23 January 2010

Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net

ROGUE FEED

More Conan Casting News ROGUE FEED

JAN 22, 2010 02:16P.M.
Conan of Cross Plains
Mickey Rourke has apparently been cast as Conan’s father. I don’t have JAN 22, 2010 08:03A.M.
much to say about Rourke, but I will add that the presence of Conan’s
father in the film doesn’t make me happy, because it implies that, once
again, Hollywood is demands an “origin story” for a character who,
frankly, doesn’t require one. I think we know more about Conan’s
grandfather than we do about Conan’s father, who, so far as I know, is
never mentioned in the Howardian corpus (someone can correct me if I
am mistaken). That means Rourke is portraying a wholly (largely?)
invented character, one I just don’t see the need for, but then what do I
know about making schlock movies?

ROGUE FEED

The New Face of Conan

JAN 22, 2010 10:31A.M.

We’re making tin gods out of those poor buffoons in
Hollywood; I dote on movies and appreciate the scanty art
therein but I consider the profession about the most debased
and debasing I know.
—Robert E. Howard to Tevis Clyde Smith (February 20,
1928)
The Cimmerian’s Deuce Richardson has reported that Jason Momoa has
been cast as Conan in the upcoming feature film. While I can’t say I’m
particularly pleased by this story, if true, I honestly don’t think that the
casting of Momoa, about whom I know little beyond what I can see, is
going to make or break this picture. Far more worrisome is the story
treatment, which seems to have even less of Howard about it than the
original Schwarzenegger flick.
Momoa gets points for at least not being an underwear model turned
“actor,” but, on first blush, he doesn’t quite look the part. Maybe with a
different haircut, some blue contact lenses, and an appropriate costume,
I could buy him as Conan. I don’t know; it’s hard to imagine, but I could
grin and bear it if the script were good. I have little hope of that,
unfortunately, and so I’m left with the hope that the movie will come and
go without much notice and leave the work of introducing a new
generation to Conan to the writings of Howard himself.
Janus must be very fond of writers, for so many were born this month:
J.R.R. Tolkien, Clark Ashton Smith, Edgar Allan Poe, Abraham Merritt
and, today, Robert Ervin Howard. Of them all, Howard is possibly
unique in having created a character — Conan — who is a genuine pop
cultural icon, his name recognized even by people with no prior
connection to pulp fantasy. The irony is that that recognition often acts
as an impediment to appreciating Howard’s genius in having created
him. Indeed, the popular conception of Conan bears only a passing
resemblance to the character who first strode onto the pages of Weird
Tales in December 1932.
It may sound fantastic to link the term “realism” with Conan;
but as a matter of fact - his supernatural adventures aside -
he is the most realistic character I ever evolved. He is simply
a combination of a number of men I have known, and I think
that’s why he seemed to step full-grown into my
consciousness when I wrote the first yarn of the series. Some
mechanism in my sub-consciousness took the dominant
characteristics of various prize-fighters, gunmen, bootleggers,
oil field bullies, gamblers, and honest workmen I had come in
contact with, and combining them all, produced the
amalgamation I call Conan the Cimmerian.
—Robert E. Howard to Clark Ashton Smith (July 23, 1935)

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net 23 January 2010

It’s a pity that this character, this amalgamation of so many real people of Howard’s own life are also becoming more well known, at least among
Howard met in Depression era Texas, isn’t the one with which so many scholars and dedicated enthusiasts of fantasy. It may be some time
are familiar today. He is, for my money, vastly more interesting than the before past falsehoods are cast aside for good but it’s at least possible to
dim, loincloth-wearing, stuffed mattress to be found in so many popular imagine that now, whereas it was not even a few years ago.
portrayals of the Cimmerian.
Like the 104th birthday of Robert E. Howard, that’s something worth
Of course, Howard himself has fared little better in the popular celebrating.
imagination than has his most famous creation. To the extent that
anyone even knows any facts about the author’s life, they’re likely based
on distortions, misrepresentations, and outright lies, such as those L.
Sprague de Camp peddled in Dark Valley Destiny. Fortunately, the last
three decades have seen the rise of a critical re-evaluation of both REH
and his literary output, finally allowing both to be judged on their own
merits rather than through the lenses of men with axes to grind.

This is as it should be. Robert E. Howard was a man like any other. He
had his vices as well as his virtues; there is no need more need to reduce
discussions of him to mere hagiography than there is to ill-informed
criticisms. But men, particularly artists, need to be understood in their
proper context, historical as well as cultural. Until comparatively
recently, Howard hasn’t been given that chance. Like Conan, he’s been
reduced to a caricature, a laughable shadow of his full depth and
complexity that illuminates little about either his life or his legacy.

As the quote above makes clear, Conan may have been a man of the
Hyborian Age but he was born in Depression era Texas and, I think, is
most fully understood within that context. This is equally true of Howard
himself, as Mark Finn noted in Blood and Thunder, a much-needed
biographical corrective to De Camp:

One cannot write about Robert E. Howard without writing

about Texas. This is inevitable, and particularly so when
discussing any aspect of Howard’s biography. To ignore the
presence of the Lone Star State in Robert E. Howard’s life and
writing invites , at the very least, a few wrongheaded
conclusions, and at worst, abject character assassination.
This doesn’t keep people from plunging right in and getting it
wrong every time.

It’s often claimed that Howard led a tragic life but I’m not so sure that’s
true. If anything, he’s had a far more tragic afterlife, for, despite of all the
Herculean efforts made to elucidate his life and art, he is still so often
remembered as “that writer who killed himself because he was upset
about his mother’s death.” Couple that with the disservice done to his
creations and it’s a recipe for the frustration of anyone who reveres his
memory, warts and all.

Yet, there is reason to hope the tide may eventually turn. Del Rey has
done terrific work in bringing Howard’s writings — and not just his tales
of Conan — back into print. Better still, these are all Howard’s writings,
not the hackwork pastichery of others. In fact, it’s becoming increasingly
difficult to find those faux Conan stories on bookstore shelves. It’s my
hope that, at the very least, this will ensure that future readers will have a
better chance to encounter the genuine articles than I did when I first
sought out stories of the Cimmerian as a young man. Likewise, the facts