Aaaah, that Cthulhu collection...That was my first Howard book, which I read over a long bus trip when I moved to New Orleans in my early 20s.I was never the same since!
Discovered Conan through the mid-2000s Dark Horse comics, then directly to the Del Rey editions (which remain my favorite). I'll keep an eye out for these BAEN collections, I don't think I've ever come across one in person
Baen wanted to publish the Conan stories too as part of this set, but only the Howard originals, but De Camp who had control of them wouldn't let them without his pastiches included, so they passed. Glen Lord was in control of everything else, and was easier to deal with.
Thank you for a wonderful review of our Robert E. Howard collection! These were a labor of love for all involved, and it is a joy to see people still saying they helped turn them into the work of one of our finest authors. And if you're looking for great modern sword and sorcery? We will have some amazing titles this year.
I was there when they came out. The Baen library was an oasis of REH in a publishing wasteland. Your reactions track closely with mine. That 'Cthulhu' volume was a direct favor from Jim Baen to Drake (Baen wasn't really into fantasy/horror). After that antho did so well, Drake was able to nudge Baen Books into publishing the REH Library. I would imagine 'Pigeons' was left out because it was in the 'Cthulhu' antho.
Cool publications. The Solomon Kane collection is quite interesting. I know Del Rey books are the standard but Wildside Press also published ba dedicated set of Robert E Howard collection in the mid 2000's - The Weird Works of Robert E Howard.
Those Baen books have a special place in my heart! When I started getting back into Howard, I started picking these books up on Paperbackswap, since they were really easy to get and showed up a lot. And they were a great way of getting in! The covers are attractive and you get a great introduction to Howard and the many genres he wrote in. Rather than just more Conan, you get to see some of his other characters and his horror tales. To this day, I'm loathe to turn loose of my collection, since they were my introduction to his non-Conan works and they have some very nice collections of his stories! At this time, I have to buy a lot of old collections trying to tie up my collection, but having these books has made it easier to get some of those rare stories. As to the Cthulhu book, I had just really gotten interested in the Cthulhu stuff when that book came out. I had seen some of the movies loosely based on Lovecraft writings and had picked up some of the comics that I think were from Millennium Press and that had got me wanting to read Lovecraft. I was in a bookstore and came across the Howard Cthulhu book and picked it up. When I got home and noticed it was a Robert E. Howard book, I was kind of like "Huh?" But that is a great collection of Howard horror. I've read some of those stories several times. Howard was awesome at sword and sorcery, but his horror had a very claustrophobic, impending doom about it that would just keep you riveted! I'll always have fond memories of carrying those Baen books around with me to the dentist and other places I knew I would be hanging around waiting for a long time. When I used to donate blood platelets, I would make a point to take one of these books along because I knew I would at least have two hours to do some reading! Forget watching some crappy movie when you can get that blood moving faster with a pulse-pounding Howard tale! Good times!
Very enjoyable history from that small window when visionary publisher wanted to immerse their readers in old worlde times with ancient looking books. Those covers are so good, when I was little painted covers were on everything, I could spend ages looking at book covers.
i have the Baen KULL volume. The paper looks a million years old, and the back cover's corner is a bit torn, but it was my first KULL prose, so I keep it alongside my Ace CONAN books. Sincerely, James Heath Lantz Freelance Writer Staff Writer for BACK ISSUE magazine 2021 Eisner Award nominee, 2019 winner, "Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism"
Wow! After all these years as a Howard fan, I never knew Ramsey Campbell completed some Solomon Kane tales. And I always wish there was more Bran Mac morn....though the del Rey version is fabulous.
That was a great run through. I hadn't remembered it was the Kiss Cover guy! ?Weren't there other author Conan books (like Jordan's) out in the 90's too?
Did you get the new Ultimate Editions published by the Robert E. Howard Foundation Press? So far I got only the Steve Harrison's Casebook and the Collected Letters, and they are a thing of beauty!
The people who skip your comic videos ARE missing out! You’ve had some really insightful ones especially recently and I thoroughly enjoy them. I killed off my viewership with a month of comic reviews so I feel your pain.
I read the Solomon Kane movie adaptation by Ramsey Campbell that you recommended, it was great. I got to get my hands on that paper back of Solomon Kane.
Huge fan of these books. Great cover art. Ken Kelly was great. While Frazetta was, over all, my favorite Conan artist, his nephew painted my favorite Conan image - the cover to Red Nails (Berkley).
