OK, so perhaps you’ve heard some of the rumors swirling around Cross Plains Universe, the book that contains a variety of fictional tributes to REH written by various Texan writers, and which was given away to everyone at the World Fantasy Convention a few weeks ago.

The book itself was a success, hammering home to convention-goers — many of whom knew little about Howard — the importance of both his achievement and his status as theme of the convention. And as stated in a previous post, the book is already selling on eBay for twice its cover price, mere days after its first appearance. All in all, a pretty good burst of publicity for Howard. Not bad.

But those of us who attended the convention were surprised when, during the Con, we heard a lot of grumbling about the various hoops and gauntlets the book’s producers were allegedly made to jump through by Paradox’s legal team at the last minute. Without rehashing the complaints we heard, the sum total of the various gripes was to make Paradox out to be a boogeyman stomping over the spirit of the project in a fit of paranoia over their properties and copyrights. More than a few Howard fans walked away from those conversations wondering if this boded ill for future projects, and for relations with the new owners of Howard’s work. Was the honeymoon over?

Over the last week I’ve talked to Paradox about these issues. While I’m in no position to vouch for the validity of anyone’s version of what happened, I can say that — in addition to flatly denying that there was anything approaching the level of problems gossiped about at the con — they seem genuinely hurt that they would be perceived in this light, given all the ways they have striven to connect with fans and rejuvenate Howard’s reputation. Leigh Stone, Paradox’s licensing manager, has the following to say:

As the Licensing Manager at Paradox Entertainment, I worked closely with the editor Scott Cupp on producing the Robert E. Howard tribute book titled Cross Plains Universe that was generously distributed at the World Fantasy Convention. Our dealings included a licensing contract and approvals process for the book in full — including proper legal text and copyright. As rights holders and REH fans ourselves here at Paradox, we were thrilled about the book and pleased with its outcome and contents.

Shortly after the World Fantasy Convention, we began to hear rumblings of negative rumors surrounding the production of the book. Saddened and surprised by the complete untruths that we heard, I contacted Scott Cupp to find out where these rumors surfaced and asked for his version of events in writing (see below). I hope this will continue to confirm that — as the new estate owners of the REH library — we are committed to our fans, dedicated to putting out a good product, professional, and pleasant with which to work.

Scott Cupp, the co-editor of Cross Plains Universe, agrees with Paradox’s position, and has written the following open letter to all the people who heard the con rumors floating around:

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Scott Cupp and I am the co-editor with Joe Lansdale of Cross Plains Universe: Texans Celebrate Robert E. Howard, an original anthology produced by FACT/Monkeybrain Books for the World Fantasy Convention held in Austin, TX in November 2006.

It has come to my attention that there are many rumors swirling throughout the field regarding the role of Paradox Entertainment with regards to this book. I wish to set the record straight on several points. I was the major contact point for Paradox as Joe was out of the country. All dealings with Paradox went through me.

1) Paradox Entertainment and Robert E. Howard Enterprises were supportive of the project throughout its genesis and were excited about the prospect of the book introducing REH to people not fully aware of the impact of his work.

2) When presented with the manuscripts to the story (at a time late in the production — my fault — not theirs) they requested some changes to certain stories. These changes generally involved the removal or changing of some copyrighted names, places or objects. In two cases, a very slight rewrite of a passage was involved. In every case, the change did not materially impact the story and was worked out with the writer of the piece. The reason for these changes relates to American copyright laws. Remember that the copyrights to all characters except Conan had recently been acquired. The use of certain things without specific challenge could result in the loss of copyright to these characters. These requests were made with that information in mind and I was very aware of that issue. The number of changes required were minimal for each individual story. I have heard the number “200” bandied about. There is no way that this number is accurate. Not all stories were involved, but those which were generally required under five corrections. The Bill Crider/Charlotte Laughlin piece required a few more as the name of the artifact which was changed is mentioned multiple times.

3) Changes were made at the last minute because I did not get them a manuscript to review until the copyedited version was made available to me. Because of the tight timeframes involved in this project, there was a great deal of stress and rushing about to get it completed. The invitation letters were sent out in January and the finished book appeared at the end of October — super fast for this type of project.

4) The people I dealt with at Paradox were Leigh Stone, Thommy Wojciechowski, and Fredrik Malmberg. They were always courteous in their dealings with me and I handled these phone conversations as business meetings. The discussions were respectful and mutually amicable.

Other than the stress of having a short deadline (again, brought about by myself), we had a pleasant relationship and I would gladly work with them again in the future.

If anyone wishes to discuss these issues further, please contact me at scottcupp@earthlink.net.

