A few weeks ago Subterranean Press had a 50% off sale for some of their books on eBay, including their deluxe edition of Kull: Exile of Atlantis. That’s $75 for what’s been costing guys $150 since it was released. Ouch — I’d hate to be one of the buyers who got screwed like that. Do you think it’s possible that someday soon $75 will look too expensive for this book? Hard to be sure, but recently there was at least one auction on eBay with a starting bid of only $50. If they get down to $25 or so I might have to buy one and replace my trusty Del Rey paperback.

If there was ever a good example of why I’ve decided to destroy my back stock of Cimmerians this fall, this is it. No way do I want them washing ashore on eBay like dead fish for decades to come, saturating the market and selling for far less than what loyal subscribers paid for them, leaving my readers feeling like suckers for paying full price.I got the material out to readers, I paid the contributors — now it’s time to satisfy the collectors who supported the journal and allowed it to thrive.

I’ve long believed that Edgar Rice Burroughs tenth novel, The Mucker, had a stronger impact on Robert E. Howard than those of Burrough’s works featuring his better-known characters. This occurred to me when I worked up a small article on the evolution of Conan’s character; how the wandering barbarian is at first a careless thief, than a mercenary soldier and pirate, and at last evolves into a responsible frontier scout, and finally a benevolent king. Burough’s Billy Byrne undergoes an even more drastic change of character though the two lengthy serials that ran in “All-Story Cavalier Weekly” in 1914 and 1916, and gathered together in book form in 1921. We do not know for sure if Howard read the magazine appearances, but the book was among those in his library, along with several other works by Burroughs.
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Fantasy author Charles Saunders wrote a lot of essays about REH in the Sword-and-Sorcery boom years of the 1970s, but this week on his blog he presents one that for whatever reason never made it into print at that time. It concerns a subject as dear to his heart as it was to REH’s: boxing. Titled “Ringside at Cross Plains,” it should make for a fine bit of Sunday reading for all of you Cimmerians out there.

This weekend is the 2009 Howard Days, and I wish great joy to those who can make it; we won’t be able to attend once more. But I thought some of you would be interested in the first trip I took to Cross Plains — one that could well be considered the forgotten Howard Days.

Everyone knows, pretty much, about the 1986 trip where the town was visited by Rusty Burke, Vern Clark, Bill Cavalier, Nancy Collins, Mark and Deanna Kimes, Steve Ghilardi, Tom Kovacs, and Graham Flanagan, on the fiftieth anniversary of Howard’s death. It was far from the first time people had come on that pilgrimage, as Leo wrote once, but it was probably the most significant. Eventually Project Pride, the Howard Museum, and Howard Days would all derive from this beginning — but it didn’t happen all at once.

Although I didn’t go on this first trip, I heard much about it; especially how it was impossible to really grasp the isolation of the post oaks and sand rough region without going there myself. So when the next time a trip was planned, I made sure to go. Burke was still in Houston, so that was where we met up. I flew in, only one of two times I ever flew that didn’t involve work. It was 1989 then, in November. They had just bought the Howard House, but not yet done anything with it. The group consisted of Rusty, Vern, Indy, Tim Arney, Gary Adrian, and myself. Though Glenn Lord couldn’t go to Cross Plains with us this time out, I did get to meet him in Houston for the first time, a great and funny guy. I believe we had good weather for the trip, as best I can recall, despite it being November. I can remember sitting on the Howard porch at night, and a stray cat coming up to us, whom we promptly named “Bob.”

We did all the traditional stuff, it seems: visited the house and the library, went to the Howard Paine University and the Brownwood grave, and were feasted by generous locals. As with the first trip, we got fed by Project Pride members Charles and Lou Rodenberger (a tasty chili, instead of the now standard — though wonderful — brisket on Caddo Peak). I remember they had a marvelous library, not what you’d expect from the Cross Plains area. We also met Charlotte Laughlin and her husband, who had done the heavy lifting in determining the books in Howard’s library. Perhaps most unique was a trip to the “other” Caddo Peak (East, not West), which was technically not legal, and decidedly hazardous. I still have a piece of rattlesnake skin I collected there. It was a beautiful sunset view, though, perhaps even more so than the familiar one.

