Zub Tales

CROM of the Mountain may not care about you or yours (or me…or anyone, really) this season, but I want to wish you and your family the happiest of holidays – Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Whatever you celebrate, whoever it’s with, I hope it’s a good one!

Thank YOU for helping make 2023 one of the most exciting and creatively rewarding years I’ve ever had. It’s been an absolute rocket ride and I owe so much of that to people like you supporting my work and sharing it with others.

I hope that time with family, friends, and good cheer are coming your way.

Hearing From Readers

I’ve been getting messages like this every week since Conan launched in early August – emails, texts, Facebook messages, tweets, comments, you name it. Dozens and dozens of them. Most in English, of course, but many in Portuguese, Spanish and French as the foreign editions start to ramp up for release early next year.

It’s incredible hearing from so many lapsed fans and new readers. They tell me that they’ve been heading to their local comic shop on release day every month and have set up a pull file, many for the first time in well over a decade.

Getting this second chance with one of my favorite characters was an unexpected thrill. Having it do so damn well this time is both gratifying and humbling.

All of us on the creative team are doing everything we can to keep the excitement going in 2024 – our first trade paperback and the new Savage Sword of Conan magazine arrives in February, The Age Unconquered in March, and Free Comic Book Day in May will carry us into the summer.

Current + Upcoming Releases

• The Murderworld That Time Forgot – released December 5th.
• Conan the Barbarian #5 2nd print – releases December 27th.
• Conan the Barbarian #6 – releases January 3rd (originally Dec 20th).
• Dungeons & Dragons: Fortune Finder #2 – releases December 27th.
• Dungeons & Dragons: Fortune Finder #3 – releases January 24th.
• Conan the Barbarian #7 – releases January 31st (originally Jan 24th).
• Dungeons & Dragons: Fortune Finder #4 – releases February 21st.
• Conan the Barbarian #8 – releases February 28th.

Links and Other Things

• The official CONAN website has gone through an overhaul and includes recent posts covering our successful launch, a recap of our first six months, and an interview with Francesca Baereld, the cartographer of the new Hyborian Age map.
• Over on the Stygian Dogs channel, prose editor Steve Saffel and author Brian D. Anderson chat at length about Conan the Barbarian – writing, characters, media, and more.
• I made this guacamole recipe from Epicurious last night as a snack and it was fantastic! Chef Saúl Montiel teaches you how it’s done and his enthusiasm is infectious.

Next time, I’ll have my annual Year In Review. Until then, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Jim

A peek behind the scenes, with slight spoilers for the new Conan the Barbarian series-

In the epilogue at the end of Conan the Barbarian #4, we see a traveler from Asgard pick up a fragment of Black Stone, the strange eldritch material at the heart of several mysteries in Robert E. Howard’s pulp stories, most notably the titular horror story The Black Stone from 1931. This discovery is a classic set-up for a future tale, making our reader wonder when they might see it again, presumably at some future date…

…And then, just one month later at the end of Conan the Barbarian #5, we reveal that our second story arc ties back in with Black Stone.

Weird, right?

I saw a couple reviews where people felt we jumped the gun a bit by having two Black Stone-centered stories one after another and, under different circumstances, they’d be right. In a classic monthly comic run from the 1970’s or ’80’s this kind of set-up and payoff would have been many months apart, with unrelated 1 and 2-part stories between to clear the decks and focus readers elsewhere before we brought it back as a surprise. In an ideal scenario, that’s exactly what I would’ve done as well.

But~ you also have to understand the broader context involved.

Here and now, looking in the rearview mirror with six months of shockingly strong sales for the relaunch behind us, it seems obvious that the pacing could be/should be less frenetic and that we have lots of time to set up and pay off big ideas over a longer span, but when we planned this out more than 18 months ago there was absolutely no way we could have known how successful it would be.

Titan Comics is obviously a smaller comic publisher than Marvel or Dark Horse (the previous licensors for Conan comics). Direct market comic shop sales in North America have been shaky as of late and, while comic sales for Conan in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s were spectacular, that hasn’t always been the case in the modern era. Couple that with me at the center of this relaunch, the writer who quietly wrapped up the run at Marvel during the pandemic, and things looked even less certain.

