250 replies to this topic

[Crom]

This poll is based on an idea from grim_cimmerian. It will remain active until interest wanes. Please feel free to comment.

[grim cimmerian]

hurray! I always wanted to know how other fans found out about my favorite character Conan! Thanks LD!!!!!

I first saw the movies from my dad's VHS copies when I was young, then I got my first books from the ace paperbacks (thanks dad!)

Later I got most of the pastiches (Conan by other authors), some Conan comics, and the Unaltered Howard books from Del Rey. I am now an avid collector of all things Conan!

Edited by grim cimmerian, 18 November 2005 - 01:37 AM.

[Crom]

#2 for me. It was the time of The Beatles. I was 12 years old, looking for something to read, and I saw this wonderful Frazetta cover. The rest was history...

[grim cimmerian]

I strongly suspect that most will vote either movies or ace/sphere/lancer paperbacks. they were what was available to the most people. It will be interesting to see what brand new fans say though!

[korak]

Right about that same time as the Beatles, I was only about 7 or 8, and I found a coverless cutout bin paperback for a dime called Horror Times Ten. It had a story in it by Howard called The Dead Remember. The reason I remember it is because the story terrified me--- as soon as I finished reading it, I took it in the den with tears rolling down my cheeks. I told my Mom, "this book is TOO scary!"


She took it from me and I never saw it again. Years later, when I am my buddies were collecting the Edgar Rice Burroughs books, one day I saw Mark coming down the hill from his house holding a copy of CONAN over his head with this triumphant smile on his lips. The book was appealing because it had a Frazetta on the cover, who was the main illustrator on the Burroughs' paperbacks also, and we thought he was very cool. So I bought a copy of CONAN, too, and read that one, and then started on the other books in that series. About two months later, Marvel came out with the Conan the Barbarian comic book #1 and I managed to find a copy. I was able to successfully collect every single issue of Conan from then on, and that took a lot of footwork back in those days to check every drugstore in town, because we did not have a comic book shop at that time. I think I was the only guy I knew who managed to get every single Smith issue. Issue three was pretty tricky with its limited distribution, and once the other guys missed that one issue, they lost a lot of steam and were less obsessed with completing their set from then on.

The only issue that I missed was Savage Tales #1, and I remember standing in the drugstore with my pal looking it over. It had some really provocative nude scenes in it that were exciting to a young teenager in 1971. There was only one copy left there, the only one I ever saw at that time. The cover price was fifty cents, and I had exactly two quarters in my pocket, and I figured that the girl at the counter would probably front me a couple of pennies for tax.

But then I thought how tough it would be to sneak it past my Mom, since it was a magazine size and had a big M stamped on the front. I passed up the opportunity, and fortunately they reprinted Frost Giant's Daughter in CTB #16 and then the uncensored form in SSOC #1.

But my first Howard exposure was The Dead Remember.

Edited by korak_the_killer, 18 November 2005 - 02:08 AM.

[Officer Aggro]

My dad took me to see Conan The Barbarian at the theater when I was 8, but I didn't start reading about him until I was in highschool.

[El Borak's Li'l Brother]

My eldest brother introduced me to Conan by letting me read some of his copy of Conan while I and family were visiting him in Texas. The Frazetta cover thrilled me. Sadly yet understandably he wouldn't let me borrow the book a.k.a. take it home with me, so... I read a Marvel Comic or two 'til I had the cash to by my own copy of Conan and the rest of the book series. And the rest, as they say, is history...

[PaulMc]

This poll is based on an idea from grim_cimmerian. It will remain active until interest wanes. Please feel free to comment.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, I saw the movie, of course. And then I saw the Kull movie, and then a Howard fan told me how that movie was an aborted attempt at the third Conan movie, Conan and Kull's Howardian history. Then after taking a gamble and loving Eons of the Night, I found Conan of Cimmeria (the second ACE collection) and I was off!

[Winterghost]

I was just hitting my teens when my mom, having grabbed a bunch of comics as stocking stuffers, put a Conan the Barbarian comic in my stocking one Christmas. It was in the middle of an arc, and I hadn't a clue what was going on. Though I had already developed a taste for fantasy, comics were strictly forr superheroes for me at the time. I thought this was the dumbest comic ever, and promptly discarded it in the garbage can.