Thanks Michael, thanks to you I rediscovered the joy of reading Robert E. Howard and all the old sci-fi, horror novels of the past. I just bought an E-reader for this purpose.
Great information about the CONAN publishing history. Thanks! My "The Complete Chronicles of CONAN - Centenary Edition" with the black leatherette cover arrived today. I'm tempted to just put everything else aside and dive into it. I have that "Cthulhu" paperback by Howard. The stories in it are great, yes. Movie-wise, the Solomon Kane film, with James Purefoy (as Kane) and Max von Sydow and the late great Peter Postlethwaite, is very entertaining as well. 👍
I like Baen Books as a publisher. Have you ever read any books by Jerry Pournelle? Baen published most of his novels. I’m going through his “Janissaries” series right now.
Uhm, *akshually*. . . there WAS a 1985 Kull published by Donald M Grant , Illustrated by Ned Dameron that was all original REH Kull, including fragments, NO Lin Carter. It allowed me to do an A/B comparison for the Crimes Against Howard he committed. It was a few years later I stumbled across the MM paperback Kull & read "complete" versions of some of the fragments (bad MmKay?) but WORSE were the stories completed by REH which Carter "improved" through inane additions!
Frank was Ken's uncle (-in-law). By all accounts, Frank just gave some advice early on. Several people--John Bolton, Arthur Suydam and others--have pulled off close approximations of Frazetta over the decades. Kelly was just one of the first (and he did it quite well).
@@SEKreiver There seems to be a difference between others who are clearly influenced by Frazetta and Ken. Frank’s advice must have really been thorough (and I’m curious what that looked like and the scope of it). I mean, there are guys like Mike Hoffman and Suydam that are okay at imitating Frank’s style, but they still look like imitators. Whereas the figures on Ken’s early REH covers look like they could have been done by Frank, which is a difficult thing to pull off. As a professional artist myself, I really take time to analyze Frank’s work and he’s one of the best draftsman at lending weight to his imagined figures.
🎶 It's The Robert E. Howard Shooow! 🎶 Too bad the Baen series is on crappy paper! Otherwise it's a great looking set! Thanks for all the background information, Michael!
I found a copy of the Solomon Kane volume last week in a used bookstore, so I picked it up. I also want to pick up more of the Del Rey volumes, but I didn't have enough money to pick them all up as they were coming out, so I just have to get them whenever I can. I think those are still mostly available, which is good. While modern, fancy restored editions are always great, there is something very appealing about older editions, even if they feature mutilated versions of the original texts. If nothing else, the artwork on older editions is almost always much better than modern editions.
I collected the Baen Books series in the early 2000s, when I was a Barnes and Noble employee. (Laid off after 20 years in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic.) I'm still searching for Eons of the Night (Vol.6) and Trails in Darkness (Vol. 7). I'll scour every used bookstore for them, wherever I travel. I donated the Solomon Kane and Bran Mak Morn volumes, probably because they didn't hold my interest at the time. Now to find the illustrated Del Rey editions. 😊📖🗡🗡
Personally, I prefer a paperback that's aged with yellow, with a vintage glue musk - so long as that cheep paper doesn't also get stiff and fall out quickly, I'd call that a bonus. I'm not sure I want to pick up multiple volumes of these stories (though I'd love a collection of the cover art) but if they get a competent writer to finish some of these alluring fragments, then it could be something special - I'd even like to read what Carter and Camp do with em, maybe just to spot the stylistic differences.
You want to avoid this baen ones, I dont have these ones specifically but baen books from that period got really stiff as they aged, pretty sure the paper won’t last for more than 50 years from now, and if you break the spine the thing will fall in pieces :( almost as bad as the old ace doubles (the really small ones)
@@konstantinos-6-6-6-8 50 years is a pretty long time, and I'm pretty careful with the spines - yeah, don't pay too much for it, but if it's the only way to see Campbell's ending of those Kane stories...
I find it interesting that Baen labeled the Kull , Bran Mak Morn, and Solomon Kane volumes as first complete editions. Do you happen to know if the Donald Grant editions were complete? I only own Grant’s Red Shadows of the three and I can’t recall offhand if every Solomon Kane story is collected in it or not.
Cause of the Del Rey books likely won't get these but would love to take a look at them if run into them on Friday. My new Black Friday tradition, this will be year two, is to see what Record Store Day goodies the one store around here gets and the two used book stores that are in the same area.