We had to come out of the gate roaring like Hell and not hold anything back, otherwise readers wouldn’t see anything special they had to read and collect every month and we’d quickly sink. If Black Stone sets up big mythic storytelling and can make readers and retailers take notice, then, by Crom, it has to be Black Stone all the way! Back-to-back stories with a plot point that acts as a clear throughline for year one (issues #1-12) to build an epic saga of cannot miss comics!

That’s the plan, at least. So far, so good.

It reminds me of interviews I read with Robert Kirkman around Invincible where he originally planned to have the big twist for the series (a key character betraying our hero and turning the entire narrative on its head) arrive in issue #25. Like me, he grew up reading superhero comics in an era where that absolutely would have worked, a wonderful slow burn build up and pay off over two years, but the Publisher at Image at the time (I think it was Jim Valentino) warned him that he didn’t have that luxury. Modern readers decide almost immediately if a series is worth their time and money and drop it in a heartbeat if they believe it’s not, so slam that accelerator pedal down at the start and cover as much ground as you can because you will not get a second chance to earn their loyalty.

(Although weirdly, in this case I kind of did, because this Conan relaunch has had way stronger sales and staying power than my initial run, which is highly unusual.)

Invincible delivered its big twist in issue #7, and I genuinely think if the series launched in 2023 Robert would’ve done it by issue 4 or 5 to get the same jolt.

Anyways, if we’d known right off the bat that the Conan relaunch would be the smash hit that it’s been, I’m sure we would have made different narrative choices, but then maybe those choices wouldn’t have led to the same surge of interest. It’s chicken and egg, in full effect.

Now that we have some momentum it’s a bit easier to set up future plotlines without the same level of fear around a quick cancellation. I’ve always been committed to at least 2 years/24 issues on the new series (and am now looking at possibilities beyond that), but I’m sure that if we would’ve flopped right at the start the plan would look very different right now.

Speaking of which, I’m in the thick of year two writing on the series and am happy to report that readers will get more variety as we keep rolling- Arc 4 will be 4 issues, but after that we switch things up with some 2-parters and even some done-in-one adventures. Different times in Conan’s life, different locations and circumstances…All kinds of creative levers we can pull to keep the excitement going.

Gut-Wrenching Beauty, Coming Your Way

Speaking of excitement, I received my CONAN THE BARBARIAN #6 comp copies late last week.

Doug Braithwaite, Diego Rodriguez, and Richard Starkings are crafting something special. The words are pretty good too 😉

Issue #6 arrives in stores December 27th. Preview pages are right HERE.

In Conan #6-8 we certainly earn our ‘Mature Readers’ rating. It is violent, sexy, tragic, and gut-wrenching in ways readers have never seen in a Conan comic story before.

Links and Other Things

• Cuphead made old school animation fans swoon when it was revealed back in 2013. I don’t know if Mouse will make the same splash, but this first person shooter with a 1920’s animation aesthetic looks like it could be a lot of fun.
• James Delmage’s Sip and Feast channel is quickly becoming one of my cooking favorites. His cast iron pan lasagna bake turned out fantastic when I made my own version.

Over the weekend I finished playing through Disco Elysium, a twisted story-driven game in the style of King’s Quest or Maniac Mansion that uses RPG character exploration a bit like Planescape: Torment.

Disco Elysium is about a murder investigation in a seaside port town.

• It’s also an absurdist character study of a cliché down-on-his-luck detective with amnesia.
• And a tragic noir story about economic and moral decay.
• And a cynical parody of political extremism framed through a complex web of manipulators, burnouts, and the ignorant.
• And a sarcastic send-up of escapist fiction and role-playing games.
• And a dystopian parallel existence with confident worldbuilding that feels intensely grounded in familiar-yet-strange customs and cultures.

It’s a lot of surreal trippy stuff jammed together and I quite enjoyed it, sometimes despite itself.

Like many old school point-and-click adventures, there is a rambling narrative and strange leaps of logic as you start to explore Revachol, the crumbling city at the heart of the story, but over time the seemingly nonsensical bits of back story and intense history lessons you receive from NPCs weave together into an oddly-convincing fictional tapestry – one that feels decisively misanthropic and bleak even as it’s punctuated with genuinely amusing and thought-provoking moments amidst the gloom.

If you’re looking for a tight whodunit plot you can solve ahead of the big reveal, you won’t find that here, but there’s a surprising amount of humanity in this swirling stew of characters and calamity.

