Heroic Signatures and Titan unleash the power of Conan on Free Comic Book Day again in 2024, and this time it’s also the first part of an epic event we’re calling BATTLE OF THE BLACK STONE!

The press release went out late last week, but with the Savage Sword relaunch covers and solicit info released one day earlier I wanted to make sure I gave this announcement extra space here in my newsletter.

Bound in Black Stone is the first arc of the new Conan the Barbarian comic series and, in addition to acting as our ‘mission statement’, it set the table for some big mythic ideas we want to dig into outside the monthly title.

Conan creator Robert E. Howard wrote 21 canon Conan stores (along with a series of unfinished fragments), but he also wrote several hundred other pulp stories across many genres – mystery, horror, historical adventure, westerns, and, of course, sword & sorcery. A lot of these stories are completely separate from each other, but some have unexpected connectivity between them-

The shared timeline with Kull the Conqueror’s Thurian Age predating Conan’s Hyborian Age is well known in fan circles, but less well known are threads like an Atlantean necromancer (who seems to line up with Thulsa-Doom) being resurrected into the ‘modern’ era in the 1929 noir story Skull-Face, Kull of Atlantis being pulled through time to team up with Bran Mak Morn in the 1930 story Kings of the Night, or Thoth-Amon’s fabled Serpent Ring at the center of a 1934 horror story called The Haunter of the Ring.

Whether these crossovers were intended as part a larger plan or were just Two-Gun Bob reusing elements and names he liked, they tease the potential for a rich tapestry of pulp adventure that spans the ages.

The Conan the Barbarian monthly comic series is firmly rooted in classic sword & sorcery adventure (and always will be as long as I’m writing it) but with an event like Battle of the Black Stone we get the chance to explore epic pulp concepts (fantasy, noir, historical adventure, eldritch horror, and more) and a cast of engaging characters across different time periods and milieus.

Jonas Scharf has been turning heads on books like Dark X-Men, Avengers of the Wastelands, and The Witcher, and I am so pumped to have him drawing our Free Comic Book Day special and Battle of the Black Stone event mini-series. His moody page art fits the Robert E. Howard pulp atmosphere to a tee. I know readers are going to love the way he depicts the Hyborian Age and many other ages as well.

Conan has crossed over with other characters before but he’s never really fronted an event until now. Given the character’s 90 year prose publishing pedigree and 50 years in comics, I think it’s more than overdue.

I’ve always wanted to write a long run on a comic series and also been champing at the bit to build a big event story. Getting to do both with some of my favorite fictional characters is a dream come true.

Obviously I’ll have a lot more to say about Battle of the Black Stone (BoBS?) in the weeks and months to come, but it’s nice to finally have this Free Comic Book Day issue announced so everyone can see why we’re so excited for 2024 and beyond.

Conan Conquers – Let’s Talk About It!

This is the fourth time Perch, Joe Corallo, and I have chatted about comics on his channel and each interview covers great material in terms of the wider industry, the creative process, marketing, strange anecdotes, and more.

If you want to check out our previous interviews, here they are: first, second, third.

Into the Crucible Concluded Three Years Ago

Now on my Patreon – the full script for Conan the Barbarian #16 from 2020, the final part of Into the Crucible: patreon.com/posts/conan-barbarian-92363454

Also included in this update are my outline-pitch for the story and the Uttan ‘vocabulary’ I created so the language stayed consistent even though Conan (and our readers) couldn’t understand it.

Putting our hero in a place where he couldn’t comprehend the local language was something I hadn’t seen in a Conan story before. The Cimmerian has to use his intuition and guile just as much as his sword arm. Building up threats and constructing this language was a difficult-but-fun writing challenge.

The Conan comic relaunch at Heroic Signatures/Titan is getting a fantastic response and I’m incredibly thankful. If readers check out some of my earlier Conan comic writing work because of it as well, that’s really cool too. Despite problems we had around the original release (2020 was a rough ride, as you all know) I’m still really proud of these stories.

Links and Other Things

• Colleen Doran’s new posts where she looks back at her career in comics and delivers helpful advice about publishing and publisher contracts are a must read for any industry professional. Very Bad Publishers Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. I also recommend you subscribe to her newsletter so you won’t miss any newer posts as it continues.
• On the new Second Wind channel, JM8 has some great analysis about level design in the Souls games and what a lot of other video game developers get wrong when they try to emulate it in their own Souls-like titles.
• Samwise Didier, the iconic concept artist from Blizzard, announced his retirement from the company so he can focus on his own original creative projects. I’m excited to see what he has cooking.

That should cover it for this week. Thank you for reading!
Jim

Big. Bold. Black & White.

Cover and solicitation info have been revealed by ComicBook.com for the grand return of SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN in February 2024, including this stunning cover by legendary illustrator Joe Jusko–

THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN #1

Writer(s): John Arcudi, Patch Zircher, Jim Zub
Artist(s): Max Von Fafner, Patch Zircher
$6.99, 80 pages, black & white, on sale February 28, 2024

THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN IS BACK from Heroic Signatures and Titan Comics!