Perhaps the reason this Cross Plains trip has been so overshadowed by the others is that it coincided with the 100th mailing of REHupa, which was a huge event on its own. It will always be a big event for me, however, though I have been back there a few more times, as it was my first.

“I won’t be wronged. I won’t be insulted. I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other people and I require the same from them.”

John Wayne in The Shootist (1976).

My general awareness of Marion Morrison, aka, “John Wayne,” started early on. My father (along with my paternal grandfather) was and is a John Wayne fan. I was probably viewing John Wayne flicks in the cradle. My specific knowing of whom John Wayne was, without a doubt, began when I watched a broadcast of True Grit right before I entered the double-digit stage of my lifespan.

John Wayne, portraying Rooster Cogburn, was a dangerous man. I definitely figured that out, way back in 1976. One film critic described the Duke as embodying a spirit of “muscular Americanism.” Whether one agrees with all that implies, John Wayne most emphatically did so. Just as Conan of Cimmeria, without a doubt, personified Robert E. Howard’s vision of “muscular barbarism.”

John Wayne died thirty years ago today.

Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learnt something from yesterday.

— Inscription on John Wayne’s headstone.

“In fact, I’m something of a gourmand — I believe you spell it that way.” Robert E. Howard to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. December 1932.

Howard Days in Cross Plains is just around the corner. Thus and therefore (and especially since I’m unable to attend this year), I find myself yearning for fare of the Texan persuasion. My first trip to Howard Days (in 2006), I stayed over in Dallas the night before. One of my Texan cousins steered me to a little hole-in-the-wall called Lee Harvey’s in a fairly disreputable quarter of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Excellent burgers, cold beer and billiards (and discussions regarding Dan Brown and the Knights Templar) made for a memorable evening.

Soon after pulling up to the Alla Ray Morris Pavillion in Cross Plains the next day, I savored the hearty fare purveyed by Joan McCowen and the other estimable members of Project Pride. Nachos and chili just do a pilgrim’s soul good, I must say.

The gustatory highpoint (figuratively and literally) of both my trips to Robert E. Howard’s hometown would have to be the Saturday night barbecues at the Caddo Peak Ranch. Do not breath a word of this to my Kansan brethren, but Texan BBQ has it all over KC barbecue. Marjorie Middleton (and many others) put on a mouth-watering spread of Texan proportions, with attendant Lone Star hospitality.

However, my trips to Cross Plains were but the latest of my personal forays into the splendrous fields of Texan cuisine. Ever since the Christmas of ’76, I’ve visited Texas and sampled its culinary wares. Having relatives in the Dallas area helps mightily in that regard. Probably my most memorable visit (in regards to Texan food) was in 1980. In the short week I was there, my uncle took me to the legendary Tolbert’s Chili Parlor (founded by a Texan with the most Howardian moniker of “Frank X. Tolbert”) and a Tex-Mex restaurant (name unremembered) which served a delectable (and still unknown-beyond-Texas, at the time) dish called “fajitas”. Yeah, I thought my Uncle Gary Bradbury was pretty cool.

Robert E. Howard was, by his own admission, a bit of a “gourmand.” Judging from what Rusty Burke cites in “The Gustatory REH,” Howard was not laying claim to a false title. For a small-town Central Texas boy who reached manhood before the Second World War, REH’s tastes in food were wide-ranging (indicative of his far-reaching studies in numerous other areas). In his letters, Howard speaks of his appreciation for Mexican, Italian, German, Creole (and, by extension, Caribbean) cuisines. Such might be more likely expected (in that era) from a well-heeled sophisticate born to a more cosmopolitan clime.