I bought it during a Steam sale back in 2020 (and it’s on sale again right now at a ridiculously good price) but bounced off it back then because it felt too pessimistic during the pandemic. I’m glad I pushed through this time because it’s well worth exploring and some parts will definitely stick with me.

The fact that the creators of Disco Elysium are now caught up in their own whirlwind of legal troubles, personal problems, creative theft, and shareholder revolt, is darkly ironic given the game they produced. Even if a sequel does come about at some point, it seems unlikely it’ll have the same spark as this one.

Tom Gauld’s Kierkegaard comic strip from last year is amazing and feels quite appropriate alongside my Disco Elysium thoughts above.

A Cursed Blade, Concluded

Over on my Patreon, I posted the full script for Conan the Barbarian #18 from 2020, the second part of the “Curse of the Nighstar” story that acts as a bridge between “Into the Crucible” and “Land of the Lotus”.

Learn how comics are created for the price of a fancy coffee. Hard for me to believe, but there are now over 300 scripts in my Patreon archive!

Links and Other Things

• Comic Scene has Conan the Barbarian as one of their nominees for Best U.S. Comic in 2023. If you vote for us in their survey and/or share the survey link with others, I’d really appreciate it.
• Joshua Adeoye has some great tips on making character turnarounds, an essential part of the character design process for animation and comics.
• Todd Klein has a great profile on the life and work of letterer and logo designer Jim Novak. So many of the logos and stories Todd mentions in this article take me back to collecting comics as a kid.

Have a great week!
Jim

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I might have some Marvel Multiverse TTRPG news coming up and – BAM – here it is!

THE MURDERWORLD THAT TIME FORGOT is an exclusive Marvel TTRPG adventure I wrote for Demiplane that launches…TODAY!

Young Zub – Some day you will write RPG adventures!

Arcade, the infamous game show assassin, unleashes a twisted new Murderworld theme park, this time built in the heart of the Savage Land!

The Murderworld That Time Forgot is a brand new tabletop adventure for characters Rank 1-3 specifically built to teach new Narrators/Game Masters how to successfully run a tabletop role-playing game and also how to structure and execute an exciting Marvel superhero story! There are lots of extra notes and tips on setting up the game, pacing each scene, and keeping players engaged.

Adam Bradford at Demiplane knows how passionate I am about tabletop gaming, so he recruited me to help launch their new line of original Marvel RPG material. With my background in game writing and as co-writer of the recent Murderworld comic, it was the perfect match-up.

Here is a chat between Adam and I all about the adventure on the Demiplane developer livestream this morning–

And here are the creative credits on the adventure-

Everyone on the team did a fantastic job and it’s all ready to run online or in-person with the speed and convenience of the Demiplane tabletop tools.

I can’t wait to see gaming groups create their own superhero stories filled with twists, turns, and T-Rex’s galore.

I think the new Marvel Multiverse RPG is really well put together. It simulates comic book-worthy action and drama in a way that’s easy to get into and using world famous heroes is an easy way to get new players to try tabletop RPGs, because it gives them an immediate framework to work with. Instead of feeling intimidated by what they ‘should’ do during the game, they can easily get into character by imagining “What would Miles Morales do?” (or any other hero they want to play).

Words, Images, & Worlds

I was interviewed by Jason DeHart at Words, Images, & Worlds. We chatted about working on comics and the collaborative process-

A Cursed Blade, Revisited

Now on my Patreon– The full script for CONAN THE BARBARIAN #17 from 2020, the first of a two part story called “The Curse of the Nightstar“.

Look at that bad ass cover by E.M. Gist!

Learn how comics are created for the price of a fancy coffee. Hard for me to believe, but there are now over 300 scripts in my Patreon archive!

Links and Other Things

• Toniko Pantoja has a ton of great tutorials about hand drawn digital animation techniques that are well worth checking out. His recent video about best practices for beginners really hits the spot.
• Creating effective mysteries in tabletop RPG sessions can be difficult. This gaming tips article, the Three Clue Rule by Justin Alexander, is a classic for good reason. I was reminded of this as I played through Baldur’s Gate 3 and saw how almost every plotline in the game has multiple routes to bring characters in and almost every location has multiple entry points so players can organically move through the story and explore the game world without feeling intensely railroaded along the way.

