I haven’t posted much on the blog due to my moratorium, but I feel that this news is important to anyone who calls themselves a Conan fan. The news has come that Glenn Lord has died.

If you know who Glenn Lord is, then you know no amount of words can really convey how important he was to Robert E. Howard’s legacy. If you don’t know who Glenn Lord is, then his Wikipedia page (which was composed by Howard scholar Lee Breakiron) will show an inkling of just how vast his influence and impact was:

A Korean vet and a paper warehouse manager by trade, he discovered Howard through Skull-Face and Others (1946) around 1951. He sought out earlier publications with REH’s work, most notably the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s. Starting in 1956, he scoured the country for all REH stories, poems, and letters. Over the course of his life he has amassed the world’s largest collection of such publications and original manuscripts (actually typescripts).

Lord became literary agent for the Howard heirs around March, 1965, and served as such for 28 and a half years. In 1965, he tracked down the contents of Robert E. Howard’s famous storage trunk; the contents of which were then owned by pulp writer and Howard friend E. Hoffmann “Ed” Price. The contents consisted of tens of thousands of pages typed by Howard, including hundreds of unpublished stories, poems, and fragments. Using the contents of the trunk as well as his vast collection of previously published REH materials, Lord provided the source text for almost every published Howard work appearing in books, magazines, or chapbooks from 1965 through 1997, including collections of REH letters. Lord also provided introductions, afterwords, or commentary for dozens of REH books.

Tirelessly promoting Howard’s stories, Lord secured their publication in any promising venue, leading directly to the Howard Boom of the 1970s. This included books by Ace, Arkham House, Avon, Baen, Ballantine, Bantam, Barnes & Noble Books, Baronet, Berkley, Beagle, Belmont, Bonanza, Carroll & Graff, Centaur, Century-Hutchinson, Chelsea House, Chaosium, DAW, Dell, Delta, Dodd-Mead, Dorset, Doubleday, Fawcett Gold Medal, FAX, Fedogan & Bremer, Fictioneer, Five Star, Gollancz, Grafton, Gramercy, Donald M. Grant, Grossett & Dunlap, Harper Collins, Jove, Kaye & Ward, Lancer, Leisure, MacFadden, Manor, Mayflower, Meys, Morning Star Press, New English Library, Neville Spearman, Orbit, Oxford University Press, Pan, Panther, Prentice-Hall, Putnam, Pyramid, REH Foundation Press, Robinson, Ryerson, Science Fiction Book Club, Sidgwick & Jackson, Signet, Sphere, Taplinger, TOR, Tower, Underwood-Miller, University of Nebraska Press, Walker & Co., Warner Books, WH Allen, Xanadu and Zebra; periodicals such as Amazing Science Fiction Stories, Amazing Stories, Ariel, Chacal, Coven 13/Witchcraft & Sorcery, Different Worlds, Fantastic Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories/Fantastic Stories of Imagination, Fantasy Book, Fantasy Commentator, Fantasy Crossroads, Fantasy Crosswinds, Fantasy Tales, The Haunt of Horror, Heavy Metal, Lost Fantasies, Magazine of Horror, Pulp Review, The Riverside Quarterly, Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine, Spaceway Science Fiction, Startling Mystery Stories, Sword and Sorcery, Trumpet, Weird Tales, Weirdbook, The West, White Wolf Magazine, Worlds of Fantasy, Xenophile, and Zane Grey Western Magazine; and several series of Marvel comic books and magazines. In many cases, he was also the uncredited editor of the published version of the REH works. And this is not counting the literally hundreds of books and magazines in non-English languages to which he supplied texts, including Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Yugoslavian, nor the hundreds of amateur publications.

In the fall of 1977, he arranged with Berkley Medallion to put out three Conan paper- and hardbacks of Conan stories edited by Karl Edward Wagner, the first Conan series without any posthumous revisions and pastiches, which previous collections had in excess.

Lord published a few REH collections on his own, such as the periodical The Howard Collector #1-18 and the chapbook Etchings in Ivory. In The Howard Collector, from 1961 to 1973, Lord featured previously unpublished (or very rare) pieces by Howard, letters by REH and those who knew him, indices of poems and stories, reprints of articles related to Howard, and news about upcoming publications and other events. Thereafter, he published similar material in fanzines of the Robert E. Howard United Press Association, the Hyperborian League, and the Esoteric Order of Dagon (E.O.D. — an amateur press association primarily concerned with the writings of Howard Phillips Lovecraft).

An early admirer of Howard’s poetry, Lord published the first Howard poetry collection Always Comes Evening (1957) through famed Arkham House, subsidizing the costs of the printing himself. Later, he was instrumental in the publication of the Howard verse collections Etchings in Ivory (1968), Singers in the Shadows (1970), Echoes from an Iron Harp (1972), The Road to Rome (1972), Verses in Ebony (1975), Night Images (1976), Shadows of Dreams (1989), and A Rhyme of Salem Town and Other Poems (2007).

He published the first comprehensive bibliography of Howard, complete through 1973, in his The Last Celt: A Bio–Bibliography of Robert Ervin Howard (1976), a bible for REH scholars and collectors. The book also contains biographical and autobiographical material about Howard, as well as letters, story synopses and fragments, ephemera, covers illustrating REH stories, and photographs. Lord wrote many articles on Howard (e.g. in The Dark Barbarian). Lord contributed much information to the latest bibliography, The Neverending Hunt (2006, 2008), by Paul Herman and the online bibliography Howardworks.

When Conan Properties was incorporated in 1978 to establish a single entity to deal with Hollywood in negotiations that led to the two Conan movies, Lord served as a corporate director.

Lord has befriended, assisted, advised, and mentored two generations of Howard fans, scholars, and editors, providing copies of his typescripts, letters, and vast knowledge to many of them. For his dedication, achievements, and scholarship, Lord received the World Fantasy Convention Award in 1978 and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the professional fanzine, The Cimmerian, in 2005. The next year, he was Guest of Honor at the Centennial Robert E. Howard Days festival in Howard’s hometown of Cross Plains, Texas, and in 2007 was GoH at PulpCon 36 in Dayton, Ohio. He is currently Director Emeritus of the Robert E. Howard Foundation.