I'm always glad to see REH vids. Quick question I've never gotten a real answer to: Is REH on record about the pronunciation of 'Conan'? Did he pronounce it the way you (and most other fans) do or did he pronounce it the way the Irish do, like in 'Authur Conan Doyle' or 'Conan O'Brien'? Btw, I just ordered the Cthulu book from Amazon. I'll live with the cheap paper, hehe. Thanks for telling us about it.
i began reading 'Killer' by David Drake with Karl Edward Wagner. I found it intriguing and look forward to getting back into that one where i left off. The only of these BAEN Books paperbacks i have got is the Cormac Mac Art. Enjoyed seeing the others here.
Other than the Cthulhu book (which I own), I’ve never seen the set of books you’ve shared. In fact, the only REH Kelly covers of which I’m aware were his Conan covers, the desert adventure books, Skullface, and other horror anthologies, all which I think were published by Berkley. Interestingly, the reason I was wondering if Frazetta helped him on those others is because they strike me as stylistically different than the series cover art you’re featuring in this video. The figures in the other series are weighted and posed in a very Frazetta style, so much so that I wouldn’t have been surprised if Frazetta had drawn them. I even kept those desert adventure paperbacks just for the cover art (since I also bought the Del Rey versions). I have a book about Conan stuff that features the Kelly covers, so I sold the paperbacks (Like you, I’m trying to limit myself to a single version of a book, unless I keep multiple copies for the art in each).
Interestingly, a couple of the covers on the Baen Books set seem to be updated versions of the covers from the Berkeley set. Kelly’s style did change a bit by the 90s.
@@michaelk.vaughan8617 Yeah, the cover art style of the books you featured were strikingly different to me as well. The work he did on the Berkley series were good enough to rival some of Frazetta's stuff, and I don't say that lightly since Frazetta is my favorite artist.
Kelly began shifting his style in the early '80s, as did many other fantasy artists. Art directors wanted a 'slicker' style. Kelly actually had TWO styles in the '90s. One was an updated version of his '80s style and the other was the 'gritty' style we see on those Baens. According to both men, Frank never really helped Ken with any of Ken's paintings, just giving some advice early on.
@@SEKreiver I wish the difference could be chalked up to a different art “style”, but that’s not at all where the glaring difference lies. Ken’s early REH figures actually have the same gestures and weight that Frazetta might have drawn had he executed those poses. Even if Kelly adopted a new illustrative style, one would expect his figurative draftsman skills to be just as good as before. And, I hate to say that they don’t come close. And it’s not as if he’s jumping from realism to an animated Disney cartoon style. They’re both figurative fantasy style. But for some reason, that later style just doesn’t inspire where the figurative gestures are concerned. I don’t know when Kelly did the KISS covers, but those also have a great Frazetta vibe. They’re masterful covers. I’m assuming those were also done during the same early phase? In any case, his early REH work really rivals Frazetta. It’s great work.
I listened to a Kull story by Robert E. Howard on UA-cam the other night and it was almost the exact same story as the Conan story where he's a king and some guy is trying to assassinate him. What's up with that?
That Kull story, By This Axe I Rule, was rejected by Weird Tales and never published during Howard’s lifetime. Howard changed Kull to Conan, changed many elements of the story, included a Wizard and a supernatural monster, and resubmitted it. That became The Phoenix on the Sword, the first Conan story. Howard never thought anyone would ever see the Kull version that was finally published long after Howard died.
I recently got a book of the poems of REH. Was wondering if you've read them, and if so, what do you think? I've only read a few random ones so far and I think they're really decent. I can't comment on the entire thing so far, but I was pleasantly surprised so far.
Aaaah, that Cthulhu collection...That was my first Howard book, which I read over a long bus trip when I moved to New Orleans in my early 20s.I was never the same since!
That book led a lot of people to REH. I loaned my copy to several friends who WERE into horror, but were put off by the Milius/Tor version of Conan.
Discovered Conan through the mid-2000s Dark Horse comics, then directly to the Del Rey editions (which remain my favorite). I'll keep an eye out for these BAEN collections, I don't think I've ever come across one in person
Baen wanted to publish the Conan stories too as part of this set, but only the Howard originals, but De Camp who had control of them wouldn't let them without his pastiches included, so they passed. Glen Lord was in control of everything else, and was easier to deal with.
I love those Baen Howard books. I consider the Cthulhu book to be sort of a companion book.
Thank you for a wonderful review of our Robert E. Howard collection! These were a labor of love for all involved, and it is a joy to see people still saying they helped turn them into the work of one of our finest authors.