That should cover it this time. I hope your December is going strong.
Jim

In my previous newsletter I mentioned that in 2024 I’ll be at a pair of tabletop gaming events in Wisconsin celebrating 50 years of Dungeons & Dragons. I’m looking to run some old school games at those shows so, with that in mind, I pulled together an impromptu Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition character roll-up and game session with a few friends to refresh my brain on the old rules and gameplay.

(Three and a half years ago, I dug back into the original D&D B/X box sets while co-writing the Stranger Things and Dungeons & Dragons mini-series with Jody Houser and that stirred up a ton of gaming nostalgia from my youth, but I didn’t actually get a chance to re-run the game at the time.)

This quick session was a lot of fun, as expected, but it also reminded me of a crucial part of the original TTRPG experience-

Dungeon Master Fiat Is Everything in 1st Edition D&D

In books and fanzines there was always talk of the DM being “god” at the table, and I’d honestly forgotten how much that was actually the case. The old rules are specific about certain stats or limitations (the level limits for race-class character combinations, for example, or the percentage chance a character can bend the iron bars of a prison cell), but there is very little in terms of using character abilities, skill checks, or specific combat maneuvers as we think of them in modern gaming. Almost all old school dungeon delving is an off the cuff Player VS DM negotiation made in the moment.

“Can I talk these goblins out of a fight?” Maybe. Tell me what you say to them – how you try to bribe or intimidate them. I’ll decide if they’re convinced or make an arbitrary roll behind the DM screen and tell you what happens.

“Can I step in front of the Magic-User to keep them from getting hit by the goblins?” Yes. You’re an armored Cleric with a shield and they’re close by, so that makes sense.

“There was livestock in the equipment shopping list, so I bought a goat. Is that okay?” It’s your starting gold. Spend it however you want.

“Can my pet goat bite a goblin?” Why not? Make an attack roll and we’ll see what happens.

Seeing it all again through the old school lens, I was reminded just how much of the game hung completely on the Dungeon Master saying ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘roll this die and let’s see’ instead of absolutely codified combat or social skill checks that try to cover every eventuality.

I know technically that holds true for every edition of every tabletop RPG (groups can make or break any rule at the table they like), but the “we’re just making this up as we go along” quality feels really laid bare in the original rules, even more than I remembered.

Now that it’s all come flooding back, I need to figure out how much of that old school freeform DNA I want in this playtest game and these convention sessions – where I feel the dials should be tuned between ‘then’ and ‘now’. Wish me luck!

Speaking of D&D – Stacy, Andrew, and I spoke to James Grebey at Fatherly all about the Dungeons & Dragons Young Adventurer’s Guides series and how they engage kids and other new players to help them create their own characters and tell fun interactive stories in a group setting.

The Young Adventurer’s Guides also made Polygon’s list of “Best Gift Ideas for D&D Newcomers’.

Thrice Marked For Death, Twice Marked For Print

One day after release, Titan went back to press on CONAN THE BARBARIAN #5!

Retailer orders are due by December 4th and it will be in stores on December 27th. Liam Sharp‘s killer variant cover is in black & white for the 2nd printing.

This kind of release day rush sellout is unusual for a first issue and on an issue #5 it’s practically unheard of. I know I sound like a broken record on these reprint announcements but, seriously – Thank you so, so much.

I don’t think I’ve ever received so many messages or reviews for the fifth issue of a comic I’ve written before. We’re doing all we can to prove worthy of your support, enthusiasm, and that cover price, month after month.

Bound in Black Stone, Bound in Book Form

Conan the Barbarian Vol. 1: Bound in Black Stone arrives in collected trade paperback in February. If my constant chatter about it here didn’t convince you to get on board the single issues, now you can read issues #1-4 (and our prequel issue #0) in one sitting and see what all the excitement has been about.

If you’ve been collecting the issues every month, this will sit nicely on your bookshelf, or act as a perfect way to hook friends and family on our new era of Hyborian High Adventure.

All this to say – now is a great time to pre-order!

