ROY THOMAS: REVISITING CONAN

[MattBrady]

by Daniel Robert Epstein

When DK Publishing decided to put together the Ultimate Guide to Conan the Barbarian there was only one person qualified to author it, Roy Thomas. Thomas is one of the original fanboys who made good in comics. He was an active member of Silver Age comic book fandom which is a group of fans who started to correspond with each other. Eventually that led to Thomas being hired at DC Comics which quickly led to a job at Marvel Comics. When Stan Lee scaled back the number of comic books he was writing for Marvel, it was Roy Thomas who took over books like The Avengers, Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandoes and X-Men. But Thomas’ legacy was cemented when in 1970 he began his work on the comic book version of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian. Thomas went on to write hundreds of Conan comic books over the decades.

Conan: The Ultimate Guide to the World's Most Savage Barbarian is a gorgeous book filled with dozens of drawings of Conan by some of his most celebrated artists. Thomas has distilled everything that made Conan so popular into one excellent book.

Newsarama: Whose idea was the book?

Roy Thomas: DK Publishing approached me with editor Brian Saliba.

NRAMA: Before you started this book, you hadn’t done much Conan work in a while.

RT: Nothing since they went to the Dark Horse. I started working on a series or two but things got derailed but of course I did write Conan on and off for about twenty-something years though I hadn’t done anything of late. I was working on some ideas for Red Sonja which is coming out in the next few weeks but not Conan. I just never got around to trying anything else.

NRAMA: Just to nail things down, since the rights issues can be tricky, who owns Conan?

RT: Conan is owned by a company called Paradox Entertainment. They just bought it in the last year or so.

NRAMA: Did the people that owned it before ever want you to do some Conan work?

RT: Well not really but at that stage there wasn’t anybody doing any Conan. There were several years when there weren’t any Conan comics. I was working on a miniseries with Conan up through the middle to late 90’s. Whenever Marvel had the rights, I was doing the last book about Conan but there was nothing else.

NRAMA: Do you feel like this new book is good for somebody who’s just seen the movies and they’re ready to read some Conan?

RT: Yeah, I think so. If you’re interested in Conan as he was written in books and comic books because those are the only two sources that we decided to use. There’s nothing in there about the movie, there’s nothing in there about any videogames or board games or anything like that. It’s the prose stories and the comics period.

NRAMA: Is there seamless transitions between the Conan novels and the comics?

RT: There are in some areas and in some areas not. There are a few that don’t really fit, in particular the adaptations of the two movies. Tor did dozens and dozens of novels back in the ‘80s through the ‘90s. I didn’t feel any obligation to try to get in all Tor Conan novels because I felt they were more potboilers than the comics even were. Part of my inspiration for this was I remember having a conversation with George Lucas. At the time I was starting to do the continuation of Star Wars comics after adapting the movie. I think he already had ideas for a comic strip which would follow not too long afterwards. I said “How do you reconcile all the works?” and he goes “Very simple, what happens in the movies, really counts. Everything else is gossip.” I like that approach. That’s the way I try to do it. That was my major contribution to trying to come up with a way that it wouldn’t offend [Conan creator Robert E.] Howard fans by lumping everything together and saying everything was of equal weight, that the stories I did and [Conan novelist L. Sprague] de Camp had the same weight and legitimacy that Howard stories do because I’ve never felt that way.

NRAMA: At this point, how much research did you need to do to write this book?

RT: A tremendous amount because for one thing, I don’t remember everything I wrote let alone everything Howard or de Camp wrote. I didn’t go back and read every story but I found I had to go over a lot. Tom DeFalco who had done two or three of the earlier DK books like Fantastic Four said to me “Every time I start one of these things I think this is going to be the easy one.” Of course it never is. In order to get some facts and get them straight, I had to go over in some detail virtually all of Howard’s stories again, a lot of pieces of the comic, and lot of pieces of the other prose stories. Luckily Jim Neal, a good friend of mine who died ten or so years ago was a big Conan fan in every way. He was six foot seven inches tall, 300 lbs and worked with old weapons. He had done a study of Conan’s life and put all the comic stories into chronological order which I had used and added to for the Conan Saga magazine. So there was a lot of work done by other people that I could refer to. But really it was just piling up dozens and dozens of books and magazines on the floor and going through them. It was a lot of work and I don’t think I would do that book again for that money but I’m happy I did it.

NRAMA: When you picture Conan, do you picture your own image or is it [Frank] Frazetta or Barry Windsor-Smith or John Buscema?