Featuring a new CONAN epic from John Arcudi and Max Von Fafner, the rousing return of SOLOMON KANE written and drawn by Patch Zircher, an electric prose story from Jim Zub, spectacular art pin-ups, and more, the SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN issue #1 heralds a new era of adrenaline-fueled adventure.

• COVER A: JOE JUSKO
• COVER B: GERARDO ZAFFINO
• COVER C: MAX VON FAFNER

—
Yes, you read that right, I’m writing a new Conan prose short story (that ties in with Joe Jusko’s killer cover art) as part of the premiere issue! It’s an absolute honor to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Savage Sword with this magazine-sized relaunch and craft pulpy prose like Robert E. Howard did for Weird Tales.

The crew at Heroic and Titan want to deliver brand new visceral stories every two months, bringing back classic Conan artists and also showcasing newer talent whose work will grab attention in bold black & white.

Richard Pace and I are building an intense story of survival and sacrifice that will either be in issue #2 (April) or issue #3 (June). I also have other plans for future issues as we hammer out the ongoing schedule.

There’s even more Conan news just announced as part of Free Comic Book Day 2024, but I’ll save that for my next newsletter installment so I can go into more detail.

Fortune Found

Dungeons & Dragons: Fortune Finder #1 arrived in comic shops and online this week!

My latest D&D comic story is a wild one that introduces readers to the wonderful setting of Planescape, a place where anything and everything can happen. There’s a mystery afoot as our main character has amnesia and needs to piece together who they are and how they’re connected to the grand forces that dictate reality before it’s too late.

Artist Joe Jaro is doing a delightful job presenting the strange and scenic sides of D&D’s most ambitious setting and colorist Adam Guzowski hones each expressive page with fantastic atmosphere.

If you’ve enjoyed my other D&D comic stories, you’ll find a lot to love here. If you’ve never read one of my D&D comics before or even played D&D the game, Fortune Finder #1 is 100% new reader friendly. Finder is searching for answers, so you’ll learn everything you need right alongside them.

Marvel Heroes On Stage in the Big Apple

The Marvel YouTube page just posted up the live play video from the Marvel Multiverse Tabletop Roleplaying Game session I was part of at New York Comicon! It’s a whirlwind Halloween-themed session with our team of Merry Marvel heroes played by the Glass Cannon crew and Marvel editor Nick Lowe. I played Captain America, Sentinel of Liberty, and had an absolute blast!

The new Marvel TTRPG is really well put together and I’ve been impressed at how well it handles superhero-themed gameplay at the table with lots of fun combat maneuvers and teamwork built right in, and you’ll get a great feel for that in the live play session here-

Quite a few people have asked if I’m going to be contributing to any future Marvel TTRPG sourcebooks or adventures and, all I can say right now is, there might be some exciting news to announce in the weeks ahead… 🙂

Original Art at Your Fingertips

The Conan: Colossal Edition crowdfunding campaign is running on Zoop right now and the book looks absolutely amazing, with reproductions of original art at their original production size. I’m not directly involved in this book, but will definitely be adding it to my collection.

If you’re a collector, it’s a must. If you’re an artist, these Artist’s Edition-style releases are incredibly useful because you can see the exact marks made in pencil, ink, or paint to better understand the methods involved and how they translate from that larger size when they’re shrunk down on each final printed page. When you see a finished page published it can be easy to forget the deep craftsmanship involved, especially using traditional media, and having a page right there in front of you as if you’re holding the original art board in your hands gives you a much better understanding of line detail, texture, spacing, composition and even the mistakes made and corrected by the artist. I find the primacy of it really inspiring and helpful.

My good friend John Barber (a guy I first met over 20 years ago when we were both making webcomics) is the editor on this project and he’s done two really good video interviews about it you can check out HERE and HERE.

Links and Other Things

• Larime Taylor is a comic creator and artist struggling with one of the toughest years imaginable. Help directly if you can and share the GoFundMe campaign page on your social media if at all possible.
• I don’t know who Bobby Fingers is, but the videos he puts together as he builds incredibly detailed dioramas of strange pop culture moments are pure entertainment. His voice drones on in a strangely appealing way while he matter-of-factly constructs unexpected scenes using top quality materials and pro quality craftsmanship. It’s pure internet WTF that is oddly inspiring.
• Matt Colville’s excitement for Baldur’s Gate 3 mirrors my own and his new video about how to incorporate similar ideas into your own tabletop RPG games is really sharp. And don’t worry if you haven’t played the video game yet – He doesn’t spoil any major plotlines.
• Tristan Penafiel has an in-depth article all about How to Deprogram a Conspiracy Theorist that I found really compelling and discussion-worthy.

