I first discovered Conan by happenstance when I got an issue of Conan in one of the polybagged 3 packs of Marvel Comics my folks would occasionally get for me. I believe it was #76. My dad, who I mentioned in the ERB thread) was a fan of Tarzan and Conan looked like something he would like as well, so he read it, and I picked up a few issues here and there as I bought most of my comics haphazardly as a kid. I even got the Conan Mego (and Tarzan) because my dad picked them out for me for my birthday one year. I had an older cousin who was into comics and he was into Conan as well. In the summer of '78 I finally convinced him to lend me his copy of the Star Wars novelization and he slipped a copy of Conan the Swordsman (the newly released Conan pastiche by de Camp and Carter that was following up on the Ace series) in for me to read even though the cover was too racy for my mom's tastes when I asked if I could borrow it.

I was hooked. He later got into trouble and started using and I ended up getting all his comics and sci-fi books as a hand me down from my aunt and uncle just before we moved to Maine, so I got a lot of the Ace paperbacks and the later books that followed Swordsman in that series. The Conan movie came out while I was in Maine and another cousin, who was much older than me, was a fan of bodybuilding and Arnie (and Space Ghost curiously enough) and he convinced my mom to let him take me to see it with him (it was my first R rated film seen in a theatre). We moved back to CT shortly after that and I found a copy of the Estaban Maroto illustrated novel of The Treasure of Trancios at a grocery store visiting relatives that summer, and that set me further on the path of getting and reading anything and everything Conan I could get my hands on. I had started playing D&D too, and was grabbing all the Conan modules and miniatures that TSR released , but kind of lost interest a bit after Conan the Destroyer was such a disappointment. However, I had a love of sword and sorcery in general as well as fantasy, and began to explore Leiber, Moorcock and others, but Howard was my entry point into that.

I got back into Conan and Howard again after college when I was at a con and found a bunch of the Thomas/Buscema Conan issues in a dollar box and devoured them, then going back and rereading all the Ace stuff and the other pastiches I had. I eventually found a way to get the Wandering Star editions of the Conan material that preceded the Del Rey stuff, it was UK release only and featured Howard's text free of the de Camp and Carter edits (but altered for British spellings of such things as colour since it was a UK release) and got to experience pure Howard for the first time. It was around this time that I also found of copy of the issue of pulp Space Science Fiction form 1952 that featured the first appearance of God in the Bowl (though edited by de Camp it was the first time the Howard story appeared in print). I started picking up everything I could of Howard's other stuff and pastiches featuring his characters, but the Del Rey books were a godsend. I have most of them, except the Best of and 1 other I think) and the Horror stories is my favorite. I also have a series of paperbacks reprinting his Weird Tales contributions in chronological order, including his poetry, and a few other collections of unedited Howard material form smaller more academic publishers. I am also still trying to track down issues of Amra and if I can afford it, the Weird Tales issues with original Conan, Kull and Solomon Kane stories.

I think the Cary Nord version of Conan is my definitive version, it's how I always pictured him when I read the prose, powerful and lithe with clothing that varied for the environment. I like the Smith and Buscema stuff, but think it suffered because it was tethered to the needs of Marvel Marketing to have Conan appear the same in every story no matter what the climate/environment of the story would have called for or the original Howard prose described. the artwork itself in draftsmanship and storytelling was masterful, but the Conan in a "union suit" for marketing always bothered me after I read Conan in prose. Still love me some Frazetta too.

Recently just picked up Figures Toy Company' retro Conan Mego style figures of Conan, Kull and Solomon Kane.

-M

My first exposure to Conan was Marvel's Conan the Barbarian #7, although I later found a reference in a Sub-Mariner letters page that I hadn't understood at the time. I quickly was hooked on the comic and the character, and bought all of the Lancer paperbacks and bought every issue of Fantastic Stories magazine where the new DeCamp/Carter stories were published before being collected in paperback. I bought the three Solomon Kane paperbacks with the Jeff Jones covers, and the King Kull paperback, and a few others - Almuric, Tigers of the Sea, and The Lost Valley of Iskander.