RT: At different times I picture different things. Put probably it’s John Buscema as much as any but I’m influenced by Frazetta and the early work by Barry Smith. It’s just that John and I did so much together. But in a certain story I might be thinking something else. Sometimes I start a story and I see it done by a particular artist but I think it’s sometimes it’s an amalgamation but there’s a lot of Frazetta in there. There has to be. It’s destined to come out.

NRAMA: Is it difficult to make Conan relevant for today’s audience?

RT: In terms of the rest of the comic book market, it certainly hasn’t been that way because it’s become one of the larger hits in comics. I don’t know that much about sale figures but sale figures are not what they were at the height of when Marvel was selling them. But of course when Marvel was selling Conan it was 20, 30, 40 cents per comic, it was a different market. It was still a mass market through about the 70’s and maybe up until the 80’s. Now in the comic shops, Conan is very successful which is nice to see. I don’t think anything can ever be as important to Conan as several things in the past, the original stories, the pairing of the original stories as put together by de Camp. Then of course the movie made him a household name. I don’t think today’s comics can be as important as those were to Robert E. Howard legend even if they are carrying on the tradition. They’re good comics, I had to read a couple of them to do this book even though I don’t follow any comic I don’t write anymore.

NRAMA: In the past few years I’ve interviewed people like Len Wein and Marv Wolfman and they have difficulty getting stuff going at Marvel and DC…is it the same for you?

RT: Well DC offered me JSA with Jerry Ordway but then when I submitted my ideas it became very apparent they wanted me to do their ideas rather than what I wanted to do. So we sort of kissed each other goodbye and there was no great love lost.

NRAMA: Do you at least pitch stuff?

RT: Well I did a plot for the JSA thing because they asked me to. I didn’t go to them; I’d given up on that. Mostly I’m shunned out of it but once in a while something comes along and gets opened up but mostly I’m shut out, especially by DC. But they did approach me with a JSA thing but then they wanted me to do their JSA thing instead of mine so I figured to hell with that.

NRAMA: Besides the Red Sonja comic book, what are you working on in comics?

RT: I don’t have permission to say what it is. I’m doing a couple of strange little series but they’re not superhero series. It’s a different kind of thing for Marvel but I just started. It’s going to be two or three miniseries. It will amount to at least a dozen or so issues over the next year. I’ve done some work on another Red Sonja and they claim they want me to do that but I have to see if they really do. Also the fact I’m almost 66, I’m officially retired anyway. I feel like I’m keeping pretty busy for somebody who’s retired, nothing like Stan Lee busy, but fairly busy.

NRAMA: Do you see the Marvel movies?

RT: Yeah. I don’t go to that many movies but I tend to see the Marvel ones because they’re characters I’ve written and in some cases, helped create, like Wolverine. So that’s nice to go see it. I haven’t seen The Punisher movie. I haven’t seen the new Superman movie yet. I never went to see any of the Batman movies after the first one. I didn’t like the first one much and I hated what I’d seen of the others when I saw bits of them on television. But I kind of like the Marvel movies. X-Men is convoluted for me but then so were the comics. I never could follow them either but I do like the approach in general. I thought the two Spider-Man movies were excellent, especially the second. I liked the special effects in The Hulk except for the fact he was 10 or 15 feet tall, which is too big, but other than that he was like the Hulk I was writing. They’ve all had their good moments here and there.

NRAMA: You don’t sound bitter.

RT: Well I really despise a couple of people that have kept me from doing some characters I was associated with and was interested in writing. If they get hit by a truck I’m not going to send flowers. But on the other hand, why should I waste my time. I’ve written thousands of comics. If I need to write one or two more or even a dozen or so more comics in order to establish what little place I might have in the history of the comic book medium, it’s already way too late for me. If I haven’t secured that little part by what I’ve written from 1965 to the present, I never will. I don’t care what much of the editorial or what passes for editorial minds in comics. But on the other hand, there have been some people bright enough to hire me so what the hell. My real motto is that I don’t need the bastards. I don’t need to do any work. I don’t need to do anything. I don’t need to do any magazines or write comics or do anything except sit here but I enjoy the comics and I love doing it. Comic books have been very good to me, maybe not as good as Stan or some other people, but pretty good.

Conan: The Ultimate Guide to the World's Most Savage Barbarian is 162 pages, currently in hardcover and is priced at $24.99, and is available at bookstores and online retailers.

[Godfather]

Wow, Roy is harsh. Kind of a shame that these guys are "shunned". I'd like to see some Roy Thomas stuff again.

[Skinshark]

I followed Conan through the 70s and really dug the chemistry between John and Roy. It's a shame comics are not more like animation in a way. Look at how respected and revered the 9 Old Men were, and how much they had to offer and teach.

Comics have certainly become a direct extension of the youth culture so much in fact that you're an old timer by your mid-thirties.