If you are a fan of Robert E. Howard, Conan, or any of his creations, then you owe Glenn Lord your thanks. If you picked up a Lancer or Sphere or Berkeley in the Howard Boom of the ’60s and ’70s, you can thank Glenn Lord for getting the stories printed across dozens of publishers. If you tore through an issue of Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian, you can thank Glenn Lord for providing Roy Thomas with indespensible advice and assistance, and even then-unpublished stories for adaptation. If you watched Conan the Barbarian in 1982, you can thank Glenn Lord for negotiating the deal to make and film it. If you’ve enjoyed anything related to Kull, Solomon Kane, or the other creations of the Man from Cross Plains, then you owe Glenn Lord for promoting all of Howard’s work beyond just Conan. If you’ve read any scholarly material on Howard or his creations, be it a critical anthology or a wiki site, you can thank Glenn Lord for being the man to start it all.

No one in 80 years has done more for Howard and his creations than Glenn Lord.

Stonecold-mike of the Robert E. Howard Forums alerted me to this interesting development:

I was sent a note from someone saying that Solomon Kane is available as a download through Netflix.  Sadly this does not appear to be true – at least from Netflix in Canada where I am right now.  Solomon Kane remains unavailable in North America for what I now understand are stupid legal reasons that I can’t share…Maybe they’ll get sorted, maybe not. (BTW, if it is available on Neflix USA – can someone tell me.)….but this article from Salon.com feels like a small vindication.

http://tinyurl.com/3rbwbep

Though I’d love to take a crack at Conan and I don’t want to insult the people who made the new one but it wasn’t great and I could do better for a smaller budget.  How Conan got that massive release and Kane has still absolutely nothing – not even DVD – breaks my heart.  I don’t even mind of people hate my film, I’d still at least like them to have the chance to form an opinion.

Well, then…

Editorial

Folks familiar with my review of Solomon Kane and subsequent musings, the DVD, and its relation to the source material, will know I’ve been pretty tough on the film for its divergences from the source material and its historical flubs, be it comparatively minor blunders like the Union Flag appearing years before the Union Flag was designed, to more serious issues like the weird Catholo-Puritanism religious confusion. However, there’s a critical difference between Solomon Kane and Conan the Barbarian: the guy who directed Solomon Kane actually knows how to direct a film. Thus, while I shudder at what Bassett might do with Conan given his handling of Kane – my hyperbolic fear is we’ll discover his mother was a Stygian sorceress, “explaining” his hatred of civilization and sorcery while adding a Freudian subtext to his dealings with women – and considering I had serious problems with Solomon Kane, I can’t disagree that he would’ve made a more coherent, interesting and worthy film.

This puts me in some contention with those Howard fans & scholars who liked Conan and didn’t like Kane, but all things considered, I truly think that Kane was just a better film.  It was closer to REH’s world and creation than Conan, it was more tightly edited, better choreographed, more interestingly designed, better scored, infinitely better acted – and, yes, better directed, no question.  The action scenes in Kane made me cringe in the right way – mostly because you could actually see what was happening – and the supernatural creatures were infinitely more frightening and well-conceived than the ones in Conan.  And, just like Momoa, Purefoy could’ve made a brilliant Kane in an actual adaptation.

Bassett wouldn’t be my first choice by any means, not just because of Kane, but because I’d much rather he make a fantastic Elric film. After Conan, I don’t want to see Nispel anywhere near a property I love again. So it might be damning with faint praise, but frankly, I think the Conan film franchise could do much worse. Kane didn’t even do much worse than Conan at the box office, $19 million in the foreign market compared to Conan’s $27 million – and that’s with barely a fraction of the media saturation and brand equity of Conan.

Gearing up for the big day!

The Conan 3D Facebook page has a new picture of Leo Howard’s young Conan running amid fire and chaos in his home village:

For more, you will know it by the click of the link.

Chicago Sun Times has an illuminating interview with our man Jason:

How does a man know he has found his inner barbarian? For Jason Momoa, it revolved around reaching out to his he-man friends.

“I wanted to have my nose broken for this role but wasn’t sure how to accomplish it,” says the Iowa native.

So, he enlisted a friend with a fist.

“I was like, ‘Dude, I have this idea. I think you should break my nose. Would you do it?’” Momoa recalls. “My buddy just did it right away, damn it. After it was over, I said, ‘Dude, didn’t you want to think about it for a minute?’ But we’re guys and he said, ‘You don’t have to ask me twice. Done deal.’

“Just please don’t tell my wife about it,” he begs. “I wonder if she reads your newspaper?”

Yes, boys will be barbarians in the new installment of “Conan the Barbarian,” the film franchise that made Schwarzenegger a superstar. Dark-haired, beefy Momoa is at the forefront of new epic battles against very muscular rivals and a few horrific monsters as his Conan tries to save the great nation of Hyboria from supernatural evil.

“He’s a man. He fights, he f—s. He’s a pirate thief. He’s flawed,” Momoa says. “He’s a soldier and a warrior. He won’t fall in battle. Plus, women think he has this animalistic, primal side to him that’s sexy. Above all, he says what he means.”

The 32-year-old was born in Honolulu but grew up in Norwalk, Iowa. After high school, he returned to Hawaii, where he broke into acting with a role in “Baywatch.” Momoa also has starred on series including “North Shore,” “Stargate: Atlantis” and “The Game.”

He also plays Khal Drogo in the hit HBO series “Game of Thrones” and marvels at his newfound fame, including a recent appearance on Jay Leno’s show.

“I did refuse any makeup,” he says. “Someone wanted to put powder on me and I said, ‘Are you nuts? I’m a barbarian.’”

You sound a little upset.  What irks Conan?

I just talked to some of the foreign press, and they thought the movie was violent. It’s “Conan”! People know they’re going to watch “Conan” and not “The Prince of Persia.” Conan is supposed to kick ass. I think this movie does a great job of reinventing a classic. Tonight, I’m going to go watch an early screening of it with a bunch of my buddies and then go drink some beers. I know they’ll love the action in the movie, and I’m not worried about what they think of me as an actor. They know I’m an idiot.

How were you cast?

I was cast because I do “Game of Thrones” and the film had a mutual casting director who knew my work. He said, “This kid is our new Conan.” Actually, being cast as Conan wasn’t a nail-biting thing. Getting the HBO series was the nail-biter because I had to wait to find out, plus they didn’t want to cast out of America. It was seven months of ups and downs. With “Conan,” I was equally thrilled because it was a truly iconic role and a departure from who I am. Plus, it is iconic, so I had a feeling of, “Let me show you what I can do with it.”