In light of all this, it sounds as if any problems some people had with the project amounted to miscommunication combined with the usual pressures and messy compromising at play whenever a book needs to be rushed out to meet a deadline. Now mind you, the stories we heard at the con were detailed and convincing — some of the requested changes sounded ridiculous to us assembled fans, and when Scott says here “the use of certain things without specific challenge could result in loss of copyright,” one immediately wonders why a simple contract couldn’t be drawn up granting the one-time-only use of such terms. But all of that is water under the bridge at this point, and none of my business to boot.

The fact is, when you think back over the last year, Paradox’s record regarding its treatment of Howard and his fans is impressive. Again and again we find them going above and beyond to do things for Howard’s legacy that most other companies — the pre-Paradox, 1980s Conan Properties, anyone? — would scoff at. The two head honchos at Paradox, Peter Sederowsky and Fredrik Malmberg, attended Howard Days last June just to touch base with Howard’s staunchest fans, listen to their concerns, and keep them in the loop. Licensing Manager Leigh Stone attended the World Fantasy Convention and made the long bus trek to Cross Plains and the Howard Museum. Stone and Thommy Wojciechowski have attended cons and spoken on panels to get the word out about Howard, including at GenCon where they have masterminded a yearly Robert E. Howard Day set to start in 2007. Since Paradox has acquired the Howard copyrights there has been lots of movement on the movie, video game, comic, role-playing, and collectible fronts. And the new REH Foundation created by Paradox is set to release lots of original Howard that fans have been begging for since the 1970s, things like the Complete Letters of REH and the unpublished poetry.

If this is grumble-worthy, give me more of it.

MARK ADDS: I’ll second Leo’s sentiment above. Paradox has been nothing if not extremely cooperative with both the fans and the pros. I had a specific situation of my own in the CP Universe book, one involving a character I am actively writing. Two quick emails later, everything was smoothed over, proper copyrights were assigned, and all were happy. At no time was it ever a problem. Everyone at Paradox has my full trust and support.

On the REH Innercircle e-mail group, Gary Romeo alerts Howard fans to an interview with the winner of the 2006 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, M. T. Anderson, who mentions that he’s been reading none other than Robert E. Howard and jonesing to write a book centering around barbarian themes. Pretty cool coming from a guy who made his name writing award-winning pop-up books and the like. (Hat tip: Don Herron)

Apropos to my last post is news that Cross Plains Universe, the book of Howardian-themed stories written by Texans and given away at the World Fantasy Convention, has become a hot item on eBay, with each copy offered being sold for $35-$40. For those of you who want a copy, especially one signed by many of the writers who attended the con, keep your eyes peeled. One copy was recently offered with a “Buy It Now” price of $25, and someone snapped it up right away.

Those of you who read The Cimmerian will be privy to a behind the scenes story in November about how the book almost was derailed at the last minute by Paradox Entertainment lawyers on the warpath. All week at the convention I heard various stories about the incident, and it soured a lot of people on Paradox’s stewardship of the Howard legacy. With luck it was a one-time faux pas, and in the future the newly formed REH foundation will help to prevent such things from happening.

UPDATE: Paradox’s Licensing Manager Leigh Stone writes in to say that the sundry stories floating around the con about the production of the book were “entirely untrue,” while Rusty Burke assures me that Paradox “bent over backwards” to help with the book and hence have been unfairly mis-characterized as bad guys in this scenario. This flatly contradicts the numerous anecdotes we all heard at the con, so I’ll be sure to include the Paradox/REH Foundation side of things in the TC trip report as well.

UPDATE #2: The WFC people have announced that they have extra copies of this book, which can be had for $19 here. Of course, if you want the signed copies, you’ll still have to haunt eBay.

Lately I have noticed that various sellers on eBay have been posting certain Howard items for absolutely ridiculous prices. Right now there is a copy of Dark Valley Destiny, signed by both de Camps (as most copies out there are) but not even in a slipcase, being offered for the laughable price of $60. With a little searching one could probably find a better copy with slipcase for $20 max, and probably a lot less.

Meanwhile, last week someone was trying to sell individual Don Grant Conan books for $200 per copy. When you consider all the things that series has going against it — incomplete, terrible art, lots of editorial mistakes and emendations — the true silliness of such a price sinks in. The books are not even that rare. Needless to say, he didn’t sell any of them.

At the World Fantasy Convention, the dealers were fairly well stocked in Howard materials, everything from the latest hardcovers, trades, and paperbacks to all of the old books, fanzines, and ephemera, even some REHupa mailings. But there too I noticed that the prices in almost all cases were prohibitive. Paperbacks that usually sell for $5 or so online were listed at $15 or even $20 per copy. I did notice one discrepancy, though: there were two copies of Heroes from Bear Creek from one dealer, and each was listed at only $20, far below the $50-$100 it usually sells for on eBay these days.