Links and Other Things

• Animator Marc Hendry has a stellar video all about clean final line work in 2D animation that goes through the process using digital tools. The techniques here are solid gold. I have not seen a video that lays it out so clearly before, let alone one free online. If you’re an animator or animation fan, definitely check it out.
• Back in January David Hines posited some interesting theories around a secondary character in John Milius’ Conan the Barbarian movie, and I recently saw the thread pop up on social media again. It’s a neat bit of analysis about characterization that exists beyond what we see on camera in the film.
• I keep linking Matt Colville videos here on my newsletter because his topics are cogent and timely. His latest, a rundown of various editions of D&D that is part history, part advice, is bang-on and feels even more appropriate after running AD&D this week.

Jim

My writing schedule has been intense this Fall, but Stacy and I are slooowly but surely making our way through Baldur’s Gate 3. I’m in the final act of the game, wrapping up side quests and preparing to take things to the finish line as I relish each bit of fun character interplay and obscure bit of Dungeons & Dragons lore that the Larian crew has jam-packed into it.

After recruiting Minsc and Boo for my adventuring party (which is quite the task, I must say), I chatted with the butt-kicking Rashemen about his past and these two bits from my D&D comic run came up in dialogue-

“Did he take a bath in the River Styx and temporarily forget himself?”

Minsc is notoriously brain-addled and forgets things all the time, so he’s not sure if those stories happened, but longtime fans know the truth. At the end of Dungeons & Dragons: Infernal Tides I did indeed have Minsc take a dunk in the River Styx and lose his memories so he’d be a ‘clean slate’ for the video game team since I knew BG3 was in development even though it hadn’t been announced to the public at that point.

This also leads to one of my favorite scenes at the end of the mini-series, where Boo (Minsc’s companion) tries to fill him in on his past adventures and he delights at hearing about his own legend-

Thanks, Team Larian! I really appreciate it.

Doing the research and making stories sync up helps it all feel personal and interconnected, which is one of the many reasons why people get attached to these characters and ongoing worlds in the first place.

(I went into this in more detail in Newsletter #4: Connectivity and Continuity, which is worth reading if you didn’t see it back in March.)

50 Years of Dungeon Delving

Speaking of D&D, I’m doing back-to-back conventions in March to celebrate 50 years of the world’s biggest and most famous RPG where it all began. I’ll be at both Founders & Legends (March 16-18) and Gary Con (March 21-24) in 2024.

In theory I’m a guest at both these shows (and will be on some panels and running some games) but, honestly, I’m heading there as a lifelong fan and really looking forward to hanging out with industry friends and meeting some of the amazing people who helped build the game that ignited so much of my creativity.

Spatch For The Win

It’s been a while since I covered a recipe here, so let’s correct that now – Spatchcock Chicken, do it!

Taking the back out of your bird of choice (chicken, turkey, duck, etc.) and roasting it in the oven is the best way to cook the whole thing at once, period. It’s way easier, much faster, and far tastier than you might think, and you can use the leftover bones for soup or gravy stock!

My local grocery store has specials on whole chickens – it costs less than $10 for a 3½ pound bird that turns into at least 4 meals for Stacy and I – roast chicken dinner, sliced chicken breast on a bun, chicken salad sandwich, and chicken soup. Plus, when I make soup stock the whole house smells like my grandma’s place did around the holidays, a flood of amazing sensory memories.

I cooked a 12-pound turkey in just over an hour using the same method back in 2021 (turkey-specific recipe video HERE) and it was one of the best I’ve ever had in my life. No more waking up at dawn to start the roasting and basting process where you have to babysit the bird all day. This approach solves it all.

Don’t be intimidated by a whole chicken or turkey. Follow this method and you can save money (whole birds are way cheaper per pound than separated breast, thighs, or wings) and make soup without stressing over whether the white meat will be dry or the dark meat will be undercooked.

Links and Other Things

• Daniel Warren Johnson is doing stellar stuff in comics and his new Comics Journal interview is a lot of fun. My buddy Derek raved about Murder Falcon and Do a Powerbomb and I finally fell in headfirst and enjoyed the hell out of both of them. (I know, I know. I should have read this stuff many months ago.)
• Wizards of the Coast posted a video where some of their staff posit on What D&D Monsters Taste Like, which is both amusing and awkward. In a fictional world you can absolutely have all kinds of unusual flavor options, but if a creature is capable of carrying on an intelligent conversation with you then it’s probably a fantasy form of cannibalism.

Okay, that’ll cover things this time. Have a fantastic week!
Jim