3 Any worries that audiences  will be comparing you to Arnold Schwarzenegger?

Of course, but then again, Sean Connery and Daniel Craig are both James Bond and both phenomenal. We saw Jack Nicholson do the Joker in “Batman” and thought no one else could do it. Then Heath Ledger came along and won an Oscar for it. It’s apples and pears or peaches and cream. The point is that it’s a new day for Conan. … When I started this movie, I watched the first Conan movie and Arnold did a great job, but it’s 30 years later. It’s actually shocking that no one redid Conan before now. … [Schwarzenegger] saw the movie and passed on a message that I did a good job. That was fantastic to hear.

Did you bulk up for the role?

I did a lot of weight training to transform my body. I also learned Asian movement because I have to wield that big sword. Basically, I wanted to do that with the gracefulness of a cat. I even studied big cats and the way they walk and hunt. In the end, I put on about 35 pounds for both “Conan” and “Thrones.” It was fun to put on just weight for “Thrones.” I ate pizza and drank Guinness. On “Conan,” I had to put on muscle, which was tough. I had to eat lean protein and keep a crazy level of training up.

Did you come away with any good injury stories?

Oh, I almost died on the horse a few times. Once, the horse’s feet went out underneath him and I slid off his neck. When the horse fell, his butt almost crushed me but missed me by a narrow margin. I was also bucked off and broke a rib. You heard about my broken nose. Don’t tell my wife. There were also mornings where I had to crawl out of bed because my body was hurting so bad. So, I’d just put some Epsom salts in my tub and sit there. Then I’d go back to the set and do a few more stunts, knowing that if something really happened to me, I’d be … word deleted.

TR3S has some soundbytes from Rose McGowan & Rachel Nichols on the women (and men) of Conan:

Who says the new Conan the Barbarian movie is just for guys? Despite plenty of sword fights, explosions, and bone-crunching stunts, this latest theatrical reboot also includes some pretty dynamic female characters. Star Trek’s Rachel Nichols plays Tamara, a headstrong love interest for the Cimmerian warrior, and Rose McGowan portrays Marique, an evil witch. Both actresses spoke exclusively to Tr3s about their roles at a recent Conan press conference.

“It was fun being able to play a witch,” McGowan explained. “I don’t think I’ve ever played a character that was so unconstrained. Normally you’re asked to pull back with a character, but not here. We had a lot of fun with it.”

Interestingly Rose has played a witchy woman before, back in the early 2000′s, when she had a starring role on the cult series, Charmed. But for Conan, she’s exploring much darker territory. Her character uses magic for pure evil and comes with her own very unique look.

“I think Marique is kind of amazing looking,” McGowan said. “But it took six hours in the makeup chair to get that way.”

Rachel, on the other hand, plays the lady heroine of the film and a very sexy love interest for Conan. When asked about her chemistry with star Jason Momoa, Nichols had nothing but praise.

“I loved working with Jason,” she said. “There’s something about him. He’s a huge presence. He’s a big guy and he’s got that booming voice, but there’s also something really sweet about him.”

Don’t worry fellas, this revamped Barbarian is anything but soft. Throughout the film, Jason racks up quite a body count with some insanely intense action sequences (as Rose can attest).

“This movie has amazing swordplay,” McGowan said. “Seeing Jason and [villain] Stephen Lang go toe-to-toe was amazing. It was very impressive.”

Rachel was quick to chime in on the topic too, making sure that fans knew the women in the film are just as capable of swinging a blade as the boys. When speaking about her character Tamara, she said,

“Tamara definitely gives Conan attitude. There’s some hostility in their relationship. She is not the typical damsel in distress. I really like the modern idea of ‘I don’t need Conan to save me, I can save myself’.”

You can see just how “epic” Rose, Rachel, and Jason’s scenes get when Conan the Barbarian arrives in theaters next Friday.

The Daily Hampshire Gazette has an article about two local entertainment lawyers who were tied into the upcoming film, which has a lot of fascinating information about the rights situation and eventual production of the new Conan film:

NORTHAMPTON – Bringing a barbarian to the big screen takes a lot of civilized work behind the scenes. Just ask Northampton entertainment lawyer Frederick Fierst and his son, Daniel Fierst.

Both are in Los Angeles today for the red carpet premiere of the new “Conan the Barbarian” 3D movie. The elder Fierst, 63, is credited as an executive producer on the film for his role transferring the Conan franchise to new owners. The film opens worldwide Aug. 19.

California-based Paradox Entertainment Inc. acquired Conan and other intellectual property of author Robert E. Howard in 2003 for about $6 million, Fierst said.

Daniel Fierst, 28, worked for Paradox for three years as its president’s personal assistant. A 2002 Northampton High School graduate, he got to see the Conan reboot in its early stages, arranging meetings between Paradox and the relatively unknown production company that made the movie, Millennium Films.

“Everybody in Hollywood thought we were crazy for going with Millennium rather than one of the major studios,” Frederick Fierst said. “But we were convinced they were going to make the film instead of (sending it to) development hell.”

Paradox has been the licensing authority for other Conan commodities, including a comic book series and an online game, for years. But until 2007 all the Conan film rights belonged to Warner Brothers.

Fierst said the studio never followed through with a feature, and so when its claim lapsed, Paradox took it over.

The film is directed by Marcus Nispel, who is known for remakes of “Friday the 13th” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” as well as documentaries on musicians including Janet Jackson and George Michael.

In the title role is the heavy-browed Jason Momoa, who played another barbarian in the recent HBO miniseries “A Game of Thrones,” and also starred in the final season of “Baywatch.”

Daniel Fierst said Paradox wanted a “Conan” that was true to Howard’s stories from pulp magazines of the 1930s. He said the Conan played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in a 1982 film was a “hodgepodge bastardization,” borrowing a villain from a different Howard series, “Kull of Atlantis,” and making the hero a slave.

“That was outrageous to fanboys,” Daniel Fierst said. “They’d say Conan would die before he became a slave.”

Indeed, in a trailer for the new film, Momoa’s Conan says, “No man should live in chains.”

Frederick Fierst said Paradox went out of its way to make peace with Conan purists, donating to the fan-run Robert E. Howard Foundation. He said part of the new movie was screened at the group’s recent convention in Texas, and it was well received.

