Edited by Leo Grin | Illustrated by Jae Woo Kim
40 pages

This issue was printed in two editions. The deluxe edition, numbered 1–75, uses a black linen cover with foil-stamped emeraude text. The limited edition, numbered 76–225, uses an emeraude cover with solid black text.

DELUXE COPIES DESTROYED: 0

LIMITED COPIES DESTROYED: 40

Features a pictorial article about a new Howardian discovery by [redacted], essays by Gary Romeo and David A. Hardy exploring the influence of history on Howard’s fiction, plus verse from Darrell Schweitzer, a huge Letters column, art, and more.

EXCERPTS:

Howard clearly had a bent toward heroes slightly outside the law, men of honor with their own personal code, usually men untainted by the hypocrisies of civilization. Men capable of dealing death, but with personal mores they would not violate. Although on the surface it seems he never got around to writing about Billy, the truth is that the tales of Conan owe quite a bit to him. It’s sobering to realize what an effect Billy the Kid may have had on Conan and, through him, on twentieth-century fantasy.

— from “Inspirations from Life” by Gary Romeo

He was a Texas original born and raised in the Lone Star State. As a graduate student he did his field work in Kenya, where he dealt with dangers as diverse as angry, spear-wielding Maasai, charging Cape Buffalo, and a bite from a baboon drugged with PCP. His sharp eye and sharper intellect laid open the secrets of murder and mayhem from prehistory to the twentieth century. His verdict on Mankind could have come from an REH story, “We and our cousins — the gorillas, the chimpanzee, the monkeys, including the baboons — are a rather uncivilized lot, fiercely proud and independent, but at the same time treacherous, greedy, aggressive and cruel.”

— from “Conquistadors of Doom” by David A. Hardy

I ran him through with my sword,
and proceeded past the murmuring ghosts
that lapped up his blood like dogs,
and broke down the doors of the infernal palace….

— from “The Companion’s Tale” by Darrell Schweitzer