{"id":12522,"date":"2010-03-23T20:40:39","date_gmt":"2010-03-24T03:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/?p=12522"},"modified":"2010-04-07T23:50:47","modified_gmt":"2010-04-08T06:50:47","slug":"beat-the-drum-slowly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/beat-the-drum-slowly\/","title":{"rendered":"Beat the Drum Slowly…"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Robert E. Howard onced asked his friend, Tevis Clyde Smith, “What shall a man say when a friend has vanished behind the doors of Death? A mere tangle of barren words, only words.”<\/p>\n

All of those who posted today, including myself, never met Steve Tompkins personally, though I got damned close in 2006. None of us would presume to\u00a0say that\u00a0Steve was\u00a0our “friend.” However,\u00a0without a doubt, we all respect his work and\u00a0regret his absence.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Are all words spoken in regard to the dearly-departed or much-admired then “barren”? Robert E. Howard seemed to think so when he wrote those\u00a0lines and sent them\u00a0to Smith in 1928. Certainly, eulogies and whatnot can never bring back the deceased. All the same, I\u00a0believe it can be argued that such words keep\u00a0ones since-passed-on alive in the hearts and minds of those left behind.<\/p>\n

In the case of Steve Tompkins, the words he\u00a0wove with\u00a0such skill live on here at The Cimmerian<\/em> and elsewhere. As the tributes below attest, his wit, word-craft\u00a0and insight are well-remembered. There can be no question that his thoughts on a myriad of subjects have found fertile<\/em>, not “barren,” ground.<\/p>\n

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My original intent before actually starting this essay was to do a basic “wrap-up” and also discuss a few posts of Steve’s that I considered neglected. Reading the previous essays, I decided to change course just a bit. Gazing back over all the testimonials\u00a0and seeing\u00a0the inspiration Steve gave to so many, I think just one web log entry needs mentioned today.<\/p>\n

“Maybe Not\u00a0a Boom, But\u00a0a Drumbeat<\/a>” was Steve Tompkins’ first post here at The Cimmerian<\/em>. In it, he refuted the assertion by Leon Nielsen that Howard studies (and even REH’s literary legacy itself) were tied to an aging demographic and all would become as dust with the forgotten ages in the near future. With REH’s creations daily carving out kingdoms in the\u00a0wastelands of pop culture, write-ups on\u00a0Howard\u00a0in Publishers Weekly<\/em><\/a> and The L.A. Times<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>inclusion in Library of America and Penguin Classics\u00a0volumes\u00a0and millions of words of REH scholarship written since\u00a0mid-2006, I’d say Steve’s view\u00a0has been\u00a0vindicated. A pity he’s not here to see it all.\u00a0\u00a0A pity he wasn’t here to see The Cimmerian<\/em> get its\u00a0half-millionth hit last January.<\/p>\n

If we’re not in the midst of some<\/em> kind of “Howard Boom,” it certainly feels<\/em> like one. Steve Tompkins and Leo\u00a0Grin (and others throughout Howardom)\u00a0helped rekindle a fire that had burned low, but now\u00a0blazes from the beacon-hills of the blogosphere<\/a>. Tompk said he could hear a drumbeat. He was right. Today, we beat the drum slowly<\/a> for Steve Tompkins, but tomorrow we\u00a0cinch on our\u00a0steel and keep marching. The drum calls us forward.<\/p>\n

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*Art by Stephen Fabian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert E. Howard onced asked his friend, Tevis Clyde Smith, “What shall a man say when a friend has vanished behind the doors of Death? A mere tangle of barren words, only words.” All of those who posted today, including myself, never met Steve Tompkins personally, though I got damned close in 2006. None of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,10],"tags":[214,664,550,215,405],"class_list":["post-12522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fandom","category-literary-reputation","tag-howard","tag-howard-studies","tag-nick-owchar","tag-robert-e","tag-steve-tompkins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12522"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13280,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12522\/revisions\/13280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leogrin.com\/CimmerianBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}