Last summer Frederick Fierst traveled to Bulgaria to see some of the filming. He said many of the special effects shots were done in a former Soviet propaganda studio, and there was also location shots around the country, including one in a gigantic cave where the movie’s climactic final scene takes place.

A partner at Fierst, Pucci & Kane on Gothic Street, Frederick Fierst formerly represented Mirage Studios, which sold the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise to Viacom in 2009 for $60 million. He said Nickelodeon is now developing a new Turtles animated series.

Acquiring the Howard universe involved a lot of trademark and copyright work, in which Fierst said he was helped by two associates at his firm, Amanda Schreyer and Hun Ohm, and paralegal Diane Kleber.

The New York Times has an interview with Stephen Lang about his career, touching upon his time as Khalar Zym in Conan, and with a quote from Marcus Nispel:

THE news that “Conan the Barbarian” was being screened for journalists in New York brought a mischievous grin from the ferocious warlord Khalar Zym, a k a Stephen Lang. “Do I own it?” he asked. “It’s an innocent question. I’d like to think I could do a romantic comedy, you know? But villains are a necessity. Without them, what’s your hero got?”

Mr. Lang is quick to joke. (“He’s so warm and inspiring and infectious,” he said of one director. “Not in a diseased way. In an enthusiasm way.”) But he combines charm with discipline. As Mr. Nispel put it,  “I wasn’t aware how extensive his theater background was, but doing ‘Conan’ is theatrical. It’s swords and sorcery, and even in the world of such theatrics there has to be an authenticity. You have to be able to deliver those kinds of lines and be believable. A lot of people just can’t.”

Inhabiting the author Robert Howard’s hallucinatory, hyperviolent world of Hyboria couldn’t have been further from Mr. Lang’s “White Irish Drinkers” character, an alcoholic laborer and his family’s own domestic terrorist.

(“Hallucinatory”?)

Here’s an unexpected interview, a 26 minute(!) chat with Alina Puscau, who talks about her experiences, including (of course) Conan:

Anyway, the next batch of videos are interviews with TalkingPicturesTV. First off, Jason Momoa, where he talks about picking nude Bulgarian women, bringing Howard’s prose to screen, and keeping Conan’s humanity:

We also have an interview with Rachel Nichols (pictured above in a backless dress, undoubtedly a remarkable feat of engineering), and sadly, though this is her first sex scene in a film, we find she had stunt boobs (hand-picked by Jason Momoa himself), so all those who are nothing short of obsessed with seeing more of Rachel may be disappointed. Those concerned about spoilers should probably miss this one, though, since Rachel gives away the ending(!):

The rule of three dictates a final interview, and it’s with Rose McGowan:

In more general Robert E. Howard news, the creator of Conan got into 68th place in NPR’s Top 100 Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels list. Since these lists are inevitably popularity-based, I’m taking it as a great sign that Howard’s on the list at all, rather than worrying about placement. One can only hope that the new film will boost REH’s popularity, and that we’ll be seeing him talked about a lot more, and in favourable terms.

I just bought a copy of Conan the Barbarian: The Classic Original Stories That Inspired The Film,  a mass-market paperback aimed to be an introduction to Robert E. Howard’s work by myself. Now, I’m not sure if it’s the exact same edition as the one that’s been reported elsewhere, or if this is a UK-only edition. Nonetheless, here we go!

Here’s the product description, taken from its Amazon page:

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Gollancz (21 July 2011)
• Language English
• ISBN-10: 0575113499
• ISBN-13: 978-0575113497
• Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.8 cm

The American Amazon page seems to be slightly different, as it has only 304 pages – over a hundred pages less than the one in my hands – so we’ll have to wait for information on our Nearctic Zone cousins’ version of the book.

Here’s the blurb on the back:

Conan the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer…

Discover how it all began…

Conan the Barbarian spawned a hundred imitators. Find out why with these original tales from his early life. From The Tower of the Elephant to Beyond the Black River, follow Robert E. Howard’s greatest creation as he cuts a bloody swathe through the history of Hyborea.

Over 350 pages of epic action, personally selected by the makers of the new film and the greatest Robert E. Howard scholars.

‘A hero of mythic proportion, fashioned by a storyteller who helped define what a modern fantasy should be’ Raymond E. Feist

CONAN

Warrior, Hero, Legend.

Pretty good! The only sore spot is the use of Hyboria – and even Hyboria is spelled wrong – but aside from that flub, it’s an excellent, tantalizing glimpse into the tales.

Inside, we find the contents:

“The Tower of the Elephant”
“Rogues in the House”
“The Frost-Giant’s Daughter”
“Queen of the Black Coast”
“A Witch Shall Be Born”
“The People of the Black Circle”
“Red Nails”
“Beyond the Black River”
“The Hyborian Age”
“Cimmeria”

Now that… that is a solid set. The stories used are the earliest available publications, so it’s mostly the Weird Tales texts which are used: not quite as good as the unexpurgiated texts, but given Farnsworth Wright’s incredibly light editorial touch, it’s the next best thing to pure Howard in most cases.

The way I see it, there are two perfect introductions to Conan for a first-time reader: “The Phoenix on the Sword,” being the first Conan story Howard wrote, is the default answer, since the best way to see the evolution of Conan as a character and Howard as a writer is chronologically. However, some people like reading the stories as if following the saga of Conan’s career, from young thief, to pirate, to mercenary, to king. In addition, some readers may be skeptical of reading Howard, being aware of his Conan tales’ undeserved reputation of being formulaic, misogynistic and anti-intellectual. The best story from the latter two points of view to start with is, in my opinion, “The Tower of the Elephant.”

I like to think of “The Tower of the Elephant” as the Conan story for people who don’t like Conan – or think they don’t like Conan. This is the tale I would give to people whose only knowledge of Conan is of the 1980s films, or the MMO, or don’t even know anything about Conan at all. This story features so many apparent subversions of the “Conan formula,” that it could almost be read as a deconstruction – if one weren’t already aware that it was one of the first Conan stories Howard wrote. I won’t spoil it for anyone, but suffice to say, if your opinion of Conan is that he always gets a girl, always defeats the monster or sorcerer, always seeks the easiest and most violent way to solve a problem, always wins his battles without so much as a scratch, and always ends the story with priceless treasure in one arm and a lusty babe in the other… well, you’ll see.

