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