That said and noted, I believe Robert E. Howard would be highly pleased by the latest (July 2009) issue of Saveur magazine, which is on newsstands as we speak. Most fortuitously (considering that Howard Days are just around the corner), the editors and writers of Saveur (several of whom have Texan connections) decided to dedicate their most recent issue to the food-ways of the Lone Star State. To my knowledge, Saveur has never devoted an entire issue, cover to cover, to just one region, state or country (depending on whether you’re a Texan or not, the “state” or “country” designation may be problematic).

So, a singular honor has been granted to Texan cuisine by the finest cooking magazine in print (which Saveur is, in my opinion). Several chapters in the July 2009 issue relate specifically to Robert E. Howard’s opinions and tastes. Here’s a few… (Continue reading this post)

I have posted a large batch of REHupas on eBay, the last ones I will be selling in fact, save for some odds and ends and a few more recent issues that I’m not quite ready to part with yet. This current batch has some really neat associational items included with some of them, including some inter-a.p.a letters and a rare REH Days postcard. See the whole list here.

Each REHupa mailing is filled to the brim with rare Howardiana. Folks continue to score some incredible deals, getting large and notable mailings for a relative pittance. My personal view these days is that anything under $50 for an old REHupa, and anything under $30 for a newer one, is a good deal given their long-term rarity and the amount of collectability they have. For information on why REHupa mailings are rare, collectible, and an essential cornerstone of any good Howard collection, see here.

I discovered the following gem several years ago while reading through some old REHupas, and wonder if my fellow blogger Steve Trout remembers it. Steve is currently the longest serving REHupan, having been a member since 1976 with only a short gap of inactivity during all those years.

In his ‘zine Beltric Writes #10 for July 1979, Steve ran a copy of a Howard-related newspaper item he had come across. The funny thing from a modern perspective is the author of the piece. Steve wrote, “This here on the right is from the letters column of the Detroit News,” and then reproduced the following tidbit:

JUNE 11

There must be something special about the 11th of June. It was on June 11, 1936, that Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian, committed suicide. On June 11, 1979, the Detroit News decided to drop the Conan the Barbarian comic strip. And also on June 11, I decided to drop the News.

— Gary Romeo, Royal Oak

Back then, of course, Gary was unknown to Trout and the rest of REHupa, he was just a name in a newspaper. It would be almost two decades later, in October of 1997, when Gary would sign up with REHupa and formally “meet” Trout and the rest of the a.p.a.’s top-flight Howardists. I’m guessing Gary never knew that his first appearance in the pages of REHupa was actually in 1979! Earlier even than Rusty!

PS — June 11, 1979 has an even greater, non-REH resonance for me: that was the day John Wayne died. The thirtieth anniversary of the Duke’s death is this year.

Steve adds: Yes, I came across that some years ago. Gary actually visited my sf fan club during those years, but we didn’t meet. Obviously, a pastiche-lover even then.

“Before Conan, there was Kane, a Puritan swordsman on a restless search for justice.”

That’s the lead-in from Nick Owchar’s, “Man in black: Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane,” published this May 24th in his monthly column for the Los Angeles Times. Owchar, deputy book editor for the LA Times, turns in a quite respectable piece on the Man From Devonshire (and his creator). His column, “The Siren’s Call” (a title I truly dig), was a joy and revelation once I (very recently) discovered it. Dear readers, brethren, kindred and fellow travellers, Ol’ Nick is one of us. Peruse his previous columns (future blog-fodder, for me) and tell me it ain’t so. (Continue reading this post)

Muchas gracias to our amigo, Bill Thom, for informing all of us over on the Official Robert E. Howard Forum that Wandering Star has signed a deal to publish the final deluxe, hardcover volume in the Conan series.

Through an agreement with Wandering Star, Book Palace Books will bring out a deluxe hardcover of The Conquering Sword of Conan that will (presumably) match the earlier, Wandering Star editions of The Coming of Conan of Cimmeria and The Bloody Crown of Conan.

The book features 13 colour paintings and 52 tonal paintings in a
signed and numbered edition of 1000 copies.

Limited Clothbound edition of 1000 – $195
Limited leatherbound edition of 100 – $500

Publication – November 2009

Not much else is known at this time.