Better still, just about every story in this collection is a worthy inclusion. As with everything, Howard fans seem to disagree over what the best Conan stories are, but from my personal point of view, all the essential Conan tales are present. I consider “The Tower of the Elephant,” “Queen of the Black Coast,” “The People of the Black Circle,” “Red Nails,” and “Beyond the Black River” to be not only among Howard’s finest Conan stories, but among his finest stories of all. Certainly the fine folks who put together the two Best of Robert E. Howard volumes agree with all save “Queen,” since those four are included in those books.

In addition, “Rogues in the House” is an excellent counterpoint to “The Tower of the Elephant”: whereas in “Tower” we see Conan’s nobility and curiosity, “Rogues” shows Conan at his most murderous and violent. Yet even here, we see there’s a certain something in Conan which raises him above the level of mere villainous protagonist, an innate barbaric honour which classes him as separate from the truly wicked scum of the earth. “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter,” despite its brevity, is a powerfully evocative tale, Conan at his most mythic. I’m concerned that the tale’s possible allusions to the myth of Apollo & Daphne, and the legend of Atalanta, may result in a simplistic assessment of the story’s frenzied climax, but the story is just so good that I feel it demands inclusion all the same. “The Hyborian Age,” while not truly a story, offers an insight into Howard’s creative process, and shows that he had more in mind for the Hyborian Age than a mere playground for his Cimmerian creation. Finally, the magnificent “Cimmeria,” a poem which pre-dates the stories and may not actually be part of the Conan canon, closes the circle in a fitting manner: ending at the beginning. The only inclusion I really disagree with is “A Witch Shall Be Born,” a story I have many problems with – but John Clute and, evidently, the filmmakers and scholars composing this volume disagreed. I would replace the latter with “Black Colossus,” but that’s likely just me.

At the back, we have a short biography of Robert E. Howard, as well as a link to the REHupa website:

Robert e. Howard was born and raised in rural Texas, where he lived all his life. The son of a pioneer physician, he began writing professionally at 15, and three years later sold his first story to Weird Tales. A prolific and proficient author, he published westerns, sports stories, horror tales, true confessions, historical adventures and detective thrillers, all the while developing a series of heroic characters with whom he would forever be identified with: Solomon Kane, King Kull, Bran Mak Morn and, of course, Conan the Cimmerian. Between 1932 and 1935 Howard wrote twenty-one sword and sorcery adventures of Conan, ranging in length from 3,500-word short stories to novel-length tales of 75,000 words. He committed suicide at the age of thirty, in June 1936. For more information about Robert E. Howard and Conan visit the REHupa website at www.rehupa.com.

Conan the Barbarian: The Classic Original Stories That Inspired The Film is, in my opinion, one of the best possible introductions to Howard’s Conan stories available, short of the Del Reys. It’s a collection boasting some of the very best Conan stories in one easy-to-carry, relatively cheap (I got mine for £7:99 at Waterstone’s, though it might be cheaper elsewhere), with no potentially problematic extraneous content like illustrations, forewords, afterwords or essays. Just the stories. I heartily recommend it to anyone wanting to introduce someone to Robert E. Howard without committing to the Del Reys or the classic Lancers. The book would make a lovely gift for friends, family, acquaintances – anyone you think might enjoy them.

I’m probably not going to keep this, though I fully intend to use it as an ambassador for the author whose work has changed my life so much. I have enough copies of the original stories already. They shouldn’t be hoarded away in a private collection: they should be shared. And share them, I shall. So should you.

I’m still working on my review/appraisal of the Conan 2 script, so until then, here are a couple of little snippets to tide you over.

First, a new photo of Jason Momoa’s Conan has turned up courtesy of RONON at the Robert E. Howard Forums:

Very nice, but more awaits beyond the link…

Dave’s Trailer Page has a 1080P file of the Red Band Trailer available. When I get time, I’ll do screengrabs.

Script dude Sean Hood confirms Conan does not pray to Crom in this film, and Howard fans can breath a sigh of relief:

Yes, I can confirm that Conan does not pray to Crom.

I should’ve reported on this a long time ago, but HighDefDiscNews has something on the Conan the Barbarian 1982 Blu-Ray release:

Universal has plans to bring the 1982 film “Conan the Barbarian” and the 1984 sequel “Conan the Destroyer” — both of which star Arnold Schwarzenegger — to Blu-ray Disc on August 2nd. Tech specs for the releases include full 1080p Hi-Def and DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio sound. The titles are both available for PRE-ORDER over at Amazon and each carry $18.99 price tags. The bonus materials set to be included on the releases are listed below.

CONAN THE BARBARIAN BONUS:

• Feature Commentary with Director John Milius and Arnold Schwarzenegger
• Conan Unchained: The Making of Conan
• Art of Steel: Sword Makers and Masters
• Conan: From the Vault
• Special Effects
• The Conan Archives
• Theatrical Trailers
• BD-Live
• My Scenes
• Pocket BLU APP

CONAN THE DESTROYER BONUS:

• BD-Live
• My Scenes
• Pocket BLU App

In addition, various sites are reporting a list of deleted scenes, though this is not sourced, so grain of salt:

New scenes include -

- RESTORED FOOTAGE of

“Conan the Gladiator: Conan vs. Guara”
“Additional lines in the Serpent Tower”
“Conan Embarks to the Mountain of Power additional cinematography”
“Extended footage of Conan’s brutal torture at the hands of Thorgrim and Rexor”
“Conan speaks to the princess before final battle”
“Thulsa Doom’s body rolls down stairs during finale.”

Also in 1982 movie news, apparently work has commenced on the demolition of the Cueva de San Roque in Almeria, Spain, popularly known as Conan’s cave: the setting for Conan’s discovery of the Atlantean sword. Locals are protesting the destruction of this piece of local cultural heritage, which is being paved over for a mall. That’s absolutely heartbreaking: surely the mall company would be better off building around it, and making the cave into a little tourist attraction?

Back to 2011 Conan, and The Devil’s Double Myspace page has an interview with Jason Momoa. Jason’s section starts at around the 3:15 mark:

Devil’s Double Premiere and Conan the Barbarian speaks!

Hollywood Interviews with Andrew | Myspace Video

How excited are you for fans to see the reboot of this series?

I’m super pumped. I haven’t got to see it yet in 3D. I got to see the trailer in 3D, I’m like – I’m nervous, right? It’s like your first (film), it’s a big thing, but we gave it our all, and I know it’s going to be amazing.

