Conan in the comics will always belong to Barry Smith in my mind, but these images by Gil are che cool. First is the cover to #12, which freaked us out at the time (rumors were just starting that Barry's amaz'n art took too long for a monthly publication), but man, what a great cover. Then, over a decade later, Kane did a fistful of Conans that, to me, were poetry on paper. Then after another decade, we got this final image, which musta been as he was working on Edge
And then there's that thing about Kane getting the rights to Conan to run in a magazine alongside His Name is Savage, had it been successful. Like Savage, it would have been uncensored and Archie Goodwin would've probably scripted. Without the Marvel Machine behind it, I wonder if it would've had an impact.
ReplyDeleteWow, had no idea, but that sounds amazeballs. Real alternate universe type stuff
ReplyDeleteHe apparently knew Glen Lord or somebody who had custody of Howard's manuscripts and had made some preliminary arrangements for a companion black and white Conan magazine. I think the guy died and when Savage was a bust it became moot. But Kane knew about Howard before the rest of us, being a big pulp fan. I really think it would've been a different Conan, almost an underground comic. Kane interviews are loaded with this kind of stuff, as I've said before.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I can see all that from his creation of Blackmark
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