=s=

[Banana_Oil]

Originally Posted by Godfather

Wow, Roy is harsh. Kind of a shame that these guys are "shunned". I'd like to see some Roy Thomas stuff again.

Roy's doing the Marvel's adaptation of classic books soon.

[Arvandor]

Originally Posted by MattBrady

NRAMA: You don’t sound bitter.

Was the interviewer being sarcastic? Bitter? He sounds absolutely curdled.

[skeletorjr]

Next to Marv Wolfman and Gerry Conway, Roy Thomas is in my top 3 comic writers of all time. I cannot wait to get my hands on this Conan book. I tried the Dark Horse book for a while, but Roy Thomas' work on the character is second only to Robert E. Howard himself, in my humble opinion.

[Scarlet Mage]

Roy Thomas desreves to be treated better by comics in general but to be honest, his take on the former Earth 2 characters got a little too bogged down in ancient continuity for me and distracted from the otherwise fantastic stories he was writing. I would have loved to see him write that JSA book but I suspect it would have to be an Elseworlds book. The man created so much that is the 616 continuity for Marvel that I think it'd be great to have him play there a little, even if it's just to show younger fans what the old guard is capable of.

[gwangung]

Originally Posted by Arvandor

Was the interviewer being sarcastic? Bitter? He sounds absolutely curdled.

He's being a crotchety old curmudgeon, which he's earned the right to be....

[Dusty]

Thomas and John Buscema's Conan still stands as one of the greatest comic series ever! That cover of issue 100 is just incredible, and I remember the day that came out. I have always considered it to be much more shocking and heart wrenching that the death of Elektra. Belit had been aroung for 42 issues, not roughly a year like Elektra was.

[Ye Olde Iowa]

Interesting interview, though it is really sad to see such a legendary creator with such animosity towards the business. Its really too bad that it seems to happen so often.

I've never read any Conan comcs, though I think this guide is a cool idea. The DK guides and whatnot have always been really well done. I constantly refer to their DC Encyclopedia whenever I come across a character I've never seen before (which, after a decade absence in comics, and between 52 and Infinite Crisis, has been quite often).

Back to the point, I enjoyed the heck out of the movies (no matter how crappy they are looking back) when I was a kid (I ate up all that stuff, plus stuff like Beastmaster and Clash of the Titans). Any Conan recommendations?

[Simon DelMonte]

I've been grabbing the Conan TPBs from the library when I can, and they hold up quite well. They are sometimes a bit over the top, especially in how the women are overseuxalized (even for comic books), but the stories are gripping and the characters (including the women) are believable. Compared to much of Marvel's output from the same time, these are very intelligent and gripping without being overly complex. Buscema's art is great, as well.

[delawarejoel]

I was a huge Conan fan when I was a kid and am about 2 or 3 issues from giving up on the new series. I cant decide if I dont like it or if I'm just not interested in those kind of stories anymore. But Roy Thomas is a great writer and a great storyteller and I would love to get this book. Roy is another classic comic book writer who knew it was no sin to write narration and dialogue and all that and work with an artist- not just pages and pages of nothing but pretty pictures. The Conan in my mind is John Buscema's, too. And after three years of the DH series, I'm tired of endless stories about "Conan steals something and wakes up a nasty god / demon and then kills it" - it's almost by rote. Maybe this is how Howard wrote the stories but it makes for a sense of repetition in a monthly comic book.

[Dusty]

Originally Posted by Ye Olde Iowa

Any Conan recommendations?

Yes, Dark Horse has reprinted the old Marvel Conans, and have completely digitally recolored them. (Looks excellent!) So far, The Chronicles of Conan vol. 1-10 are currently available, covering the first 82 issues. Vol. 11 is due in December. It features recolored art by Barry Windsor-Smith, John Buscema, Gil Kane, and Howard Chaykin. Mostly John Buscema from issue 25 on, and mostly BWS from issues 1-24.

[dpg]

This is a great book. Picked it up about a week ago and have read it everyday since.


The Conan comics now are good but nothing like the original.

I highly recommend that if you find any old Savage Sword magazines, pick them up for a great read.

[whitemarkd]

Originally Posted by Scarlet Mage

Roy Thomas desreves to be treated better by comics in general but to be honest, his take on the former Earth 2 characters got a little too bogged down in ancient continuity for me and distracted from the otherwise fantastic stories he was writing.

I liked Thomas's original sense of "retroactive continuity" (filling in the gaps in canon) to today's version, where nothing is sacred.

Actually found a good write-up of this here.