So how would you say that this version differs from the originals?

I haven’t seen the original.

Why?

… I just never have! It came out when I was two, I think, and I was raised by a single mother. I just never had a video of large orgies and people getting their heads cut off. We’d watch, like, Gone with the Wind, you know? My mom was a fan of Hitchcock, and stuff like that, you know. So I haven’t seen it yet. I’ve never played a character that’s been played before, so that’s why they hired me to play the new Conan.

So Conan watched Sound of Music?

No, I’ve never seen Sound of Music! No, Gone with the Wind!

Gone with the Wind!

Gone with the Wind’s my mother’s favourite film.

Last question: you’ve obviously worked out, how taxing was that physical aspect, to get into the role?

How taxing was it? It was pretty taxing.

What was your routine? What did you have to do?

Eat boiled chicken breasts every two hours and lift very heavy things.

So now that it’s over, can you kind of relax?

No, they won’t leave me alone! They keep needing me to be in shape and stuff, so I keep lifting heavy things and eating chicken breasts.

Well, you’re getting paid for it…

Yeah, f*** yeah, man, I’m getting paid for it!

Love that little wink at the end.

It has been reported that the first Conan trailer was extremely popular, being one of the top downloaded videos at some sites (I believe Yahoo?), as well as racking up an awful lot of views on Youtube. This site talks about how many of those views are due to ads: I’m not quite sure what the significance of this is, not being very tech-savvy, but I presume it’s important.

Access Hollywood has an interesting article (with spoilers for the Game of Thrones finale) where Jason Momoa talk a little about the filming of Conan, having his children on the set – d’awww – different builds and workouts for Conan and Khal Drogo, and what’s next for him:

The actor’s children were also on set when he filmed his first lead role in a film – the title part in “Conan The Barbarian,” which is due out on August 19.

The motion picture was actually shot after the “Game of Thrones” pilot, but before the show became a full-fledged series.

Jason netted both roles for a host of reasons, including performing a tribal dance, the Haka, in front of at least one casting director who also nabbed him for “Conan.”

“When you have a big 6’5” Hawaiian, screaming at the top of his lungs, like ready to rape, pillage and kill anyone in front of me, these… casting directors were kind of very scared,” Jason laughed. “It worked.”

It helped that he looked the part too – big and brawny and with a scar in his eyebrow that Jason revealed he received in a harrowing fashion from a man he believes was taking part in a “gang initiation.”

“It was crazy,” he explained of what happened several years ago. “A guy smashed a pint glass in my face. I got a little over 140 stitches in my face. It helped get those mean roles.

“It just doesn’t grow there anymore,” Jason said of the white line through his eyebrow hair. “I got my wife beforehand, so… if she doesn’t like it, too bad. She likes it.”

Although Jason did the Drogo and “Conan” roles back to back, he had a very different diet to transform his body into different shapes for the two parts. “Conan” was a diet of “boiled chicken,” while Drogo allowed the 6’5” actor a few indulgences.

“That was actually the heaviest I’ve ever been,” he said of his physique for the Khal, who in the books, Jason noted, was around 7’ tall. “On ‘Conan’ I had to stay really lean. Drogo’s not sitting around doing sit-ups, he’s basically just crushing his wife and crushing beer and eating whatever the hell he wants to. He’s a king, so… I drank Guinness and ate pasta all the time so it was fantastic.”

Jason will have a chance to celebrate both of the projects next month when he heads to Comic-Con in San Diego. The actor will be a part of the “Conan The Barbarian” presence, and reunite with his “Game of Thrones” cast including Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jamie Lannister), Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister) and his on-screen bride Emilia Clarke, whom he refers to as his “little sister.”

“I’m definitely excited to go down there because I don’t know the next time I’ll see them. It’s going to be a nice little reunion and then ‘Conan,’” Jason said. “It’s my first lead in anything, so I’m really pumped just to see it. I haven’t even [gotten] to see it yet. By then I’ll have seen it in 3-D and everything and it’ll be pretty cool.”

That’s it for this installment!

The much-anticipated Robert E. Howard’s The Frost-Giant’s Daughter from Studio Guignol has hit the internet!

Excellent locations, good quality film, great use of stock footage, nice costumes, well-integrated special effects, original soundtrack – plus it’s all Robert E. Howard, by fans, for fans. Considering the budget and resources available, I think they’ve done a fantastic job.

Well done, guys!

DrSolarMOTA at the Robert E. Howard Forums alerts us of an intriguing new publication listed on Amazon:

Conan the Barbarian: The stories that inspired the movie [Mass Market Paperback]

Robert E. Howard (Author)

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey (July 26, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 034553123X
• ISBN-13: 978-0345531230

Howard scholar Patrice Louinet dropped by to explain more:

This is a REH (and REH only!) “best of” Conan volume. I’ll see if I am allowed to post the contents here or if you’ll have to wait for the official announcement.

320 pages is likely only enough to include a comparative fraction of stories: even the shortest Del Rey volume (The Bloody Crown of Conan) had 384 pages.

“The Frost-Giant’s Daughter”

“The God in the Bowl”
“The Tower of the Elephant”

“Black Colossus”

“Rogues in the House”

“Queen of the Black Coast”

“The People of the Black Circle”

“Beyond the Black River”

“The Black Stranger”

“Red Nails”

“The God in the Bowl” and “The Black Stranger” would be particularly good choices because they aren’t available on Wikisource or Project Gutenberg, unlike the other stories printed in Weird Tales and elsewhere.

The three King Conan stories might not appear, since Conan the Barbarian is a “younger Conan” movie, and so they might not fit in with Del Rey’s plans, though “The Phoenix on the Sword” and “The Scarlet Citadel” are fine tales. Certainly The Hour of the Dragon is far too long for inclusion in a 320 page collection, despite it easily being one of the best of the Conan stories. I doubt the unfinished fragments will make an appearance. It’s always possible one of the mediocre Conan tales like “Xuthal of the Dusk,” “Iron Shadows in the Moon,” “The Devil in Iron,” “The Pool of the Black Ones,” or “The Servants of Bit-Yakin” could get a break. I doubt “The Man-Eaters of Zamboula” or “The Vale of Lost Women” stand a chance for, well, obvious reasons.

