the hyborian review - barbarian keep · hyborian review vol. 2, issue 10 october 1997 page 1 of 4...

Hyborian Review vol. 2, issue 10 October 1997 Page 1 of 4

The Hyborian ReviewVolume 2 Number 10 October 31, 1997100 Subscribers and still growing!

Great REH QuotesFrom “The Iron Man”, a 1976 Zebra book containing thefifth boxing tale penned by Howard for Fight Storiesmagazine that graced the June 1930 cover.

Italian boxerMonk Barota ishaving his waywith Iron MikeBrennon, but heis about to learnwhat it means totake on an IronMan…

At this moment,Barota steppedback, feintedswiftly and shotthe right. He wasproud of the bonecrushing qualityof that right hand.He had a cleanopening andevery ounce ofhis weight wentbehind it. The

leather-guarded knuckles backed by spar-like arm andheavy shoulder, crashed flush against Mike’s jaw. Theimpact was plainly heard in every part of the house. A gaspwent up, nails sank deep into clenching palms. Mike swayeddrunkenly, but he did not fall.Barota stopped short for a flashing instant - frozen by therealization that he had failed to even floor his man. And inthat second Mike swung a wild left and landed for the first time - high on the cheek bone, but Barota went down. Dazed,the Italian rose without a count and Mike tore into him with the ferocity of a tiger that scents the kill. Barota, blinded anddizzy, was in no condition to defend himself, yet Mike missed with both hands until a mine-sweeping right-hander caughthis man flush on the temple, and he dropped - not merely out, but senseless.

Comic Dinks – Good News! Reprint information is also on page 4.

Conan the Adventurer:A Reviewby Garret H. Romainewriting by Roland Green, Roy Thomas and others

Worth the Wait - The Whole Wide World After waiting ten months, I finallywas able to rent this classic video ata local Blockbuster. Everybody whohas ever read an REH story andenjoyed it has to see this movie.You’ll never think of Bob Howardthe same way.

Blustering, bombastic, overbearing –that was Howard (as played byVincent d’Onofrio) on a good day. Crass, infantile,introverted – that was also Howard once in awhile. Theman was complex and contrary, ill at ease with others, andutterly devoted to his mother. But for once, we getdialogue taken mostly from Ellis’ fine first novel – “OneWho Walked Alone.” And it’s a chance to really get toknow Howard, as both a tragic figure and as a damn finewriter.

For those who haven’t seen the movie, it is written fromthe viewpoint of Novalyne Price Ellis, his only true love.Played with gusto by Renee Zellwegger (Jerry Mcguire)Ellis is a “Texas spitfire” in Howard’s words, whocouldn’t manage to pry Howard away from his motherlong enough to realize he had found his one true love.Their on-again, off-again relationship was stormy, chaotic,and full of peaks and valleys. She believed in him, and sheloved him once, but he was a handful, and in one finely-played moment, he tells her he can’t settle down – theroad he walks, he walks alone. Yet by the end of themovie, it is clear he may have regretted that speech.

Now if I can just find the book (it’s out of print!)

Hyborian Review vol. 2, issue 10 October 1997 Page 2 of 4

Editor’s Note: The Kull movie disappeared before Icould see it. There isn’t much left to say about it, but asa reviewer worried about the body of work he leavesbehind, I wanted to get my two cents worth in and jointhe kicking while the movie was down. I don’t know ifthe passion will still be there when Sorbo hits video, soI’ll try again when the video hits.

It hasn’t been easy to find much to like about Conan theAdventurer. I missed the premiere and week #2, so bythe time I caught up, Karela and the Fat Boy werehistory. I’ll just talk mostly about what I know.

Before I start, I want tosay that I find it highlyinteresting that thisshow ever sawproduction. I figure thatthe popularity of Xenaand Hercules must havepushed the ConanProperties (CPI) folksinto thinking they couldmake some goodmoney. As the earlydeath of Roar pointsout, you need a strong

primary character. A recognizable one helps. So the ideaof pushing a Cimmerian bad boy on the TV publicprobably came as a natural.

Still, don’t you have to wonder what the motivation ofCPI is? They certainly don’t seem to care much aboutRobert E. Howard’s vision of the character. In fact, thecomplaints about the lack of ‘purity’ in the stories isuniform and loud. But there was never any question ofadapting original stories to the tiny screen. Thus, it mustbe the money…

Whose Conan is it?As stated, for the Howard purist, there is nearly nothingrecognizable about this Conan. First, his younger yearshave been wholly rewritten, blended to match Conan theBarbarian and his enslavement to The Wheel; in thisversion, his parents were butchered before his youngeyes and he was orphaned…well, you know the rest ofthat abomination. It has little to do with Howard’s visionof a young lad struck with wanderlust after lootingVanarium when he was just 15. In fact, it flies in theface of what we learned in Tower of the Elephant aboutConan’s background.