Thank you for reading!
Jim

Last week the music world was abuzz with the release of the “last” Beatles song, a cassette-recorded demo called Now and Then by John Lennon completed by Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr with contributions by George Harrison (from a late 90’s recording session where the trio tried to make it work.)

The song itself is simple but carries a wistful, almost haunting quality, especially in the context of how it was finished and its place as probably the last time these four will make music together…even though that collaboration happened decades after half the band are already gone.

Which got me thinking about the power of nostalgia, good and ill.

(I like the track, by the way. It feels like something unearthed from the 1970’s rather than an over polished modernization of the Beatles sound.)

I’m in an unexpected nostalgia vertex right now because my latest and largest ongoing project is built on the distinct foundation of what’s come before – the legacy of Robert E. Howard’s seminal sword & sorcery hero and formative barbaric work by comic legends Roy Thomas and John Buscema

When people tell me I’m doing ‘right’ by Conan on the new comic series, they mean that these new issues deeply remind them of the look and feel of comics from 40 years ago – the poetic caption work of Roy Thomas and dynamic action of John Buscema.

Rob De La Torre’s linework has been compared to Big John’s so much that I worry readers won’t recognize or appreciate the masterful page layouts and subtle interplay of light and shadow that’s also at the heart of Rob’s top notch work, qualities above and beyond the nostalgic way he draws the Cimmerian’s body or stoic expressions.

Make no mistake – Being compared to absolute legends is an honor now and always will be. Being mentioned favorably in the same breath as people who helped ignite my imagination is a thrill.

When we first started working on the new series, I worried that it might come across as just a shrewd business move – trying to milk nostalgia bucks from the Conan fandom because we didn’t have anything new to bring to the table.

Do I want the series to sell? Of course, but the aesthetic choices we’ve made are not just a sales tactic. It’s about reestablishing a baseline of trust. Proving we could deliver old school storytelling with modern fidelity; Big picture mythmaking that acknowledges the past and then marches forward without losing the intrinsic elements that made it so special in the first place.

Our inaugural story arc had to remind readers that Conan was must-read comic entertainment and can be again.

Summoning the same visceral excitement I had when I first read Conan.

Celebrating key qualities of a seminal era of comics.

I’m learning a lot from Robert E. Howard and Roy Thomas, but I’m still me. I still break stories in my own way and work to please myself in terms of character, voice, plot, and payoff.

I put together story beats that feel right for our big picture plan for the series, whether REH or Roy would have done the same thing as I try to bridge the narrative gap between the 1930’s, the 1970’s, and the 2020’s. It’s a challenge and an honor, one I’m thrilled that people are responding to with high praise and solid sales so far.

So yeah, that new-old Beatles song is interesting. It conjures a lot of feelings from the past and reminds us why the band was so good. For some fans it’ll be exactly what they need in this moment, and for other people it might be too twee, trying to recapture things that have already slipped away.

The song itself is solid but, honestly, the new music video almost breaks the spell for me. The use of poorly composited video cutouts from the past, old Beatles footage awkwardly dancing and interacting with the present comes across as ghoulish instead of glorious. It’s the remix calling too much attention to itself. Desperation instead of delight.

There’s a fine line that can be crossed, when nostalgia moves from engaging and fun to treacle fawning over the past. We shouldn’t pretend the media of our youth was flawless or that the present has nothing worthy to offer. We shouldn’t lionize or exorcise the past…and saying that is infinitely easier than actually doing it.

Where is the line between loving homage and vapid facsimile?

When does remixing lose the magic of the original?

How can we measure quality when it’s so tightly wound up in our warm feelings of the past?

All good questions. Your answer will vary wildly depending on personal taste.

My instincts and helpful feedback from our publishing team seems to be keeping the new Conan series respectful but not trapped in a retread of what’s been done before. So far, so good. Wish me luck as we get even more ambitious next year.

(You may be thinking “Holy crap, this dude is comparing himself to one of the greatest prose authors in genre fiction, one of the finest writers in comics, and the most popular band of all time. What an asshole!” I don’t have a swelled head about this, I swear. I just saw a throughline of nostalgia in the current pop culture conversation – something I could talk about in the constant tug of war between past and present, creative and commercial.)

Links and Other Things

• Speaking of deep Conan nostalgia, Zoop has a notification page for their upcoming Conan the Barbarian – Colossal Edition that reproduces old Conan comic artwork by some of the industry’s best and brightest at its original size.
• Speaking of more nostalgia, Palladium Books has a crowdfunding campaign for a new edition of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness tabletop RPG. My friends and I played the bejesus out of that game in high school and I have a complete collection of the original books. If the new edition is a tighter cleaned up version of the original book it should be pretty sweet.
• Chris Broad has a video of amazing things in Japan that other cultures need to emulate/steal and he is 100% correct. A lot of the stuff he covers are things I deeply miss about Japan. Stacy and I are finally poised to travel there again in 2024 and I cannot wait.

That should cover it this time. Have a great week!
Jim