Part 37 (1/2)

E Hoffman Price was one of the feriters and fellow correspondents who actually visited Howard In 1934 he drove down to Cross Plains and recalled years later, hearty hand, and a voice which was surprisingly soft and easy, instead of the bull-bellow one would expect of the creator of Conan and those other swashbucklersRobert Hoas packed hi out in his letters, and blazed up in much of his published fiction but, as is usually the case riters, his appearance belied hiles; his blue eyes, slightly pro of the ile fancy That first picture persists - a powerful, solid, round-faced fellow, kindly and somewhat stolid'

However, Hoffman also discovered that there was a darker side to Hohilst his host was driving Hoffman and his neife, Wanda, to the nearby town of Broood for a shopping and sightseeing trip: 'Suddenly, he took his foot off the throttle, cocked his head, idled down We were approaching a cluetation which was near the roadside He reached across us, and to the side pocket He took out a pistol, sized up the terrain, put the weapon back again, and resumed speed He explained, in a matter-of-fact tone, ”I have a lot of eneured ere running into anything but I had to make sure”'

Some time later Howard confided to Novalyne Price Ellis that a man with as many enemies as he had needed to be careful 'Anybody who is not your friend is your enemy,' he explained pleasantly to her

Howard had written his first story - a historical adventure about a Viking nae of nine or ten, and he was fifteen when he began writing professionally 'I took up writing simply because it seemed to promise an easier mode of work, more money, and more freedom than any job I'd tried I wouldn't write otherwise' He sent off his first effort to Adventure, but it was rejected, and it was another three years before Howard azine Weird Tales

Originally selling for just twenty-five cents on newsstands, and printed on low-grade 'pulp' paper, Weird Tales was the first azine devoted exclusively to weird and fantastic fiction It ran for 279 issues, starting in March 1923 and finally giving up the ghost in Septestpublished at that tiazine', and during its original thirty-two-year run (the tide has been revived - unsuccessfully - on several occasions since) it presented all types of fantasy fiction, from supernatural stories to Gothic horror, sword and sorcery to science fiction A some of its most famous contributors were H P Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, Seabury Quinn, C L Moore, Henry Kuttner, Manly Wade Wellman, Jack Williamson, Henry S Whitehead, and even Tennessee Willia ht had replaced Edwin F Baird as editor of the Chicago-based er was forced to reorganise the title owing to debts Froan to flourish under Wright's guidance, and he edited 179 copies before retiring after the March 1940 edition He died from Parkinson's disease in June that sahteen, 'Spear and Fang' was a story about the struggles between prehistoric ht published it in the July 1925 issue and paid its teenage author a fee of 1600 at half-a-cent a word Even in pre-Depression Texas that would not go far, and Howard quickly realised that he would have to work at a variety of jobs to supple cotton, branding cattle, hauling garbage, working in a grocery store and a law office, jerking soda in a drug store, trying to be a public stenographer, packing a surveyor's rod and working up oil-field news for some Texas and Oklahoma papers However, by his own admission, he 'wasn't a success at any of theht: 'Pounding out a living at the writing gae man's life is no snap, whatever he does I' the line one way or another for meat for their bellies - which is the oal of Life Every now and then one of us finds the going too hard and blows his brains out, but it's all in the gas soon began to change for Howard In just three years his inco juan to sell other types of fiction - Westerns, sports stories, horror tales, 'true confessions', historical adventures and detective thrillers - to pulp an to develop a series of characters holish Puritan swordsh school); the king of fabled Valusia, King Kull; Pictish chieftain Bran Mak Morn; prize-fighter Sailor Steve Costigan; Celtic warrior Turlogh O'Brien; soldier of fortune Francis X Gordon, also known as 'El Borak'; huhty barbarian, Conan

Conan quickly becae exploits in the Hyborian Age, a fictional period of pre-history ' which otten, but which remains in classical names, and distorted myths' He detailed Conan's world in a pseudo-historical essay entitled 'The Hyborian Age', which ran as a serial in Donald A Wollheiraph in the issues dated February, August and October-November 1936 However, the fanzine only published the first half of the essay, and it finally appeared in its co to his creator, Conan ' was born on a battle field, during a fight between his tribe and a horde of raiding Vanir The country claimed by and roved over by his clan lay in the northwest of Cih a pure-bred Cirandfather was a member of a southern tribe who had fled fro wanderings, eventually taken refuge with the people of the north He had taken part in many raids into the Hyborian nations in his youth, before his flight, and perhaps it was the tales he told of those softer countries which roused in Gonan, as a child, a desire to see the Conan's life of which I aot his first sight of civilized people It ht have made a peaceable visit to some frontier town before that At Vanariuh only fifteen He stood six feet and weighed 180 pounds, though he lacked rowth'

However, despite what Hoould claihty-thewed barbarian did not leap fully fore Stories contained Howard's story 'People of the Dark', whose hero was a pirate named Conan the reaver, as physically similar to the later Conan and also swore 'by Crom!'