Most of the complaints on the Savage discussion pageand the official Conan web site has driven these pointshome repeatedly.

Even Barry Fletcher, recently banned from the REHmailing list, chimed in with ten good reasons why theshow is bad.

Not that anyone seems to be listening. The 22 episodesto broadcast this year will revolve around Conan’s goalof killing the wizard Hissar Zul to revenge his parentsand free Cimmeria from this awful, awful man.

Which is all pretty putrid. Toss in a dwarf, a mute, and ablack, and the ingredients are there for a politically-correct ‘90s assault on Hyboria. The only thing missingis to make Conan so sensitive he will actually cry onscreen – which they then did in episode 2.

Look, if Conan didn’t even weep when The Queen ofthe Black Coast was strangled on her own necklace,nothing – NOTHING – that a TV producer can conjureup should make him start to sniffle. So who’s Conan isit? It ain’t ours.

I could go on, so I will for awhile. In episide 4, Conan issurrounded by archers intent on feathering his hide. Thenext thing you know, he’s crouching behind a woodenwagon wheel like a sissy. I kept waiting for him to pushthe wagon over and pull out the axle to start brainingfolks, but he kept cowering. This ain’t my Conan.

So, I’m going to stop right here. There are a millionreasons to not like this show. I’ll leave this with a smalllist of the things I liked and then I’ll move up to anothertopic.

Here’s what I like about Conan the Adventurer:

1) BATTLE SCENES. If you close your eyes duringsome of the better battle scenes, there is a lot ofgood action sound – clashing swords, fleshsmacking flesh, and fair music. And no femalescreams like we get from Xena all the time.

(But don’t open your eyes! You’ll probably see a veryflimsy plastic sword actually bend around a woodenstaff. You’ll be groaning!)

2) LOTSA FLESH. There are babes every once inawhile, although not stunningly beautiful. This isn’ta Baywatch ripoff. Hyborian women are lean andfirm, but not luscious. Perhaps at a later date someof the scenes will shift from dirty, muddy villages tomore elaborate palace settings, with some finepalace wenches displayed.

(and, forgive me, but there is a lot of Conan to see. Notto confuse my sexual orientation, but I’ve grown toappreciate all that muscled splendor. There’s a lot ofRolf to see. More on that in a minute.)

Hyborian Review vol. 2, issue 10 October 1997 Page 3 of 4

3) REAL BLOOD. Yep, there’s blood. In episode 4,Conan was forced to slice open the guts of a long-time friend who tried to betray him. Oh, the villainwasn’t entirely slain – he got back up for one moreslice from Rolf’s Atlantean blade. Correctly, theoriginal gash grew wider as the traitor advanced. Atleast they got that right.

4) CORRECT TERMINOLOGY. Every once inawhile, you can at be reminded that you arejourneying in Hyboria. Mitra, Cimmeria, and otherwords pop up. Not enough, Crom knows, but some.I like that, and want more. Sure, I want the storiesto be adaptations, and not entirely new. But at leastthere are a few hints once in awhile that this is anapproximation of Howard’s Conan.

Well, I’ve already put quite a taint on my budding puristcredentials, and I’m probably going to hear if from thetrue keepers of the flame. They’ll argue that, like apastiche, this TV show should be shunned. And Iunderstand. But again, let me state for the record that myfirst introduction to Conan was on a monthly basis,courtesy of Roy and the gang at Marvel. I grew upneeding a periodic injection of Cimmerian fun. To beable to get a little on a weekly basis is kinda cool. Iactually found myself switching away from the Raidersgame on Sunday afternoon to catch Rolf. I may becoming down with something.

So, grudgingly, I’ll admit that I like enough of the showto tune back in. Burn me, ban me, cut me into snakebait, but I’m entertained by this attempt. I heard on oneof the lists lately that Fox is rumored to be picking it up.Does that mean that there will be more marketing, betterstories, more listening, and wider distribution? I’d settlefor better stories.

Evolution of a Barbarian BodyLet me insert a bit of babble here about Conan’sevolution. In watching Rolf flex yet again, I came to therealization that Conan has come a long, long way fromhis Howardian birth. As many appreciate, every Howardhero had a bit of ol’ Bob in him. It’s no coincidence thatmost of his heroes were about his height, about hisbuild, and had his hair color. Howard put himself intohis heroes and they were better off for it.

Having said that, I pulled down a Weird Tales coverfrom way back and took a look at the original artist’sdepiction of Conan. This shot, from The Devil In Iron,seems to show a kind of Everyman – well built, but notsteroidally enhanced, with a good sword arm but notHerculean in physique.

