Over at BlackGate.com I’ve posted the first in a series of articles exploring/celebrating the SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN, as collected by Dark Horse in the past few years.
This first post takes an in-depth look at Volume One, where the unmatched art team of John Buscema and Alfredo Alcala began weaving their pencil-and-ink magic with the help of writer/editor Roy Thomas.
Sword and Sorcery doesn’t get any better…
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The First Book of the Shaper Trilogy
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(Audiobook also available.)
The Second Book of the Shaper Trilogy
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The Third Book of the Shaper Trilogy
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The Zang Cycle, a collection of dark fantasy tales born in the pages of WEIRD TALES and BLACK GATE.
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Hi John, I read your article on Savage Sword Of Conan and just wanted to leave a comment. I first read Conan in the comics with Conan The Barbarian 12. I was 11 years old and hooked. Roy Thomas is one of the best writers to ever work in comics and was a favorite of mine from being a long time reader of The Avengers. It was obvious he loved adapting and creating new stories of Conan, Kull, Solomon Kane, and later Bran Mark Morn and Almuric. By the time issue 15 hit the stands I had spent some time at my grandmothers farm and snagged up paperback copies of King Kull, Conan The Warrior, and Conan The Conqueror (all Lancers) she had laying around (she was a mystery fan mainly but I could always find other goodies among the hundred or so books she always had on hand). I didn’t see the first Savage Tales but did buy 2-5 off the stands. Red Nails in 2 and 3 is still my favorite comic story of all time. I was staying with my sister in Newport Beach in 1974 and was haunting the newsstand waiting for that first issue of Savage Sword Of Conan (also the first issue of Planet Of The Apes which came out at the same time). What a joy when it finally arrived at the local 7-11. I read every issue through 26 when I gave up comics for about a year. This was a great time to be a Robert E. Howard fan. Zebra was releasing amazing collections of his with Jeff Jones covers, Fantastic had de Camp/Carter Conan stories, I managed to buy a few of the Grant hardcovers and several of the Barry Smith Conan prints he did. What a great time. I still have SSOC 1-60 as well as Conan The Barbarian 1-115 so it hasn’t been so important to me to pick up the Dark Horse collections. With the SSOC collections I was turned off by them leaving out the first four parts of The Hour Of The Dragon from Giant Size Conan 1-4 but including the last two parts that appeared in SSOC. Even with that, I will say that these collections are a bargain and contain better story/art than most modern comics. I also must say that from the first time I read it, the Alex Nino story in SSOC 6 impressed me. Still, when I think of SSOC it is always the terrific Buscema/Alcala stories, the Frank Brunner adaption, and the Barry Smith/Tim Conrad Worms Of The Earth, and the already mentioned Alex Nino story. Great first article on this title and I eagerly await the next one. Take care, John Speakman
Thanks, John! You’re a bit older than me, so you came into it a few years before me. I really wished they’d collect those Planet of the Apes magazines! They were awesome too. I had a few of the color PotA comics and really loved them. Always been a huge Apes fan (my favorite is BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES–which I saw in the theatre when I was like 5 years old–and people wonder why I’m weird). My favorite Savage Sword art teams were Buscema/Alacala, Buscema/DeZuniga, and Buscema/Chan. These SSoC collections allowed me to read issues that I’d never been able to afford. They’re pretty great. My first CONAN paperbacks were the ones with the Frazetta covers (Ace?)–I vividly remember when my grandmother bought me a copy of CONAN THE USURPER when I was like 10 years old. Thanks for the comments!