And if you're looking for great modern sword and sorcery? We will have some amazing titles this year.
I’m honored that you enjoyed the video! Thank you so much! And, of course, thanks for the great books!
I was there when they came out. The Baen library was an oasis of REH in a publishing wasteland. Your reactions track closely with mine.
That 'Cthulhu' volume was a direct favor from Jim Baen to Drake (Baen wasn't really into fantasy/horror). After that antho did so well, Drake was able to nudge Baen Books into publishing the REH Library. I would imagine 'Pigeons' was left out because it was in the 'Cthulhu' antho.
Cool publications. The Solomon Kane collection is quite interesting. I know Del Rey books are the standard but Wildside Press also published ba dedicated set of Robert E Howard collection in the mid 2000's - The Weird Works of Robert E Howard.
The Weird Works is a pretty great set of books! Unfortunately I only have half of them.
Those Baen books have a special place in my heart! When I started getting back into Howard, I started picking these books up on Paperbackswap, since they were really easy to get and showed up a lot. And they were a great way of getting in! The covers are attractive and you get a great introduction to Howard and the many genres he wrote in. Rather than just more Conan, you get to see some of his other characters and his horror tales. To this day, I'm loathe to turn loose of my collection, since they were my introduction to his non-Conan works and they have some very nice collections of his stories! At this time, I have to buy a lot of old collections trying to tie up my collection, but having these books has made it easier to get some of those rare stories. As to the Cthulhu book, I had just really gotten interested in the Cthulhu stuff when that book came out. I had seen some of the movies loosely based on Lovecraft writings and had picked up some of the comics that I think were from Millennium Press and that had got me wanting to read Lovecraft. I was in a bookstore and came across the Howard Cthulhu book and picked it up. When I got home and noticed it was a Robert E. Howard book, I was kind of like "Huh?" But that is a great collection of Howard horror. I've read some of those stories several times. Howard was awesome at sword and sorcery, but his horror had a very claustrophobic, impending doom about it that would just keep you riveted! I'll always have fond memories of carrying those Baen books around with me to the dentist and other places I knew I would be hanging around waiting for a long time. When I used to donate blood platelets, I would make a point to take one of these books along because I knew I would at least have two hours to do some reading! Forget watching some crappy movie when you can get that blood moving faster with a pulse-pounding Howard tale! Good times!
I was a pest at my local used book store in the late 80's. Frank brought me in by the covers, Robert kept me reading with the content.
Very enjoyable history from that small window when visionary publisher wanted to immerse their readers in old worlde times with ancient looking books. Those covers are so good, when I was little painted covers were on everything, I could spend ages looking at book covers.
i have the Baen KULL volume. The paper looks a million years old, and the back cover's corner is a bit torn, but it was my first KULL prose, so I keep it alongside my Ace CONAN books.
Sincerely,
James Heath Lantz
Freelance Writer
Staff Writer for BACK ISSUE magazine
2021 Eisner Award nominee, 2019 winner, "Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism"
A very cool video. You're magnificent, Michael!
I'd never heard of these. Apart from their use of papyrus, they look pretty good.
It’s a really good set of books. Other than the paper quality anyway.
Wow! After all these years as a Howard fan, I never knew Ramsey Campbell completed some Solomon Kane tales. And I always wish there was more Bran Mac morn....though the del Rey version is fabulous.
thanks, the DELRay editions are the ones my library has that I am reading now
That was a great run through.
I hadn't remembered it was the Kiss Cover guy!
?Weren't there other author Conan books (like Jordan's) out in the 90's too?
Yes, many!
Michael’s in his study…it’s The Robert E Howard Show…and all’s right with the world 😊
Did you get the new Ultimate Editions published by the Robert E. Howard Foundation Press? So far I got only the Steve Harrison's Casebook and the Collected Letters, and they are a thing of beauty!
I have the letters but that’s it, unfortunately.
The people who skip your comic videos ARE missing out! You’ve had some really insightful ones especially recently and I thoroughly enjoy them. I killed off my viewership with a month of comic reviews so I feel your pain.
So far I haven’t entirely killed off my viewership but give me time.
I read the Solomon Kane movie adaptation by Ramsey Campbell that you recommended, it was great. I got to get my hands on that paper back of Solomon Kane.
Huge fan of these books. Great cover art. Ken Kelly was great. While Frazetta was, over all, my favorite Conan artist, his nephew painted my favorite Conan image - the cover to Red Nails (Berkley).
