept was that of a Barbarian hero who for some reason or another had adventures in the distant forgotten past and in the far flung future. His name was Talon. But Stan...he was not sold on the idea and Jim walked away with his concept. But due to that little meeting a seed was planted in Stan's head. Now Stan was searching for an idea and asked around the bullpen if anyone had any idea's or similar concepts and a few came to mind. THONGOR and CONAN...now you all know Stan's penchant for ridiculous names...just take a look at the names on all those Monsters from the late 50's and early 60's...so he wanted to run with THONGOR!!! For one reason or another that fell through.

Another route was taken...a route that led to the greatest Barbarian hero ever to walk the earth. Hither came CONAN...but that is another story.

Check out Mr. Steranko's pics. Some of which came later after the pitch to Marvel. I look forward to one day perhaps seeing a TALON graphic novel by STERANKO. I know from experience that once you have a dream...one day you'll see it through.

Custom Conan the Destroyer by Владимир Голяев

Владимир Голяев - ( Vladimir ) shared this awesome custom with me...he'd stated that he shared this figure with us before...but I never saw it. I whipped up this collage to share with the followers of CROM enjoy...DIG IT!

The Return of Conan the Jedi...

Someone went and took the time to put this together...and it is interesting as well as humorous to see Conan's sword turned into a flashing light sabre.  There are quite a few Conan parodies on youtube but...very few worth sharing.  I like this one.  ;)

In the name of the Father - Andy Kubert

Many years ago I'd always said " Wow it would be cool if Joe Kubert went to Marvel and drew some Conan comics"...Well it never really happened. Joe drew a promo poster for Dark Horse a couple of years back but that's about it. But when Joe's able bodied son Andy...a very big name in the industry today got a gig drawing the Savage Sword of Conan # 160 he blew my socks off. I had seen his work before and knew he was good , but not this good. I tell ya' he draws exactly like his Legendary Dad. ( When he wants to ) You can tell some panels used old TARZAN comics as reference ( nothing wrong with that ) but his style his technique his line quality and his dynamic approach to page layout had all the markings of a future hall of famer. Andy is a big wig over at DC comics now ( A really real Big wig ) and deservedly so. He is a Master...it was in his blood. He and his brother Adam made a name for themselves...not by riding on Joe's coat tails...they trained and worked and studied and busted their asses off to be the Masters they are today....That's the way Joe wanted it...if this was the life they chose then they are going to learn it right. He taught them like he taught any other student at his school and took no favorites in doing so. That's the reason why they're so good...they're naturals and they learned from the best...it was ingrained and embedded in the DNA..Imprinting if you will.

Andy did some more work for Savage Sword and even a cover for CTB here and there but...Nothing I say can tell you the thrill I got when I bought this issue of SSOC and saw the brilliant work by Andy Kubert. Joe Kubert has passed on now...his sons carry on and provide fine and worthy contributions to the industry they love...that he loved.

The passing of Joe Kubert...

Joe Kubert passed away yesterday he was 85 years of age. He left an indelible mark on the industry and taught and continues to inspire legions. His passing marks the end of an era.

There will be many Joe Kubert postings on the blogs and elsewhere on the web in the coming days...so I won't get into my thoughts and feelings here @ CROM but know this. I grieve. Rest in peace Joe Kubert.

You will live on in our hearts.

La furia de Conan

Sharing a beautiful new painting by Master SANJULIAN....enjoy

"CHIBI the Destroyer"

Well while we're at it with cute little CONAN Funko's and Chibi's I would like to share with you a little piece by Michael Cannon sent via his account at Deviant art. Conan ( Chibi ) the Destroyer. It took him 30 painstaking hours to finish up his homage to the late great Masterpiece by Frank Frazetta and I must say...I like it a lot.

Take a peek at the how to process in the bottom photo there. He drew it out and then got busy wit' da' colors. I'd give this a 10 on the excellent scale. In fact Michael Cannon created a masterpiece of his own...great job Michael and thank you for sharing. We look forward to more great art from you.

Custom Conan Funko Pop! Figure...

Funko recently held a custom contest using their Pop! figures and this is the entry that won!

This was done by Robert Slomkowski. I tip my horned helmet to him.

Via

Conan Art by Pakoto!

Via

15mm Aquilonians

Here are some miniatures I converted to represent Aquilonian Knights, more specifically Black Dragon Guard, Standard Bearer and King Conan.  I used Roundway Miniatures using the body of the Spanish Knights figures and the heads of Russian Heavy Lancers.  The king was from the Spanish Command pack and I switched out the horse with a Persian Heavy Lancer.  I also sculpted on some capes with procreate and mounted a Games Workshop Bretonnian decal on the flag .  I really liked the way they turned out, it's definitely a departure from the Conan Comics "Aquiromian" look, instead presenting them in full plate armor as it states in the original books.  Sorry the pics are a little dark.