Death Dealer comic by Image

[Iron Panda]

I liked the Conan movies and if you like Arnold in Conan then of course you liked him in Red Sonja

I like Red Sonja better.

"You are a great swordsman" being referred to Val Kilmer.

 

[Jase]

I liked the Conan movies and if you like Arnold in Conan then of course you liked him in Red Sonja

I like Red Sonja better.

I'm sure if they paid her more, Brigett may have done the chainmail bikini look, seen in the comic.

Jase

[DogOWar]

      I have to jump in here.  I've been a huge fan of REH since the seventies (got my first Conan novel when I was 6).  I have more of a "purist" leaning, so I am not exactly impartial, but I am more open minded than most of the REHupa(fanzine) and alot of members on the Conan.com forum.  I will say that I like the 1st Conan movie well enough ( it is a fun fantasy movie), but It is definitly a far cry from what Howard wrote.  Now, I understand that Milius had to cram a bunch of things about Conan's life into a short amount of time for the movie, I just wish the stoyline had followed the actual history of Conan as writen by Howard! 

     There are only a few things in the movie that are actually from the book(s), and they are the following:

     1).  Conan is a barbarian from Cimmeria.
     2).  Conan was a slave, but only for a short time in his middle teens in Hyberborea, not vanaheim.
     3).  Conan's father was a blacksmith.
     4).  Conan was a thief in Zamora, and did climb a tower, although it was the tower of the elephant.
     5).  Conan did eventually become King of Aquilonia.

     Everything else was either taken from Howard's KULL stories, or just plain made up.  Thulsa Doom is the main protagonist in the KULL stories.  Subotai is very loosely based on "Brule the Slayer", a pictish sidekick to KULL, although he was not a thief.  Everything else was made up for the movie.  I will give Milius props for atleast taking stuff for the movie from other Howard stories(KULL).  I will also say that the movie helped to bring people to REH and that is a good thing. 

     On the downside, Milius spent more on trying to get the movie to look like the Frank Frazetta book covers (Milius's words) than a tribute to Howard as was his stated intention.  Don't get me wrong I'm a HUGE Frazetta fan( In fact I have a small shrine to him at my house), but this is supposed to be about Conan's story.

     I still think it was a fun movie to watch and do watch it occasionaly,...........but REH it ain't.  There have been amazing strides by publishers in recent years to collect an publish REH's stories (Cona, KULL, El Borack, boxing, horror, westerns, etc.) and if you get the chance, you should really read his work.  Of course this is all IMO, and people have the right to like or dislike what they will. 

Thanks for reading.

[Iron Panda]

DogoWar,

That's a great read! 

I was always a big fan of anything in the Sword and Sorcery genre epecially Conan but I keep passing the chance of picking up any of his works.   For a beginner, can you recommend where to start?  The Kull series seems to be similar in vein and might want to pick it up.

Karma pts for you, man!

[Jase]

Iron Panda, if you can get the Fantasy Masterworks series, there are two volumes listing Howard's Conan stories (fragments of stories included), the titles were -
 Vol 1 - The People of the Black Circle
 Vol 2 - The Hour of the Dragon

The second volume has the novel of the same title included (this story was also released as the novel  Conan the Conquerer in the Ace series of Conan stories.

The Conan stories have also been re-released in another series of books, starting with The coming of Conan, I forget the other stories. Also the Kull stories have been released as well (Kull, exile of Atlantis I think it is called)

This would be a start, any bookshop should be able to get these.

Jase

[DogOWar]

@Iron Panda--  Thanks for the karma bud.  Yes, I would be happy to recommend a list for you.  I'll try to look up all the editions and recommend the cheapist ones.  Many of the newest publications are beautiful editions but run as high as $50-250 dollars!  There are some trade paperbacks out that are more reasonably priced, and I think a person should "get their feet wet" before diving head first into the pool.  I'll work on this over the next couple of days and post a new thread about it.  I'm also thinking of puting up a thread on all the cool fantasy and sci-fi that I could recommend as great reads. 

    Modified for Iron Panda's reading pleasure.  Jase makes some good suggestions, but the editions he lists were published in England(?) and there for a little more expensive to obtain.  Del Rey has released a complete collection of Howard's CONAN stories exactly the way HE wrote them.   

     Del Rey books :  Conquering Sword
                               Coming of Conan
                               Bloddy Crown of Conan

     I would start with these.  Also, There is a series of REH's other heroes released by BAEN Books.  I believe there are 6 volumes.  One has the entire KULL collection.  The Kull stories are good, but they were REH's earliest writings and there for lack some of the sophistication found in the later Conan yarns, but are still great stories. 

[Iron Panda]

Dog,

Thanks again for the recommendations!  Greatly appreciate it!