Thanks Michael, thanks to you I rediscovered the joy of reading Robert E. Howard and all the old sci-fi, horror novels of the past. I just bought an E-reader for this purpose.
Excellent video! Each time you surpass all other youtubers
Great information about the CONAN publishing history. Thanks!
My "The Complete Chronicles of CONAN - Centenary Edition" with the black leatherette cover arrived today. I'm tempted to just put everything else aside and dive into it. I have that "Cthulhu" paperback by Howard. The stories in it are great, yes. Movie-wise, the Solomon Kane film, with James Purefoy (as Kane) and Max von Sydow and the late great Peter Postlethwaite, is very entertaining as well. 👍
I like Baen Books as a publisher. Have you ever read any books by Jerry Pournelle? Baen published most of his novels. I’m going through his “Janissaries” series right now.
I believe there is a adult swim show very loosely based on spear and fang called primal.
Primal was heavily inspired by Conan
Uhm, *akshually*. . . there WAS a 1985 Kull published by Donald M Grant , Illustrated by Ned Dameron that was all original REH Kull, including fragments, NO Lin Carter. It allowed me to do an A/B comparison for the Crimes Against Howard he committed. It was a few years later I stumbled across the MM paperback Kull & read "complete" versions of some of the fragments (bad MmKay?) but WORSE were the stories completed by REH which Carter "improved" through inane additions!
Imagine how badly skin tight chainmail would chafe!
Ken Kelly was great. Being a friend of Frazetta, I wonder if he ever got help or guidance from Fritz on those REH covers.
Frank was Ken's uncle (-in-law). By all accounts, Frank just gave some advice early on. Several people--John Bolton, Arthur Suydam and others--have pulled off close approximations of Frazetta over the decades. Kelly was just one of the first (and he did it quite well).
@@SEKreiver There seems to be a difference between others who are clearly influenced by Frazetta and Ken. Frank’s advice must have really been thorough (and I’m curious what that looked like and the scope of it). I mean, there are guys like Mike Hoffman and Suydam that are okay at imitating Frank’s style, but they still look like imitators. Whereas the figures on Ken’s early REH covers look like they could have been done by Frank, which is a difficult thing to pull off. As a professional artist myself, I really take time to analyze Frank’s work and he’s one of the best draftsman at lending weight to his imagined figures.
love Ken Kelly art!!!
🎶 It's The Robert E. Howard Shooow! 🎶 Too bad the Baen series is on crappy paper! Otherwise it's a great looking set! Thanks for all the background information, Michael!
I found a copy of the Solomon Kane volume last week in a used bookstore, so I picked it up. I also want to pick up more of the Del Rey volumes, but I didn't have enough money to pick them all up as they were coming out, so I just have to get them whenever I can. I think those are still mostly available, which is good. While modern, fancy restored editions are always great, there is something very appealing about older editions, even if they feature mutilated versions of the original texts. If nothing else, the artwork on older editions is almost always much better than modern editions.
I collected the Baen Books series in the early 2000s, when I was a Barnes and Noble employee. (Laid off after 20 years in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic.) I'm still searching for Eons of the Night (Vol.6) and Trails in Darkness (Vol. 7). I'll scour every used bookstore for them, wherever I travel. I donated the Solomon Kane and Bran Mak Morn volumes, probably because they didn't hold my interest at the time. Now to find the illustrated Del Rey editions. 😊📖🗡🗡
Snazzy tie
Thanks.
Personally, I prefer a paperback that's aged with yellow, with a vintage glue musk - so long as that cheep paper doesn't also get stiff and fall out quickly, I'd call that a bonus. I'm not sure I want to pick up multiple volumes of these stories (though I'd love a collection of the cover art) but if they get a competent writer to finish some of these alluring fragments, then it could be something special - I'd even like to read what Carter and Camp do with em, maybe just to spot the stylistic differences.
You want to avoid this baen ones, I dont have these ones specifically but baen books from that period got really stiff as they aged, pretty sure the paper won’t last for more than 50 years from now, and if you break the spine the thing will fall in pieces :( almost as bad as the old ace doubles (the really small ones)
@@konstantinos-6-6-6-8 50 years is a pretty long time, and I'm pretty careful with the spines - yeah, don't pay too much for it, but if it's the only way to see Campbell's ending of those Kane stories...
Loved this video. I am sure they must be hard to track down these days.
I’d love to know which of these characters to tackle after Conan?
Solomon Kane!