It seems that with the resurgence in interest in Howard and the thrill of the centennial, some of the more craven collectors and speculators are testing the market by dangling items out there at high prices and seeing if anyone bites. I like to see Howard collectibles move up in price as a sign of his increased viability and popular interest, but it’s an organic process connected to rarity of the item and contents, print runs, quality, etc. There’s a difference between good Howard collectors and suckers, and the sellers on eBay are slowly learning the difference. It’ll be interesting to see how long the prices on some of this stuff remain inflated before people get real again. Eventually they will return to the tried and true method of starting them at a low price and then letting the auction process work its magic, instead of placing stuff out there with outsized reserve and “Buy It Now” prices.

In the October 26, 2006 number of the Cross Plains Review, there was an article about some recent visitors to the Howard Museum. At that time the World Fantasy Convention group hadn’t pulled into town yet, but the ladies of Project Pride had some exciting guests nonetheless. The article carried no byline, but unless I miss my guess the author must have been Cimmerian contributor Arlene Stephenson.

From Hollywood to Cross Plains

A routine request to show the Robert E. Howard Museum last week resulted in quite an exciting opportunity for local Project Pride members. Arriving at the Museum, they found Bruce Boxleitner and Rob Word wandering around the yard, thoroughly enjoying the peace and quiet. Boxleitner, popular Hollywood actor best known for his television roles and producer Word had flown in from California to participate in the Dean Smith Celebrity Rodeo in Abilene.

Both visitors were very knowledgeable of Howard and his writings and the history behind his life in Cross Plains. Boxleitner was especially interested in Howard’s western stories.

Boxleitner has played in numerous made for TV movies and is currently in the TV series, “Pandemic”. Some may remember him in the series “Scarecrow and Mrs. King” of some years back. One of his real ties to the weekend, however, was perhaps the fact that Dean Smith had played his stunt double in “How the West Was Won.” Boxleitner is married to Melissa Gilbert of the “Little House on the Prairie” fame.

Word is quite the all around over achiever — artist, composer and director. He has served as program consultant for a lot of the Encore network’s westerns, action, mystery and true channels. Most recently, he completed 65 half hours of a cartoon series called “Totally Tooned In.”

Another visitor drove from Florida just to visit the Museum and to attend a pulp fiction convention in the state. Wayne Lindsey has been a member of Project Pride for two years and was finally able to take the time away from his job of moving alligators for the Florida Parks and Wildlife to pursue his other dream of walking where his favorite author walked.

Project Pride received a delightful letter of appreciation for the hospitality extended to visitors, the Greens, from England. In summarizing their extended visit to the U.S., they commented that the three favorite places they had visited were the Grand Canyon, Green Mesa and Cross Plains. And they just couldn’t decide on their top choice!!

Life at the Howard House Museum stays interesting, to say the least.

I’ve known that Bruce was a Howard fan for awhile, ever since James Van Hise (editor of Sword & Fantasy) told me the story of when he interviewed the actor for Starlog or some such magazine and discovered that he owned the Wandering Star books. Boxleitner is best known these days for his starring role in the long-running sci-fi series Babylon 5, but those of us who grew up watching early 80s cable television also remember him fondly from his role in Tron.

While at the World Fantasy Convention a few weeks ago, one of the things I hammered home to non-believers was the breadth and depth of Howard’s fan base worldwide, how his influence was always popping up in the strangest places. Boxleitner is merely the latest in this trend. The fact that he went out of his way to visit Cross Plains all the way from Abilene to satisfy his Howardian curiosity speaks volumes. It’s nice to know that Howard has friends in Hollywood — it is to be hoped that someday this affection will translate into some good Howardian adaptations of his westerns and other stories.

While you are waiting for the November issue of The Cimmerian, you can get some preliminary trip reports on the web from a variety of authors:

James Reasoner at Rough Edges. (James is a prolific fiction author and former member of REHupa)

Bill Crider’s Pop Culture Magazine: Here, Here, and Here. (Bill is a longtime Howard fan who contributed to the Con’s Cross Plains Universe book.)

Angeline Hawkes at Something to Talk About (along with her husband Christopher Fulbright, Angeline is a fiction writer and Howard Days attendee).

Jayme Lynn Blaschke’s Gibberish blog (some good photos of Jayme’s specially brewed and bottled REH beer, which was served at [redacted]’s Blood and Thunder release party).

MidAmerican Fan Photo Archive. (lots of con photos)

Many people have asked if Cross Plains Universe will be available for purchase even if you didn’t get to the Con. I believe that is still in the planning stages, but the likelihood is high that it will be released in a wider format. If not, it shouldn’t be too hard to score a copy off of eBay eventually.

