*Note: I forgot to put up the review for #12! That will be corrected after issue #13*.



Savage sword of Conan #13, Aug 1976 issue (although the indicia says July). 



Cover by Richard Hescox.

Table of contents:

The Gods of Bal-Sagoth, a Conan adventure
A Conan for collectors, reviewing three hardcovers published by Donald M. Grant
When the little people strikes, an essay on these underground-dwelling folk so prominent in Arthur Machen's fiction but also in several REH tales
The right hand of doom, a Solomon Kane story.

The frontispiece is once again by Tim Conrad, still in Barry Smith mode but showing idiosyncratic Conrad traits:




Let's first start the review by fast-forwarding to the letters column, swords and scrolls, because Roy has something to explain: why this issue's main story is a reprint!



More on this subject next issue!

Great art here, as Conan fights off a very nasty-looking shark who was about to chomp down on someone hanging to a few floating planks. The beast disposed of, the Cimmerian realizes that the man he saved is none other than Fafnir, and the two men share the makeshift raft until they reach a nearby island. (I could begrudge the appearance of the providential island, but since the boat sunk after hitting a reef, I suppose it makes sense that there would be land nearby. The mist must have hidden it).

Once on terra firma, Conan means to pursue the vendetta Cimmerians have against the Vanir, although Fafnir would really rather be friends. But a barbarian's gotta do what a barbarian's gotta do, and the two men start hacking at each other.



After a while, Fafnir basically goes "aw, to hell with this nonsense" and stops fighting. Blood-mad but still chivalrous in his way, Conan insists that his opponent raise his axe again, but Fafnir just tosses it away and declares that this pointless fight is over. The madness fades from Conan's eyes and a great bromance can now begin.



Because things were never quiet during the Hyborian age, before three panels have elapsed a girl chased by a two-legged dinosaur erupts unto the scene! Conan is the first to jump and grab the beast's neck, but it throws him back. Fafnir then tries his luck and manages to break it. The girl haughtily demands to know who the two men are, declaring that this is the island of Bal-Sagoth, the oldest land in the world. She herself is Kyrie, from Vanaheim like Fafnir, and the daughter of Rane the reaver. Years ago, her father left the western ocean and travelled east to the Vilayet to find new opportunities of plunder. But a storm sank his ship, and his young daughter was washed ashore on the island where her red hair caused her to be mistaken for the local goddess of the sea, Aala. Since then, she acted as the avatar of the goddess, although the old priest Gothan knew she was not divine. When the time was ripe, Gothan had Kyrie abducted and although he dared not slay her, had her rowed across a lagoon to a wild region of Bal-Sagoth, where the great lizard (Groth-Golka, last of its kind) was supposed to get rid of her.



Kyrie enlists the aid of the two men, intent on reclaiming her position of power. She hopes that enough people still believe her to be a goddess to counter Gothan and his allies.

The gods of Bal-Sagoth is truly an excellent Conan story. Gil Kane, when he drew it, did so as the new regular artist on Conan the barbarian (replacing Barry Smith, who had quit after issue #15), but he put so much effort into it that he didn't see how he could maintain such a rythm and still manage to make ends meet. He therefore left after two issues, being replaced by… a returning Barry Smith, who would produce some of the best work of his comic-book career.  Still, these two issues show that Kane could have been a very honorable choice as Conan's regular artist.

(Kane would become CtB's artist later in the 80s. Unfortunately, after a couple of issues where he inked his own work, he would be paired with Ernie Chan and with Danny Bulanadi, two of the least appropriate inkers imaginable for Kane's very tight pencilling style. Talk about a totally wasted opportunity).



A Conan for collectors
a review by Fred Blosser. 

This is actually a pair of reviews fused into one article, telling us of three highly collectible books. The first is a handbound, deluxe clothbound edition of People of the Black Circle, published by Donald M. Grant and illustrated by David Ireland. I believe I once saw that book in a second-hand bookshop in Quebec city, and balking at its 20$ price tag just left it there. I could kick myself.



Mr. Grant followed with two other books: A witch shall be born, illustrated by Alicia Austin in a style making the Hyborian world look like the Aztec empire, and The tower of the elephant, illustrated by Richard Robertson. This book also contains the god in the bowl, another short story.

The right hand of doom
Script by Doug Moench, art by Steve Gan, adapting a Solomon Kane story by Robert E. Howard.

This particular story is introduced by a gorgeous Solomon Kane picture drawn by Robert Gould and inked by Duffy Volhand. WOW!!!



Now that is Solomon Kane!!! I love Gould's work, and most of my Michael Moorcock books have covers that he painted. The first piece of art that I purchased (Mmmmhhh… in 1978, I think?) was "The white wolf", a limited edition print, signed and numbered. (Despite my youthful beliefs, it never became worth a lot… I saw it for sale on e-Bay for little more than I paid for it. But still, I love it and it is still on a wall in my house.



(This is not actually my copy; it's one from an e-Bay auction.)

The Kane story is a minor one dealing with supernatural revenge. "Serviceable" is the best way to describe it. The artwork by Gan is O.K., but I prefer the interpretation of Wenzel, or that of Weiss and adams.




Next issue (maybe!) : Shadows in Zamboula!

*sniff* I miss #12. *sniffle*

Savage sword of Conan #12, June 1976 issue

Another beautiful Boris cover adorns this issue, and although the hooded figure is an invention, the skeletons do have a role to play in the main story.



The frontispiece is another Tim Conrad illustration, again in a style evoking Barry Smith… or even, in this case, Dave Sim's impression of Barry Smith as seen in the early days of Cerebus. (I like the hairy knuckles… that's a detail we didn't see very often, if ever, in a Conan comic).