It took only a few months for my tastes to mature and ascend to that higher level of enlighenment to get sucked into my cult-like obsession with Conan. My Dad was a pastor of a local church, and between Sunday school and the main service I would run down to the local 7-Eleven for my only chance for the whole week to spill my collected pennies onto the counter for any supehero comic I could get my hands on. As destiny had it, the only comic on the rack was Conan the Barbarian. Grudgingly, I bought it. And placing it inside my opneed Bible and reading it during church service, I discoved a whole new world and absolutely fell in love with all things Howard. Amen and amen.

(As a side note, I finally got a copy of that Christmas comic, along with the rest of the arc; I get it now!)

[matsellah]

Marvel Comics... with the caveat that it was Savage Tales!!!

I'm such a stickler. -==-

If it had been Weird Tales, I'd be royalty. ...and really old.

Edited by matsellah, 18 November 2005 - 09:11 AM.

[Mikey_C]

I voted for the Sphere books, but I'm wondering now, it may have been an odd story placed in Lin Carter anthology or something that put me on to them. I was mad about Tolkien and keen to chase up anything 'similar' when I was in my early 'teens.

[Cormac]

I think this poll comes down to age. I first saw Conan in the movies, since I grew up in the early 1980's. You old timers and your so-called "books."

Seriously, I'll always love the first movie, freckles and all, because it sparked an interest in me to learn more. My progression is as follows: CTB-->CTD-->Marvel comics Conan-->REH-->Modern era (Conan.com, Del Rays, Dark Horse, Age of Conan)

Edited by Cormac, 18 November 2005 - 11:02 AM.

[Kieran]

The Conan the Adventurer cartoon show for me which I saw when I was about 8. I read 1 or 2 REH and pastiche works afterwards, but didn't get into it properly until I was about 18.

[Mikey_C]

You old timers and your so-called "books."   

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Watch it, young whippersnapper, or I'll beat your butt with a Hyborian scroll!

[budgie]

books for me..
then the movie..
aint seen the cartoons
Not that familiar with the comics but Im remedying that at the mo..

Budgie

[Staz Johnson]

It was reading the black & white Marvel comics for me (sometime in the late '70's), especially the ones which adapted the R.E. Howard stories, although I wasn't really aware that he was the father of Conan, his stories just seemed better.

The artwork of John Buscema & Alfred Alcala on those stories inspired me to do what I now do for a living... I'm a professional comic artist.

The paperbacks came a couple of years later ( for me), & I'm still waiting for someone to adapt them into comics through R.E.H.'s eyes...despite what anyone says, all modern comic versions of Conan take their base line from Frazetta. Visually(I believe), a version of the character from the eyes of the creator would have more in common with a Douglas Fairbanks Arabian Knights movie, since that would be his frame of reference. Just take a look at some of the pen & ink drawings which accompanied the original publication of the stories in Wierd Tales, & you'll see what I mean..

Edited by Staz Johnson, 18 November 2005 - 06:37 PM.

[korak]

winterghost writes- As destiny had it, the only comic on the rack was Conan the Barbarian. Grudgingly, I bought it. And placing it inside my opneed Bible and reading it during church service, I discoved a whole new world and absolutely fell in love with all things Howard.


You wouldn't happen to remember which story or issue that one was, would you?

[korak]

Lord Durham, shouldn't there be a category in the Poll that says, "Other Robert E. Howard books and stories?"

[Strom]

Interesting posts by all. I really got into Howard thru the Sphere books during college. I had read some Marvel comics growing up but they did not hook me like the books and Howard's writing. So technically, my first introduction was from Marvel but reading Howard's stories (albeit edited ones) created a passion for the character and the writer that has really impacted my life in many ways - from collecting Howard & Conan, naming my German shepherd Conan, this forum, making my family watch Conan the Barbarian over and over, meeting great fans and learning from all you knowledgeable people - etc. It all starts with Robert E. Howard's imagination and incredible talent to tell a story and create a setting and a character that breathes adventure and invites you to travel that road with him. It's great fun too!

Here's hoping we get some more votes. Last years poll had 35!

[Taranaich]

I was vaguely aware of the Conan movie since I was a lad (My mother went to see Conan the Destroyer while she was pregnant with me, d'ya think there's a connection?)

However, I first really got into Conan after reading the Millenium "Fantasy Masterworks" edition. I think it was only a few years back. I had read other Howard before (I read Almuric when I was a lad on the recommendations of my grandfather), but astonishingly I never knew Conan was Robert E Howard's creation. I assumed he was made up for a movie, but being a good little boy I never saw the movie until I was 21

So you could say that I got into Conan either via Fantasy Masterworks or the old Almuric. I have 3 paperbacks and a hardback, because the cover art was so brilliant, and at least I'll have spares!