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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 21, 2018 10:18:42 GMT -5
Something I had forgotten about, in the 11th chapter of Homer's The Odyssey:
“She came to deep-flowing Oceanus, that bounds the Earth, where is the land and city of the Cimmerians, wrapped in mist and cloud. Never does the bright sun look down on them with his rays either when he mounts the starry heaven or when he turns again to earth from heaven, but baneful night is spread over wretched mortals. Thither we came and beached our ship, and took out the sheep, and ourselves went beside the stream of Oceanus until we came to the place of which Circe had told us."
If that doesn't sound like Howard's Cimmeria, I don't know what does!!!
It was gloomy land that seemed to hold
All winds and clouds and dreams that shun the sun,
With bare boughs rattling in the lonesome winds,
And the dark woodlands brooding over all,
Not even lightened by the rare dim sun
Which made squat shadows out of men; they called it
Cimmeria, land of Darkness and deep Night.
It was so long ago and far away
I have forgotten the very name men called me.
The axe and flint-tipped spear are like a dream,
And hunts and wars are like shadows. I recall
Only the stillness of that sombre land;
The clouds that piled forever on the hills,
The dimness of the everlasting woods.
Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,860
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Post by shaxper on Dec 21, 2018 11:00:55 GMT -5
Something I had forgotten about, in the 11th chapter of Homer's The Odyssey: “She came to deep-flowing Oceanus, that bounds the Earth, where is the land and city of the Cimmerians, wrapped in mist and cloud. Never does the bright sun look down on them with his rays either when he mounts the starry heaven or when he turns again to earth from heaven, but baneful night is spread over wretched mortals. Thither we came and beached our ship, and took out the sheep, and ourselves went beside the stream of Oceanus until we came to the place of which Circe had told us." If that doesn't sound like Howard's Cimmeria, I don't know what does!!! It was gloomy land that seemed to hold
All winds and clouds and dreams that shun the sun,
With bare boughs rattling in the lonesome winds,
And the dark woodlands brooding over all,
Not even lightened by the rare dim sun
Which made squat shadows out of men; they called it
Cimmeria, land of Darkness and deep Night.
It was so long ago and far away
I have forgotten the very name men called me.
The axe and flint-tipped spear are like a dream,
And hunts and wars are like shadows. I recall
Only the stillness of that sombre land;
The clouds that piled forever on the hills,
The dimness of the everlasting woods.
Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night.Wow. I'd often wondered from where Howard drew his inspiration and sources in mapping his world, as I'd heard so many of the names in places that (I'm relatively sure) had never consulted Howard's works. I didn't realize some could be traced back this far! |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 21, 2018 11:13:13 GMT -5
Something I had forgotten about, in the 11th chapter of Homer's The Odyssey: “She came to deep-flowing Oceanus, that bounds the Earth, where is the land and city of the Cimmerians, wrapped in mist and cloud. Never does the bright sun look down on them with his rays either when he mounts the starry heaven or when he turns again to earth from heaven, but baneful night is spread over wretched mortals. Thither we came and beached our ship, and took out the sheep, and ourselves went beside the stream of Oceanus until we came to the place of which Circe had told us." If that doesn't sound like Howard's Cimmeria, I don't know what does!!! It was gloomy land that seemed to hold
All winds and clouds and dreams that shun the sun,
With bare boughs rattling in the lonesome winds,
And the dark woodlands brooding over all,
Not even lightened by the rare dim sun
Which made squat shadows out of men; they called it
Cimmeria, land of Darkness and deep Night.
It was so long ago and far away
I have forgotten the very name men called me.
The axe and flint-tipped spear are like a dream,
And hunts and wars are like shadows. I recall
Only the stillness of that sombre land;
The clouds that piled forever on the hills,
The dimness of the everlasting woods.
Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night.Wow. I'd often wondered from where Howard drew his inspiration and sources in mapping his world, as I'd heard so many of the names in places that (I'm relatively sure) had never consulted Howard's works. I didn't realize some could be traced back this far! Howard was amazingly knowledgeable about history and ancient literature for a guy living in a very small Texas town in the 1920s! He even alluded to a hypothesis that linked Herodotus's Cimmerians to the ancient inhabitants of Wales, the Cymri. In his pseudo-historical essay The Hyborian Age, Howard describes the migration of Conan's people from the Hyborian age Cimmeria (located over parts of Scandinavia and the United Kingdom) to the vicinity of the Black Sea, just in time to play their part in history. It deserves to be said again: it is this attention to historical verisimilitude that makes the Conan cycle so different from other well-written fantasy works. A certain comic-book critic who complained, many years ago, that Tim Truman paid too much attention to Turanian politics during his Conan the Cimmerian run just wasn't a Robert E. Howard's Conan fan! |
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Post by senatortombstone on Dec 26, 2018 16:25:01 GMT -5
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 27, 2018 18:06:07 GMT -5
Is that what you take from this article, senatortombstone? I view the intention of teaming up Conan with the Avengers and doing “something completely different to distinguish this iteration from the previous ones at Marvel” as an unmitigated disaster. And I sincerely doubt Howard would have introduced superheroes or anything remotely similar to the Hyborian Age! I’m fine with a What If..? story, but an actual team-up? Ugh! At the moment, only Jason Aaron’s claim to be a Howard fan keeps me from seeing this new publication venture in any but the most apprehensive way.  |
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Post by rberman on Dec 27, 2018 18:15:39 GMT -5
Is that what you take from this article, senatortombstone? I view the intention of teaming up Conan with the Avengers and doing “something completely different to distinguish this iteration from the previous ones at Marvel” as an unmitigated disaster. And I sincerely doubt Howard would have introduced superheroes or anything remotely similar to the Hyborian Age! I’m fine with a What If..? story, but an actual team-up? Ugh! At the moment, only Jason Aaron’s claim to be a Howard fan keeps me from seeing this new publication venture in any but the most apprehensive way. Also, Marvel already did "The Marvel Age meets the Hyborian Age" back in the 80s.   |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 27, 2018 18:20:28 GMT -5
Is that what you take from this article, senatortombstone? I view the intention of teaming up Conan with the Avengers and doing “something completely different to distinguish this iteration from the previous ones at Marvel” as an unmitigated disaster. And I sincerely doubt Howard would have introduced superheroes or anything remotely similar to the Hyborian Age! I’m fine with a What If..? story, but an actual team-up? Ugh! At the moment, only Jason Aaron’s claim to be a Howard fan keeps me from seeing this new publication venture in any but the most apprehensive way. Also, Marvel already did "The Marvel Age meets the Hyborian Age" back in the 80s. That is true, and there was also a Marvel Team-Up with Kull. But those things were always very superficial, and Conan himself never took part in a team-up outside of a What if..? issue. Just the house ads that showed Conan fighting a Wolverine-like dude gave me a rash! |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2018 22:43:42 GMT -5
It's not the first Marvel x-over event to feature Conan...   and I think there was a third part somewhere else. That Conan series also featured a story of Conan vs. Man of Iron, an inventor who was the Hyborian Age Tony Stark...  and the solicitation copy for that issue... So yeah, Marvel's been down this road before, and will again if it suits their need to meet quarterly sales goals. Don't forget Kulan Gath and Shuma Gorath have both appeared in the Hyborian Age and the Marvel Age of Heroes, so Howard's Hyborian Age was already considered part of the Marvel Universe not its own thing when Marvel had Conan the last time, not just limited to What If? combinations, and there is the story making Mary Jane Watson a descendant of Red Sonja tying the two eras together as well. So, yeah, same as it ever was with Marvel and Conan. As long as it doesn't force its way into the Conan monthlies, I can ignore Marvel event comics just as I have done for several years now. I just go back to Howard's idea that they are all just yarns told around the fire, don't try to make more of them than they are. If they are enjoyable yarns in the Conan comics, I'll buy them, if not I won't. Same standard I apply to anyone not named Bob Howard who writes Conan. -M |
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Post by senatortombstone on Dec 29, 2018 21:18:58 GMT -5