Table of contents:

The haunters of castle crimson, a Conan adventure
Chivalry is alive and well and living in Berkeley, an article about the society for creative anachronisms
The hyborian kingdoms, a new chapter in the adaptation of REH's essay the hyborian age.



The haunters of castle Crimson
script by Roy Thomas
Artwork by John Buscema and Alfredo Alcala
adapted from the unfinished story the slave princess by Robert E. Howard.

Robert Howard wrote for a living, but since the late 20s and early 30s were a hard time economically in the US, he had to write a lot and try to diversify his output as much as he could to make ends meet. His talent for crafting historical adventure stories somehow (and oddly enough) never managed to get him into the pages of Adventure, a high visibility magazine where his prose would have been in good company with that of writer Harold Lamb… but luckily for us, a new magazine published by Farnsworth Wright (or Weird Tales fame), Oriental stories, accepted many of Howard's historical tales. (Oriental stories became The magic carpet after nine issues).

These non-fantasy stories were often turned in Conan yarns by later writers, either in the Lancer paperbacks or in Marvel comics.Most of them work very well, as is the case here.

The main character, Cormac FitzGeoffrey, has many character traits in common with Conan. He may be more taciturn, but overall it's quite easy to substitute one man for the other. Another Cormac Fitzgeoffrey story, The blood of Belshazzar, was successfully adapted in CtB#27 (June 1973) as the blood of Bel-Hissar.A third Cormac tale, Hawks of Outremer, has (as far as I remember) not been Conanized).

Here we are told the story of Castle Crimson, a fortress in the barren triangle, the desert region between Koth, Turan and Zamboula. It has been built by Kothic adventurers a long time ago, and is apparently under Khorajan jusrisdiction. Following the events of Black colossus and At the mountain of the moon god, seen in SSoC #2 and #3, the castle has been given as reward to Malthom, who led the mercenary forces that ensured victory over the hordes of Nathok the veiled one. The castle's name comes from a gory part of its history, twenty years prior: its lord at the time had been besieged by a superior force, and after a traitor had opened the castle's doors, the lord had accepted to surrender if his men were spared. But after the surrender, all had been slaughtered anyway. Their bones are still piled up in the lowest dungeons.

Conan, fresh off his career as leader of the desert-dwelling Zuagirs, happens upon a city in the process of being plundered by other desert raiders. There he saves a slave girl named Zuleika whom he takes with him. He takes her to Castle Crimson, having heard that his erstwhile commander and friend Malthom now rules there; he has a plan that may mean a lot of money for the two men. As it happens, Zuleika bears a striking resemblance to the daughter of a certain sheik who, three years before, had sent her to be married to a powerful local lord, one Khelru Shan, to cement an alliance. Only the girl had disappeared and was presumed dead. Conan means to ransom the girl by having her pass for the actual princess.

Conan goes to Khelru Shan first, since the man has more money than the lost princess's father. He brings him and his army to Castle Crimson, where Khelru Shan can see (from afar) that Zuleika indeed looks a lot like his fiancée. It looks like everything's going to work out, when Malthom reveals that he has fallen in love with the strong-willed Zuleika.




The two men fight but are interrupted by bad news: first Zuleika has been abducted, and second Khelru Shan has decided that taking the castle would spare him from paying a ransom for the girl. Matlhom and Conan get to business: one to defend his castle, the other to catch whoever has taken Zuleika. The abductor hadn't gone far, and the Cimmerian sees him making his way (with a bound Zuleika on his shoulder) towards the castle's dungeons. He catches with them right in the chamber where the skeletons are still piled up, and there the abductor reveals his infamy: he is the same traitor who, 20 years ago, opened the castle's gates to the invaders. He has now done the same service to Khelru Shan, whom he expects to reward him handsomely for having secured the princess.

The two men fight, and in the process the traitor is lightly cut; drops of his blood splatter the skeletons, who magically come to life to take their revenge! What they failed to do 20 years before, they mean to do today: push back the would-be conquerors of Castle Crimson. Leaving Malthom's men alone, they cut Khelru Shan's forces to pieces. Then they collapse.

All's well that ends well? Not quite! The princess's father has come calling with his own army! But before fighting can resume, Zuleika walks out of the castle, goes to her "father" and reveals herself as his daughter. As was the case with Khelru Shan, the father isn't quite sure this is actually the right girl… but who's to say what three years of slavery will do to a person? And so he accepts Zuleika as his lost daughter, and furthermore agrees (as per her request!) to have her wed Malthom, with whom she's also fallen in love. (Was Zuleika really the princess? Roy cunningly suggests that it might not be the case! But since everybody's happy, why make a fuss?)

And so things work out in the end. A Wedding! I love weddings! Drinks all around!





Notes:

- Conan is 31 during this adventure.

- Malthom will cause a terrible continuity problem in the Conan comics, as we've mentioned in the Conan the savage thread. His retiring to Castle Crimson after his days in Khoraja makes sense, and we will later see how his family eventually falls into the clutches of political opponents who murder him, and how Conan avenges his death. But wait! The name "Malthom" had been given to a character originally called Amalric in the REH story Black colossus, a name change justified by a surfeit of Amalrics in Conan stories in the mid 70s. But when Black colossus was readapted in the pages of CtB in the early 90s, the name Amalric was used again… no more mention of his being called Malthom. No sweat, because a guy can easily have many names; I even remember seeing somewhere (but I forget where) the expression "Amalric, sometimes named Malthom". Except that this Amalric dies before he has any chance to reside in Castle Crimson! The best explanation fans came up with was that the mercenary company to which Conan belonged in Black colossus was led by twin brothers named Malthom and Amalric. Not perfect, I know, but this is comics!