Another possibility is that the stories chosen may reflect plot elements, characters and themes in the film. This is more difficult to narrow down: I suppose one could see some broad strokes of “Black Colossus” in Khalar Zym’s planned conquest of the world, a bit of “A Witch Shall Be Born’s” Salome in Marique, perhaps the dynamic between the pampered Tamara and Conan could be in the vein of Yasmina and Conan’s relationship in “The People of the Black Circle.” These are real stretches, though, and I think a plain old “Best of Robert E. Howard” volume would be the likeliest option.

My guess (don’t hold me to it): “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter,” “The Tower of the Elephant,” “Black Colossus,” “Queen of the Black Coast,” “The People of the Black Circle,” “Beyond the Black River,” and “Red Nails.” That rounds up to 307, allowing 10 or so pages for illustrations, photos and similar visual material, as well as any introductions, forewords, afterwords and supplementary material. It’s a happy coincidence that the stories are not only in written sequence, but also flow into a reasonable chronological order: Conan starts as a fierce young Cimmerian warrior in the far north; then a naive, curious thief in Zamora; then a murderous mercenary captain and general; then a bloodthirsty pirate; then a wily, ambitious warlord; then a grizzled, experienced forest runner; and finally a seasoned adventurer in the Black Kingdoms. A discernible character arc without sacrificing Conan’s intrinsically unchanging nature, and an easily followable globe-trot around the Hyborian Age.

If and when Patrice is cleared to reveal the contents, or an official announcement is made, the blog will keep you updated. Until then, why not play along at home, and think of possible choices for the volume?

“The Phoenix on the Sword” – 24
“The Frost-Giant’s Daughter” – 9
“The God in the Bowl” – 19
“The Tower of the Elephant” – 23
“The Scarlet Citadel” – 35
“Queen of the Black Coast” – 31
“Black Colossus” – 33
“Iron Shadows in the Moon” – 31
“Xuthal of the Dusk” – 31
“The Pool of the Black One” – 27
“Rogues in the House” – 23
“The Vale of Lost Women” – 17
“The Devil in Iron” – 31
“The People of the Black Circle” – 79
The Hour of the Dragon – 173
“A Witch Shall Be Born” – 49
“The Servants of Bit-Yakin” – 42
“Beyond the Black River” – 57
“The Black Stranger” – 73
“The Man-Eaters of Zamboula” – 33
“Red Nails” – 75
“The Hyborian Age” – 20

*Thanks to Jeff Shanks for the page count.

In an interview for SF Signal (hey guys!), Michael A. Stackpole mentioned a little snippet on the upcoming novelization:

MS: I’m just finishing up my latest tie-in project, the novelization for the Conan the Barbarian movie which will be out in August, 2011. I’m talking with a number of other companies about doing work in their universes. The two factors I look at when picking projects are 1) how much the property interests me and 2) whether or not it has an audience/market share which I can tap to buy my other books. Because of the digital revolution, I have a choice: either I work for someone else at a tiny percentage, or I work for myself, turning out independent books like my In Hero Years…I’m Dead. Since the payoff for the latter is much better, and the process is quicker; any tie-in properties will have to be things I really love with a huge audience. (Hence my working in the Conan universe. )

Yes, he really used a smiley there. In addition, SF Signal provided an image of the book cover, from Amazon.com:

Holy smokes, my humourous mockup from last July wasn’t that far off!

I’m presuming the photos described will include a few publicity stills, as with other novelizations, as a preview of the film. Obviously Harry Turtledove wasn’t contacted (thank Mitra) but I’m somewhat perplexed they went with that underwhelming still over the much better poster image. I also note that Robert E. Howard’s name is nowhere to be seen. But then, I’m not in marketing: this could just be a placeholder for the final cover, after all.

Editorial

Stackpole also discusses Robert E. Howard in this interview, but since it doesn’t specifically pertain to the film, I figure it’s better to discuss it in an editorial.

I’m not the first author to notice that this is the arrival of a golden era for writers. We can explore our worlds and characters in ways, as you suggest in your question, that haven’t been open to us since the days of the pulp magazines. Because of some projects, and as research into ways we can approach fiction, I’ve been dipping back into the stories from the 1890s up through the 1950s. If Robert E. Howard were writing today, we’d never have heard of Conan because he only wrote one Conan novel in his life, and that was a paltry 75,000 words long. Right now traditional publishing doesn’t have a use for anything that doesn’t fit into the 100,000 word long novel box; but readers have a voracious appetite for it. Shorter and medium-length works will be coming back with a vengeance.

Being something of a rabid pedant (shocking, I know) I don’t like playing this sort of game. If Robert E. Howard was alive today, how do we know he’d be writing short fiction, as opposed to the exact stuff that sells? Stephen King did short fiction, but he adapted, and started writing the doorstoppers people seem to crave nowadays. Why shouldn’t Howard attempt the same when that’s where the money is? Then again, how do we know Howard would be an author in today’s environment at all? Too many variables were involved in Howard writing the way he wrote: he listened to the stories of people who experienced Indian raids and the Civil War firsthand, black people who grew up in slavery, friends and family who come from a world utterly different from nowadays that are impossible to replicate. And what about his family situation: since tuberculosis is readily treated in the western world, and Cross Plains is not the same as it was at the turn of the 20th Century, who’s to say his life would be anything like how it was in the 1930s boom town? Indeed, considering Howard did write Conan, how do we know what western fantasy would be like without his influence – would his modern Conan be influenced by The Lord of the Rings or The Broken Sword? (You see what I mean by being a rabid pedant?)

In any case, Stackpole makes an interesting observation on the difference the Internet has made to authors:

More importantly, writers get to return to being what we have always been: entertainers. Sure, stories can deal with lofty themes that illuminate the human condition; but they can do that in short forms as well as massive novels. Readers get to vote directly with dollars and with their opinions because of the net. Every author’s website becomes his living room, and readers can interact with him there, asking questions, letting him know what they’d like to see more of. And the digital age makes it so much easier to interact with other authors, sharing things back and forth.

And my remark about the living room is never more true than when you look at being able to do a Twitter #hashtag chat in real time; or when you use something like Second Life where folks can come and actually hear an author doing a reading. I hold weekly office hours in Second Life, where readers and writers can come into one location, as questions about stories and their writing, hear about what’s going on in the industry and all. And I do readings there, affording folks a chance that they only get if I come to a convention near them.