It’s my contention thatHoward meant for Conanto be just that – big andbad, but a bit of anaverage, well-built dude.Big and strong, sure, butdefinitely not liftingweights regularly.

Next up I grabbed a1953 shot of Conan theConqueror. He’s inarmor and grimacing andcarrying a babe whilemenacing some threat –

but he’s also put on a fewpounds of muscle. He’sfilling out a bit more.There’s a bit of a CharlesAtlas look to thisdepiction. To me, this isthe beginning of the longdescent into beefcake thatculminates with RolfMoeller today.

Mercifully, there was adetour in the 70s as BarryWindsor-Smith took overthe center of theCimmerian universe. Smith’s Conan was young,dynamic, and well-built. But, reflecting the times, he hada bit of a “hippie” look to him, and I particularly

remember one scene where hetied up his hair in a pony tailbefore battling a ship of pirates.How would Howard take that?Would it be too sissy? Wouldhe object? I believe he mighthave.

Still, were I able to argue thepoint with Howard, I’d try toshow that Smith’s use of the artnouveau technique actuallyapes the old Weird Talesdesigns to a great degree. Ialways felt that this enhancedSmith’s work. And Smith’sConan is not a Charles Atlaswannabe. He’s lithe and lean

where he should be, and still a strong man. It is thus myconjecture that Smith’s Conan is much closer to theideal Howard had in mind.

Hyborian Review vol. 2, issue 10 October 1997 Page 4 of 4

Sadly, after Smith came The Time of Buscema, andConan took on a more modern, and chemically created

outlook. Alcala, Chan,Vallejo – to me, they allaped Buscema. The heroin The Savage Sword ofConan perpetuallyfeatured an overly-muscular beast of a boywho whacked his waythrough more scenariosthat he thought his waythrough. To me, that wasa problem. The over-reliance on brawn andbrute force is what gave

Conan the reputation for violence and mayhem. Yet timeand time again,Howard’s hero hadto use his nogginas much as hissword arm to getout of trouble. Orstay out. TheVallejo shot here,reaching for hissword, to Boris’credit, at leastgives Conan thecorrectdimensions, but heobviously has beenlifting somethingheavier than wine skins on a regular basis.

No Conan art collection would be complete without KenKelly and Frazetta: here they are in order. Again, themusculature is center stage. Huge, barrel chest, pectoralsand thighs completely overdone, and forearms that noblacksmith father could have created. But in thecontinuum that leads to Rolf, easy to understand.Frazetta’s Conan was well-muscled, heroic, and fierce.

The epic cover of Conan of

Cimmeria showed Frazetta’svision of the barbarian world as

a land of mighty men, and Conan stood above them all.I have to remind myself that Howard’s Conan wasalready over six feet tall when just 15 at the sack ofVanarium, and could have expected to grow a wee bitmore on a steady diet of buxom blondes and Stygiansorcerers. That’s well over Howard’s own height, soConan isn’t a perfect of reflection of who Howard was –more like who Howard maybe thought of himself as?

At any rate, weeventually got ArnoldSchwarzennegger, andthen his buddy Rolf. Mr.Universe specimens each,they’ve taken the Conanbody to places where Iwonder if Howardhimself would approve?Maybe its conditioning,but I think I’ve come toexpect it, so that Rolf tome actually looks betterthan Arnold! - GR

Comics Planned that Put Howard FirstThis came across the REH-Fans mailing list in late October.We've already begun on some [comics] and are also lookingfor the appropriate talents for several others. Richard Ashfordjust returned from Europe to do just that, plus attended thehuge trade show in Frankfurt where there was interest fromseveral distributors. Presently, "Kings of the Night" and apossible "director's cut" of Smith/Conrad's "Worms of TheEarth" adaptation are in the works. Other characters leadingthe first wave are El Borak, Dark Agnes and Skullface. Ofcourse the magnitude of material plus having enough work togo on a regular publishing schedule means that it will be quiteawhile before the books are on stands. The line will have theirown distinctive design rarely seen in comics and REH'spresence will be dominant unlike adaptations from the past.The first step was to come up with a name for theline and we thought "Cross Plains Comics" presents ourintentions for the comics boldly. Many of the contributorshave worked on the Marvel books in the past but will nowhave the luxury of giving the material the attentionit deserves free from corporate restrictions.- Rafael Kayanan------------------------------------------------------------------- The Hyborian Review is published monthly by GarretRomaine and distributed free via e-mail. Send feedback to:gromaine3@comcast.net. For back issues, tryhttp://www.prosalg.no/~savage/conan/publications -------------------------------------------------------------------NEXT Issue: Back to Howard – The Dark Man.

finis