Is that what you take from this article, senatortombstone? I view the intention of teaming up Conan with the Avengers and doing “something completely different to distinguish this iteration from the previous ones at Marvel” as an unmitigated disaster. And I sincerely doubt Howard would have introduced superheroes or anything remotely similar to the Hyborian Age! I’m fine with a What If..? story, but an actual team-up? Ugh! At the moment, only Jason Aaron’s claim to be a Howard fan keeps me from seeing this new publication venture in any but the most apprehensive way. I apologize; I was trying to be sarcastic. Perhaps I did not use the best emoji to convey that intent. As I have said before, while I hope for the best, I anticipate that the best thing to come out of Marvel's new acquisition of the rights to publish Conan comics will be to print the SSoC and CtB omnibuses. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 29, 2018 21:34:47 GMT -5
I think that MAYBE having the Scarlet Witch in the Hyborean Age could work... I mean, she can just be a witch, that fit in just fine. That would indeed make it different.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 30, 2018 9:53:23 GMT -5
Is that what you take from this article, senatortombstone? I view the intention of teaming up Conan with the Avengers and doing “something completely different to distinguish this iteration from the previous ones at Marvel” as an unmitigated disaster. And I sincerely doubt Howard would have introduced superheroes or anything remotely similar to the Hyborian Age! I’m fine with a What If..? story, but an actual team-up? Ugh! At the moment, only Jason Aaron’s claim to be a Howard fan keeps me from seeing this new publication venture in any but the most apprehensive way. I apologize; I was trying to be sarcastic. Perhaps I did not use the best emoji to convey that intent. As I have said before, while I hope for the best, I anticipate that the best thing to come out of Marvel's new acquisition of the rights to publish Conan comics will be to print the SSoC and CtB omnibuses. It’s I who must apologize, as I completely missed your intent! Mea culpa. I’m fine with Conan being at Marvel, and hope that Red Sonja and Kull would also be recovered... Those properties should not have been separated in the first place. But I fear that they will just be treated like any other IP, to be exploited in any way that might make a little money. That’s the nature of the beast, I know, but I find it sad that instead of trying to emulate Kurt Busiek’s approach (trying to be true to Howard) the first thing Marvel does is team up Conan with an Avenger. The strategy has a low-hanging fruit quality to it. Then again, it’s their money. |
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Post by michael on Mar 15, 2020 5:22:46 GMT -5
This is the best Conan topic on the internet.
I am still wading my way through it.
Praise be to Ishtar!
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Post by senatortombstone on Mar 17, 2020 21:53:46 GMT -5
This is the best Conan topic on the internet. I am still wading my way through it. Praise be to Ishtar! Yes. SSoC was definitely peak Conan. Even the non Roy Thomas and campiest issues with apocryphal stories totally out of sync with REH's Conan were better than what Marvel is publishing today. I was really disappointed with the year-long Life and Death of Conan story arc that concluded a couple months ago. The new SSoC appears to have been cancelled at issue 12. I guess once you've read the original Marvel run and also the Darkhorse version of Conan, there isn't much new material to choose from and any Conan is better than none. But still, I was hoping for better than what we have been given so far. |
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Post by michael on Mar 18, 2020 5:25:00 GMT -5
I am lucky in that I first discovered Conan via the local library in the novel form.
This was about 30 years ago.
I am new to the comics so have all the comicy discovery yet to do.
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Post by senatortombstone on Mar 18, 2020 22:01:37 GMT -5
I am lucky in that I first discovered Conan via the local library in the novel form. This was about 30 years ago. I am new to the comics so have all the comicy discovery yet to do. Nice! My first experience with Conan material was Conan the Destroyer, which I saw when I was 12. Despite its otherwise lackluster reaction from fans of the first movie and REH, I enjoyed it. Next I watched the Conan the Adventurer cartoon, in the mid-nineties - again, I liked it despite the overall disapproval of REH fans. In 2012, I began reading the reprints of Marvels' SSoC and CtB published by Darkhorse. I recommend purchasing the current Omnibus reprints of CtB and SSoC, as Marvel seems intent on reprinting those complete runs. With a few exceptions, the Darkhorse run of Conan was quite good and it is a shame that they were not able to adapt all of the REH stories, before losing the rights to Marvel at the end of 2017. I think my favorite Conan story is A Witch Shall be Born. However, as excellence it is, it is still an incomplete story. It would be nice to see Marvel re-adapt it as a year-long story arc and fill in the gaps of the original story, by focusing more on the deprivations of Salome and Constantius and also how Conan rose to power within the ranks of the Zuagirs after being taken down from the cross and before usurping Olegard Vladislov. |
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