The first published Conan story, 'The Phoenix on the Sword', is one of the final adventures in Conan's chronology, set after he had becoht conditionally accepted it in a letter dated March 10, 1932, describing it as having ' points of real excellence I hope you will see your way clear to touch it up and resubmit it' It eventually appeared in the December 1932 issue of Weird Tales and was an instant hit, as indicated in the February 1933 edition of the letters column, 'The Eyrie', where readers and writers alike were invited to air their coazine: ' ”The Phoenix on the Sword” fairly took ue and excellent action and description,' exclainificent story Mr Howard never writes but that he produces aof an unsold King Kull tale entitled 'By This Axe I Rule!', which finally saw print in its original for of Aquilonia, Conan was aeon, where he encountered an enormous serpent in 'The Scarlet Citadel', published in the January 1933 Weird Tales Although Howard had already been awarded the coveted cover spot on previous issues of the azine (his first had been for 'Wolfshead' back in April 1926), the covers for the December and January issues were two out of four, which J Allen St John produced consecutively for Otis Adelbert Kline's serial 'Buccaneers of Venus'

Howard also missed out on the cover for the March 1933 issue, which contained 'The Tower of the Elephant' As Howard later explained in a letter written to P Schuyler Miller, 'Conan was about seventeen when he was introduced to the public in 'The Tower of the Elephant' While not fully e civilized youth at that age' The author apparently borrowed the setting for the Zamorian thieves' quarter from one of his favourite movies, the 1923 version of The Hunchback of Notre Daainst a revived wizard in 'Black Colossus', his fourth adventure in Weird Tales, in the June 1933 issue It also marked the first of nine cover appearances Howard's Conan series would s were featured onthe mid-1930's, and her cover for 'Black Colossus' depicted the naked Yas out to touch the seated stone idol A fore was paid 90 per cover and usually worked in delicate pastel chalks on canvas Wright ad the artist's work: 'The originals are so delicate that we are afraid even to sneeze e have a cover design in our possession, for fear the picture will disappear in a cloud of dust'

'They were so iraver in Chicago,' Brundage recalled 'Wright later told enerated the most mail ever for a cover for Weird Tales: That was probably because her depictions of nude or diapha-nously draped woe positions, provoked ht was a sh editor and businesse nude on the cover invariably sold more copies on the newsstands

In a letter to Clark Ashton Smith postmarked July 22, 1933, Howard told his fellow Weird Tales writer: 'Thanks, too, for the kind things you said about Conan I enjoy writing about him more than any character I have ever created He al with hiinally tided 'Xuthal of the Dusk', 'The Slithering Shadow' in the September 1933 Weird Tales found Conan in yet another lost city battling an evil Stygian witch and the toad-like God, Thog The story was also featured on the cover with one of Brundage's ' scenes Future author Henry Kuttner coly sadistic cover illustrating 'The Slithering Shadow' I haven't the slightest objection to the female nude in art, but it seems rather a pity that it is possible to find such pictures in any sex azine which can run fantastic and weird cover illustrations and doesn't'

Conan joined up with a group of buccaneers in search of a treasure island in 'The Pool of the Black One' in the October 1933 issue of Weird Tales In another letter to Clark Ashton Save soround to the creation of his most memorable character: Tends are based on sonition in the tellingI know that for months I had been absolutely barren of ideas, co sellable Then the row up in my mind without much labor on my part and immethately a stream of stories flowed off my pen - or rather off my type-writer - al, but rather relating events that had occurred Episode crowded on episode so fast that I could scarcely keep up with the but write of the adventures of Conan The character took co else in the way of story-writing When I deliberately tried to write so else, I couldn't do it'

By noard's stories in thehim the same kind of popularity that such authors as Seabury Quinn and H P Lovecraft were also receiving in the letters column In fact, except for Quinn's exploits of the psychic detective Jules de Grandin, Conan was the most popular character ever to appear in Weird Tales

'Rogues in the House', which appeared in the January 1934 Weird Tales, was another of those Conan stories which see barbarian thief was saved froe As Howard recalled: 'I didn't rewrite it even once As I reed one word in it, and then sent it in just as it ritten'

Perhaps that hy, in a letter to P Schuyler Miller written in 1936, Howard adround to his own story: 'I aues in the House” occurred in Za factions of politics would seem to indicate otherwise, since Za political opinions were not tolerated I am of the opinion that the city was one of the s just west of Za Zamora Shortly after this he returned for a brief period to Cimmeria, and there were other returns to his native land froe, 'The Frost-Giant's Daughter' was possibly originally written as a non-Conan story entitled 'The Frost King's Daughter' and featured a Conanesque hero nainally been sub with 'The Phoenix on the Sword', but Wright had rejected it in the letter dated March 10, in which he declared: 'I do not much care for it' The A's amateur journal The Fantasy Fan for March 1934 under the tide 'Gods of the North', while the Conan version didn't see print until ht' in the April 1934 Weird Tales was originally given the title 'Iron Shadows in the Moon' by Howard This time Conan and his fehter and found themselves menaced by iron statues imbued with life by the rays of the full moon

According to one reader from Rockdale, Texas, in the June 1934 edition: 'As usual Conan provided some real thrills in Robert E Howard's story, ”Shadows in the Moonlight” In reatest of WT's famous characters'

Conan fell in love with the female pirate Belit, leader of the Black Corsairs, in his next adventure After keeping Conan off the cover for several issues, Wright used a Margaret Brundage painting for 'Queen of the Black Coast' on the May 1934 Weird Tales It featured a delicate-looking Conan with a diaphanously draped da her ar attacker with an ineffectual knife

Meanwhile, the Brundage debate continued to rage in 'The Eyrie': 'I do not think it would be at all an easy task to find anything to coe's representations of sheer fees-tiveness which usually accoazines,' commented a male reader fro: 'The cover illustration ”Black Colossus” was about as beautiful a piece of art as I have seen in a long time'

However, in the saon declared: 'I do enjoy Weird Tales and usually h I do tear off the cover immethately and stick it in the nearest receptacle for trash Are such covers absolutely necessary?'