In addition to The Cimmerian, two other Howard magazines have released new issues this month. Damon Sasser had the new number of his REH: Two-Gun Raconteur at the World Fantasy Convention, where the copies quickly disappeared. You can check out the contents at the mag’s website.

Meanwhile, The Dark Man website reports that their latest issue is “off to the printers,” so with luck this means that it will appear before the end of the year. Go to their site to see a list of contents.

When this year is over and the total number of publications is tabulated, the resulting list should be impressive. And the Cimmerian Awards next year should be a blast with so many nominees in different categories.

Mark’s long-awaited biography of Robert E. Howard debuted to much fanfare at the World Fantasy Convention, and now it is available for purchase at Amazon.com and other fine bookstores. If you are also planning on buying the new Del Rey Kull volume (and come on, who isn’t?) you can buy both together at Amazon and save some dough.

As it turns out, Blood and Thunder isn’t 400 pages as advertised at Amazon and elsewhere, but only 254. Still, it is chock full of things Howard fans have never seen before. Never-before-seen photos of Hester Howard and Cross Plains, excerpts from the Cross Plains newspaper during Howard’s time, lots of information about the oil booms, Texas history, and the art of the tall tale. The book thankfully has an index, too.

Judging from the comments of various people who have read it, reactions have been largely positive. Even de Camp friend Darrell Schweitzer admitted to me on the last day of the Con that, despite some small errors of fact regarding pulps and such, he found the book an enjoyable and informative read and thought that it brought credit to Howard and the field of Howard studies. The introduction by Joe Lansdale, unlike the wretched Michael Moorcock foreword for the embarrassing Hippocampus REH critical anthology, is appropriately learned and reverent.

At a cost of only $10.85 at Amazon, the first biography on Howard in twenty years deserves to be on every Howard fan’s bookshelf. And with Christmas coming up, it’s a great and inexpensive gift for any Howard fans you may know who might otherwise not know about it. Hopefully this will be the start of a series of biographical treatments of Howard — Lord knows his life was rich and complex enough to support many different interpretations and degrees of focus.

One of the big announcements at the World Fantasy Convention was the formation of a new organization called The REH Foundation, which seems to be Paradox Entertainment’s attempt to foster a connection with fans and do its part to perpetuate the original Howard work that fuels their licenses and various multimedia projects.

Among the Foundation’s stated goals is establishing an ambitious publishing schedule designed to get all of Howard’s work in print, especially the never-published material such as the Complete Letters and poems (the first volumes will be appearing early next year). In addition, there will be a concerted effort to make typescripts and other research materials available to scholars. Apparently the Foundation is also going to help support Howard Days in Cross Plains, and perhaps establish grants or awards to foster the study of Howard by scholars and the emulation and perpetuation of Howard’s style and legacy among modern writers.

If all this works, it should be a great boon to the field. Much will depend on cooperation and organization, things that aren’t always evident among Howard fans. And as we all know, previous Howard initiatives have had a history of going belly-up at inopportune times. Over the years changes in ownership and in the book market have grounded one set of good intentions after another. In any case, Howard fandom and scholarship and publishing seems to be growing by leaps and bounds every year. All of this activity can only be good for REH.

Back from Austin, where after the World Fantasy Convention I stayed an extra few days and did some exploring through the L. Sprague de Camp papers at the Harry Ransom Center. I only got through a single box of correspondence, but what I saw convinced me that I’ll have to set aside a few weeks sometime to go through far more of it. Lots of interesting things to be gleaned in those files, much of it never revealed before in any venue of which I am aware. Some of the best Howard information can sometimes be found in letters that on the surface have no Howard content at all.

I caught a cold in Austin due to lack of sleep, and between that and fighting to get the October issue shipped the last few days have been busy. And after that there is no rest for the wicked: as soon as October ships it’s time to prepare the November issue with all of the World Fantasy Convention coverage. Lots of interesting things happened down there, enough to fill as many pages as the Howard Days trip report usually does.

Unfortunately TC failed in its quest to take home a trophy at the awards, but the experience of being nominated and performing readings and panels at the convention was a lot of fun. I was surprised at how many otherwise knowledgeable fantasy fans knew next to nothing about Howard, but heartened at how many wanted to learn more. There definitely is a prejudice against Howard among certain factions of the Old Guard of fantasy/sci-fi, a cliquish group who fancies themselves as intellectual and progressive, people far above slumming with pulp authors. But I got the feeling that, in addition to being out of touch, those people are fading from the scene just a bit more with each passing year, and that the younger generation is far more amendable to listing Howard among the giants of fantasy. I left feeling very optimistic about Howard’s long-term prospects among the movers and shakers of the fantasy publishing world.

Only two more issues (plus the Awards and Index) to go, and the centennial volume of The Cimmerian will be complete. The year has been everything I thought it would be, both in terms of work and of fun.