I find it interesting that Baen labeled the Kull , Bran Mak Morn, and Solomon Kane volumes as first complete editions. Do you happen to know if the Donald Grant editions were complete? I only own Grant’s Red Shadows of the three and I can’t recall offhand if every Solomon Kane story is collected in it or not.
Cause of the Del Rey books likely won't get these but would love to take a look at them if run into them on Friday.
My new Black Friday tradition, this will be year two, is to see what Record Store Day goodies the one store around here gets and the two used book stores that are in the same area.
I'm always glad to see REH vids. Quick question I've never gotten a real answer to: Is REH on record about the pronunciation of 'Conan'? Did he pronounce it the way you (and most other fans) do or did he pronounce it the way the Irish do, like in 'Authur Conan Doyle' or 'Conan O'Brien'?
Btw, I just ordered the Cthulu book from Amazon. I'll live with the cheap paper, hehe. Thanks for telling us about it.
In REH's 30s the name was pronounced like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's.
i began reading 'Killer' by David Drake with Karl Edward Wagner. I found it intriguing and look forward to getting back into that one where i left off. The only of these BAEN Books paperbacks i have got is the Cormac Mac Art. Enjoyed seeing the others here.
I remember Killer being pretty good.
Other than the Cthulhu book (which I own), I’ve never seen the set of books you’ve shared. In fact, the only REH Kelly covers of which I’m aware were his Conan covers, the desert adventure books, Skullface, and other horror anthologies, all which I think were published by Berkley. Interestingly, the reason I was wondering if Frazetta helped him on those others is because they strike me as stylistically different than the series cover art you’re featuring in this video. The figures in the other series are weighted and posed in a very Frazetta style, so much so that I wouldn’t have been surprised if Frazetta had drawn them. I even kept those desert adventure paperbacks just for the cover art (since I also bought the Del Rey versions). I have a book about Conan stuff that features the Kelly covers, so I sold the paperbacks (Like you, I’m trying to limit myself to a single version of a book, unless I keep multiple copies for the art in each).
Interestingly, a couple of the covers on the Baen Books set seem to be updated versions of the covers from the Berkeley set. Kelly’s style did change a bit by the 90s.
@@michaelk.vaughan8617 Yeah, the cover art style of the books you featured were strikingly different to me as well. The work he did on the Berkley series were good enough to rival some of Frazetta's stuff, and I don't say that lightly since Frazetta is my favorite artist.
Kelly began shifting his style in the early '80s, as did many other fantasy artists. Art directors wanted a 'slicker' style. Kelly actually had TWO styles in the '90s. One was an updated version of his '80s style and the other was the 'gritty' style we see on those Baens. According to both men, Frank never really helped Ken with any of Ken's paintings, just giving some advice early on.
@@SEKreiver I wish the difference could be chalked up to a different art “style”, but that’s not at all where the glaring difference lies. Ken’s early REH figures actually have the same gestures and weight that Frazetta might have drawn had he executed those poses. Even if Kelly adopted a new illustrative style, one would expect his figurative draftsman skills to be just as good as before. And, I hate to say that they don’t come close. And it’s not as if he’s jumping from realism to an animated Disney cartoon style. They’re both figurative fantasy style. But for some reason, that later style just doesn’t inspire where the figurative gestures are concerned. I don’t know when Kelly did the KISS covers, but those also have a great Frazetta vibe. They’re masterful covers. I’m assuming those were also done during the same early phase? In any case, his early REH work really rivals Frazetta. It’s great work.
I listened to a Kull story by Robert E. Howard on UA-cam the other night and it was almost the exact same story as the Conan story where he's a king and some guy is trying to assassinate him. What's up with that?
That Kull story, By This Axe I Rule, was rejected by Weird Tales and never published during Howard’s lifetime. Howard changed Kull to Conan, changed many elements of the story, included a Wizard and a supernatural monster, and resubmitted it. That became The Phoenix on the Sword, the first Conan story. Howard never thought anyone would ever see the Kull version that was finally published long after Howard died.
I recently got a book of the poems of REH. Was wondering if you've read them, and if so, what do you think? I've only read a few random ones so far and I think they're really decent. I can't comment on the entire thing so far, but I was pleasantly surprised so far.
Apart from the fact that Lovecraft was a compulsive letter-writer, I honestly think the Lovecraft circle should be renamed the Robert E Howard circle.
Also, why has no one pointed out that Cormac MacCarthy seems to have stolen his name from b the Robert E Howard character? 😝😜
I know! That thief! And I have a paperback of Howard’s poems and it’s really good.