It started that well because Wood and Cloonan were name creators who brought their own following to the books and got people to buy Conan who normally wouldn't. When Cloonan left, a big chunk of that audience went with here. Wood's fans didn't atay either because it didn't jive with typical Wood projects and was no shade on his Northlanders, which is what some folks expected with him on Conan. However, without Wood and Cloonan attached, the book would not have had initial sales that high to drop off. It would have started in the 10-12K range like most Conan #1 issues recently and dropped off form there. So "better" artist and writer may have made Conan fans happier, but without those 2, it doesn't sell to non-Conan fans to hit that 20K sales mark.

-M

Possibly, but I had a number of retailers say to me that they were ordering Conan again for the first time in years because they could sell Wood and Cloonan and they couldn't sell Conan at all and had stopped ordering it a couple of years previous to Wood being announced on the book. Ihad to go to 6 or 7 shops beforeI found a copy, they had all underanticipated demand on the book form Wood and Cloonan fans even though they ordered 5+ shelf copies, something they hadn't done inyears (most ordered pulls only on Conan so only people who preordered copies could get it prior to Wood's run for a year or two). Of course by issue six, most of them were down to ordering pulls only because the Cloonan fans left with her and the Wood fans were disappointed it wasn't like his other stuff. Wood's Conan also got features on Newsarama, CBR and other major comic newssites of the time prior to coming out to build up interest in the book, something that hadn't been true of Conan previous to that, and sales on Road of Kings and the Conan minis and on the latter issues of Cimmerian were just plain bad. A new #1 wasn't going to regain retailer confidence unless there was a salable name attached to it, and retailers weren't going to order shelf copies of it, so 20K would have been impossible without the push Wood and Cloonan gave it. Unfortunately for Wood, a scandal involving him broke around that time and alienated some of his fanabse, which also got play on the newssites too. I believe it was just after Cloonan left, so it was like a double hit to sales on the book coupled with her departure. She was supposed to come back for at least another arc, but never did, and neither did the people buying the book because of her. Add to that the Conan hardcore folks who dropped the book because it was different and then you had the sales reach an ebb, but they would not have been as high as they were to fall if they had different creators only palatable to Conan hardcore fans.

Fans may still have had some goodwill towards Conan when Barbarian launched, but retailers didn't, they had lost it before them and only the names Wood and Cloonan generated any goodwill with them, and they order the books, not the fans, so their goodwill is far more important to determining the success and sales level of the book than fans.

-M

there were accusations of inappropriate behavior towards female associates at conventions and towards female collaborators.

-M

As others said, Gollancz published the originals when the stories were no longer covered by copyright in the United Kingdom. Before that, the only instance of original Conan stories being published (that I know about) was a book edited by Karl Edward Wagner, The essential Conan, published in 1998.

Now while I think De Camp had no business messing with Howard's prose at all, the corrections he made to Howard's originals are extremely minor. Having read both versions numerous times, I never noticed a difference (except one time where Howard used a racist slur that De Camp changed, and of course in the way De Camp slightly changed The Black Stranger to make it fit in what he saw as "the Conan saga".)

I've seen writers claim that they hated Conan the first time they read it, while claiming that they grew to love the character when they "finally" had access to the original stories... What a lot a nonsense. Maybe they hated the pastiches so much that it coloured their impression of the Howard Conan stories, but there's no way someone could hate a De Camp-edited Howard tale and love a pure Howard one. They're practically identical.

I'm not Dark Horse's accountant, but I will say this: I would have paid money for those books. 

He was certainly taking his job seriously; I have a lot of respect for all the effort he put into staying true to Howard's stories. Admittedly there are things I would have liked to see handled differently, but that's neither here nor there; Truman did a good job... and one far superior to Wood's. He knew his Hyborian Age geography, for one.

One thing that truly annoyed me with the Dark Horse run is its adoption of the so-called "Dark storm chronology" (or a chronology very close to it). While I fully agree that "The Frost Giant's Daughter" should occur very early in Conan's career, I find the placement of "Queen of the Black Coast" after "Iron shadows in the moon" contradictory to the information given in those two stories. In the first, when Conan first boards the ship Argo and joins its crew, much is made of his many qualities.  A fellow others look up to, a natural leader, a fighting man it's good to have around, etc. In fact, there's basically only one important quality that isn't mentioned : that of his having any shipboard experience. In Iron Shadows in the moon, meanwhile, Conan smiles when he hears he might meet pirates, hinting that he's got plans for them; he also knows all about the laws of the Brotherhood. To me, that would make Queen of the Black Coast the earlier tale, the one in which he gets his first experience of the sea.

What"s more, QotBC says this about our man: "Naive as a child in many ways, unfamiliar with the sophistry of civilization, he was naturally intelligent, jealous of his rights, and dangerous as a hungry tiger. Young in years, he was hardened in warfare and wandering, and his sojourns in many lands were evident in his apparel". This definitely suggests a young man, and requires placing QotBC early in his career; pretty much where the original chronology had played it, in fact, after his having spent a few years frst as a thief, then as a mercenary soldier.

(Also, the original chronology pretty much had Howard's seal of approval, as stated in his letter to Miller: "Your outline follows his career as I have visualized it pretty closely. The differences are minor." Among the minor differences would be the need to put "Xuthal of the dusk" before "The devil in iron", as the former is referenced to in the latter, something that Dark Horse properly corrected).