Contrast that with Robert E. Howard living in the middle of nowhere in Texas and only being able to interact with his fans and peers by snail-mail or when someone like E. Hoffman Price decided to drive to Cross Plains to meet him. Heck, I’ve had conversations in Second Life about some of my books with people who’ve read them in translations I didn’t even know had been made.

It is an incredible time to be a writer, and is only going to get better.

Following up from the not-yet-totally-official Conan the Barbarian Blu-Ray release, an intrepid unknown with a camera phone has taken what could be a snap of the Blu-Ray’s cover. While it’s small and practically illegible, it’s possible to discern some interesting factors – particularly the extras, which include a first look at the new Conan the Barbarian!

The picture has popped up on the Internet Movie Database and the Robert E. Howard Forums, but the original photographer appears unknown. The picture has a small resolution, nothing much to look at aside from the fact that the classic Renato Cesaro cover is being used, instead of the photo manipulations of other DVD releases. However, using my top secret enhancement software (erm, Adobe Photoshop) I’ve enlarged and cleared some sections of interest on the back.

First, the blurb. It appears to be more or less the same which has appeared on previous DVD releases, albeit slightly truncated towards the end:

Through the history of mankind, the times that are most recorded in mythology and song are those of great deeds and fantastic adventures. Such a time was the Hyborian Age. Such a tale is the story of Conan the Barbarian.

Cimmerian Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is captured as a child after his parents’ savage murder by raiding Vanir led by Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones). Fifteen years’ agony, first chaned to the Wheel of Pain grinding grain, and then enslaved as a Pit Fighter, forging a magnificent body and indomitable spirit. Freed miraculously one day by his owner, Conan, with his companions set forth to conquer the archvillain…

Hopefully this time around they won’t misspell “Hyborian,” as the wide-screen DVD release did, though at least they left off “Subotai the Mongol.” In addition, there’s the “Blu-Ray Exclusive” box that many DVDs feature:

EXCLUSIVE U-CONTROL
Go Beyond the movie and customize you own hi-def experience
Enjoy interactive activities while you are watching the movie
PICTURE IN PICTURE
With just one click, access interactive cast and crew interviews and behind the scenes footage, all without interruption to the movie experience.

Exactly what those interactive activities will be remains to be seen.

However, here’s the most interesting section:

Of particular interest is the Additional Features box. Here’s what I interpret the runes to say:

ALL NEW EXTENDED CUT!
WITH NEVER BEFORE SEEN FOOTAGE

“CONAN UNCHAINED”
THE MAKING OF CONAN

THE CONAN ARCHIVES &
VAULT PRODUCTION STILLS

ALL NEW CAST &
CREW INTERVIEWS

COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF
ROBERT E. HOWARD’S STORIES
DELETED & ALTERNATE SCENES

EXCLUSIVE LOOK AT NEW
“CONAN THE BARBARIAN” FILM

This is purely guesswork, but an anonymous contributor at Comic Book Movie appears to corroborate with the gist of it. One wonders exactly what that first look could entail: are we talking a twenty-minute preview, or just the teaser trailer?

Editorial

The release looks excellent, and Conan the Barbarian fans have been waiting a long time for it’s return. The extended cut with hitherto unseen footage is particularly tantalizing, going by a list revealed to The Arnold Fans: will the fabled Beast with Three Eyes finally make his debut? Will Milius resist the urge to pull a George Lucas/Steven Spielberg and add some extra CGI elements to the film? Only time will tell.

Being a Howard fan, two other things immediately leapt out: “Conan Unchained,” and the “Comprehensive Study of Robert E. Howard’s Conan Stories.” The first, assuming it’s one and the same with the DVD documentary, is an excellent overview on the making of the film marred by the creation of one of the most persistent and irritating of Howard myths: the idea that Howard was actually hallucinating the ghost of Conan. This is probably not a result of any mean spirits on Milius’ behalf – after all, he seemed to think it gave him a sort of kinship with Howard. Unfortunately, without the context needed to understand exactly what Howard was saying, this eventually mutated into people believing that Howard was experiencing paranoid delusions of millenia-dead warrior kings threatening to kill him if he didn’t write their biographies. If this is indeed the same “Conan Unchained,” then it would be nice if there were some qualifiers to explain that, no, Howard was not Elwood P. Dowd and Conan was not Harvey the Púca.

The “Comprehensive Study of Robert E. Howard’s Conan Stories” is also of great interest to me. What sort of study are we talking about? Hopefully they don’t just reuse “Conan: The Rise of a Fantasy Legend,” which seemed less a retrospective on Conan than a justification of Conan the Barbarian’s divergences from the stories with a few figures from Howardom popping in for a soundbyte (Don Herron, Ed Waterman & Jim Keegan, for example). I’d really love if they got someone like Glenn Lord to do an overview of the stories with comments from critics, authors, artists, scholars and fans, just to show there’s so much more to Conan than a few films.

CPI has been great in boosting the presence of Robert E. Howard in recent years, and I’m anxious to see if this extends to the upcoming Blu-Ray release. Here’s hoping.

EDIT: Thanks to Steve Harris for pointing out the correct spelling of Renato Casaro.

Here’s a nice Christmas post for everyone: in an interview for Comic Book Resources, Luke Leibmen, the executive producer for both projects, still has them in the running.

The article is mostly of concern to those following the Red Sonja comics from Dynamite, where apparently the current series posits that the Norse Gods are around in the Hyborian Age, and live north of Vanaheim — I’ll spare you what I think of that). Of particular interest is this snippet:

“It sounds like they are lining up a new director for ‘Sonja.’ I think ‘Conan’ is hitting theaters soon, and if that proves itself in the market, it will bode well for both ‘Sonja’ and ‘Thulsa.’ On ‘Thulsa,’ we just finished the script and are looking for financing partners. Hollywood is always ‘hurry up and wait.’ Using ‘Conan’ as an example, this new incarnation took more than 10 years to hit screens. Warners had it, put it through countless rewrites and directors, Warners lost it, now Lionsgate is finally releasing it.”

So it seems Red Sonja Redux and Thulsa Doom: Origins are still in the pipeline: if Conan the Barbarian (2011) is a success, that could mean more Sword-and-Sorcery at the cinema. I’m sure Red Sonja and Thulsa Doom fans will be thrilled. Maybe it would finally result in a cinema release for Solomon Kane. Merry Christmas, all!