[Cray_ws]

Roy Thomas may be a Legend in the field but that doesn't excuse his bitterness. Its the sign of the times as new artist come and go, Roy is no different. How bad was DC's JSA proposal for Thomas and Ordway? Its not like those two are getting much work, Jerry Ordway might be, I get the sense that he's more appreciative of the job offers he gets.

Roy Thomas isn't being mistreated, if anyone is doing the mistreating it's himself. Whatever principles he has about continuity or characters, it's up to him to decide whether its more important than getting job offers.

[Johnny Smith]

Originally Posted by Godfather

Wow, Roy is harsh. Kind of a shame that these guys are "shunned". I'd like to see some Roy Thomas stuff again.

Marvel needs to do an "Old Guns" marketing promo for the older talent in the industry

[Mercury]

NRAMA: In the past few years I’ve interviewed people like Len Wein and Marv Wolfman and they have difficulty getting stuff going at Marvel and DC…is it the same for you?

RT: Well DC offered me JSA with Jerry Ordway but then when I submitted my ideas it became very apparent they wanted me to do their ideas rather than what I wanted to do. So we sort of kissed each other goodbye and there was no great love lost.



-firstly, this recurring theme of veterans who helped shaped the industry who are willing and able to do work is sickening. why isnt this the sort of question posed to Joe Quesada and Dan Didio? heres a newsflash: people like R.T, Wein, Wolfman, etc., FINISH THEIR DEADLINES ON TIME. Give some work to the proven comic writers and let "Hollywood" super-stars go work on their WB shows, or whatever it is thats their first love.

-secondly, i mentioned the JSA/Ordway gig to the gang months ago. it goes to show what several grandmothers around the country will tell you: 'Mercury never lies.'

[JoeGKushner]

The Chronicles of Conan vol. 1-10 are currently available, covering the first 82 issues. V

I think there are a few missing though.

For example, isn't there a few issues with Red Sonja latter on that are omitted due to rights issues? Ironic since she was originally created at Marvel...

And the guide is pretty good, but I'm almost 100% sure that it too is missing Red Sonja which is a damn shame since it incorporates so much of the new comics.

[Anthem]

Originally Posted by JoeGKushner

I think there are a few missing though.

For example, isn't there a few issues with Red Sonja latter on that are omitted due to rights issues? Ironic since she was originally created at Marvel...

And the guide is pretty good, but I'm almost 100% sure that it too is missing Red Sonja which is a damn shame since it incorporates so much of the new comics.

Problem is that Red Sonja is a Robert E. Howard character that is not a Conan character. She only appeared in a Howard story about the Siege of Vienna by the Turks in the 1500s. Wasn't a slim babe in a chainmail bikini, either, though I believe she had red hair.

Really, the Red Sonja character we all know and love was created by Roy, but because he insisted on using the name of a REH character, the Howard estate has every right to say that she is a separate artistic property.

I'll bet that the Arnold Schwarznegger character in the Brigitte Nielson Red Sonja movie was originally supposed to be Conan, but it would have cost the studio twice as much to use the name.

There's a classic story from back in the 40s, when Republic Studios (I think) created a Captain Africa character for a serial. King Features, which owns the Phantom, sent a representative to see a preview and then informed Republic that the movie was too close to the Phantom. For $40,000 (or so) they would sell Republic the right to use the Phantom. Republic looked at the situation, realized they could film new scenes with a different costume for $20,000, and proceded to do so and issue the Capt. Africa serial.

[MillerLite]

I don't think I've read anything of his that I didn't like, and it's a damn shame he isn't used more often.

[WebHobbit]

Roy Thomas helped build the Marvel Universe in a large capacity and I think the industry should treat him with total respect. Same thing with Doug Moench -it sucks how he wasn't even considered for the new Moon Knight...(but it is great and he seems to approve of Huston).

[terry]

If anyone is a fan of Conan in the comics this book is an excellent overview of his career . As well as loads of art by both the Marvel and Dark Horse artists , some Frazetta stuff and art by the Wandering Star artists is included . If you have any of the DK Marvel or DC books you'll know what to expect.

Terry

The Robert E Howard Comics Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheREHcomicsgroup/

[iyamwhatiyam]

Originally Posted by Dusty

Thomas and John Buscema's Conan still stands as one of the greatest comic series ever!

Testify. As a kid, Buscema's black & white pages defined the appearance of Hyboria for me every bit as much as Howard did, and Roy Thomas was such a worthy scribe for those thousands of stories. I think the new series is really terrific, but on some level Buscema and Frazetta will always represent the Conan 'look' for me. I have never been able to enjoy Barry Windsor-Smith's art, however.

[astronato]

With all the many books that come out monthly by the big two publishers, you'd think they would have something to do for a guy the calibre of Roy Thomas.