Celebrating Conan #25 with Jim Zub pt 1

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, welcome back time again for Word Balloon, the
comic book conversation show. John Santras here with a bit
of an apology. Last night tried to do a video
with Jim Zubb because he's got an amazing Conan number
twenty five for Conan the Barbarian for Titan coming out
next month, and he's really been killing it both on
Conan and Savage Swords of Conan. But the video was

(00:23):
all messed up. I was on a delay. I kept
dropping out of the video, and poor Jimmy was left
holding the bag. So what we're gonna do is we're
going to record a zoom later this week about Conan
twenty five and I will present it here on word Balloon,
the audio as well as the video, but in the meantime,

(00:44):
because they didn't want to leave you hanging, and also
wanted to help Jim promote this amazing issue that's coming
up all painted. Everything is painted and it's just beautiful
and Jimmy will have more detail on it when we talk.
But I wanted to present this earlier conversation that Jim
and I had about his Conan run, and it talks
about the basics and again I can't urge you enough.

(01:05):
If you're an old time Conan fan, you're really gonna
appreciate the level of detail to give us that feeling
of the great Conan runs of the Bronze Age from Marvel.
I really think Titan and Jim and the whole group
behind this Conan revival has really been doing some excellent work.
And I know Jim has massive plans moving forward as well,

(01:27):
and we'll cover all that in this other conversation that
we're going to do, But today wanted to represent this
wonderful talk because we really are hitting the basics, and
we'll give you an idea of what Jimmy's doing on
the book. Jim's up talking about Conan the Barbarian on
today's word Balloon. Word Balloon is brought to you by
Alex Ross art dot Com, the official showcase for the

(01:48):
legendary comic book artist Alex Ross. From timeless Marvel and
DC heroes to stunning original creations, Alex's artwork captures the
power and humanity of the world's greatest icons. At alex
Ross dot com, you'll find beautifully crafted prints, posters, and
exclusive one of a kind pieces you won't see anywhere else,
all direct from the artist himself. Celebrate your love with

(02:11):
comics and pop culture with art that defines the medium.
Visit Alex Ross dot com today and bring a masterpiece home.
Word Balloon is also brought to you by the League
of Word Balloon Listeners. I'd love for you to join
us at Mypatreon Patreon dot com slash word balloon. For
just three dollars a month or more, you'll get exclusive
access to the Word Balloon e magazine featuring transcriptions of

(02:34):
some of my best conversations. Plus you'll be part of
the Word Balloon Book Club, where Brian Michael Bendison myself
sit down every month with our listeners and viewers to
dive in deep into a great graphic novel. It's a
fun way to support the show and get more content
you can't find anywhere else the League of Word Balloon Listeners.
Check it out today at Patreon dot com slash word Balloon.

(02:59):
Welcome back, everybody. Hey, time again for word Balloon, the
comp conversation show. John Centrists here, I'm here with the
zub Mariner. Everybody's come on. A lot of people have
to call you that, right, Jim.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Oh yeah, I get the zubmarine, the zub zub machine gun, zubwey.
It's just the constant, you know, like in subscribe, which
I actually use, and then my newsletter if people sign
up for my email newsletter, is called the zubstack.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
So yeah, substack absolutely gotta.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Be gotta gotta lean into it, you know. Then it's
good as bean. We were talking about this off off
stream three over three years since we've chatted last time.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Sorry, you and I.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah, I always said everyone's busy, it's all good, but.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
I'm appreciate that. But that is so like tipical. It's
crazy right where it's like, hey, let's talk soon, and
then I look up and literally, in cases two or
three years since.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
That, life was a tornado, man. But yeah, we were
literally doing lockdowns last time you and I chatted, and
we were like trying to keep energy up, and like
you were really you know, I listened to some of
it just to kind of remember where we were at,
and you were very buoyant. You were like, We're gonna
come out of this, Everything's gonna be fine. I was
a little more kind of even on it, like I

(04:14):
don't know, it was a little strange right now, you.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Know, yeah, I survived. They survived the Spanish flew back
in like nineteen eighteen, and that was, you know, as bad.
I mean, God, you see those photographs and illustrations of
that weird bird mask with the blonde beak and everything that.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
People still I mean, it's crazy now, of course, you know. Yeah,
it seemed like in the midst of it it was
never going to end. And now it's sort of okay,
you know, varying degrees, and it's still throwing me a
couple of loops in terms of con season. But yeah,
out in a big way. Back then, I mentioned to
you than in twenty twenty, I was supposed to take
a teaching sabbatical and I'm on it now. So starting

(04:56):
in late April, I started a big break, a sixteen
month teaching sabbatical. Uh So I've been you know, jet
setting around and doing conventions and promoting and all that
kind of stuff. It feels weird to have one full
time career instead of two at the same time. So
maybe that's why I'm getting some actual rest for change.

(05:16):
It's it's good, It's really good.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yeah, that's good to hear. Here a couple opening comments
from people, uh DC Patrol says, I wish I could
stick around chat. I have to go looking forward to
this you both Rock Conan has been his best ever,
So that's cool.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
That's really cool. So DC Patrol does these little short
videos he's been posting about the book, and I'm just
so ecstatic. It's been great. He's that's really cool. So
that's cool.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
Henry Barana is also joining us, and so the best
in the comic books amazing.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
It's very sweet.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
Something we've brought up before, Jim is the way and
truly you've got your Jedi mind tricks and you're able
to use some of your harshest critics by my kindness.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
And I joke that it's like, yeah, Canadian akido, like
you sort of redirect the energy or what may have you.
You know, I've always looked at it like, at least
if someone's really really passionately coming at me about something,
it's usually because they're they're passionate about you know, the subject,
about the series, about the title, and god knows, i'd

(06:23):
rather they're reading then they're not reading. It's not that
I'm not one of those people who's like I'm going
to kick up a hornet's nest to try and make
you angry. But on the other hand, I want your passion.
The worst thing I think is ambivalent. If someone doesn't
care at all, or they're like, oh is that book
even being published, You're like, oh god, I'm dead. I'm
so dead, you know what I mean, And I do.
One of the things that's been amazing, honestly, has been

(06:46):
the Conan fandom and now just you know, the comic
fandom in general kind of coming back on board the
series in such a big way. This has been an
absolute rocket ride for me in the best way possible.
I'm in a really really cool spot right right now.
And yeah, the fans really do make it all worthwhile,
and their passion, you know, it pushes upwards. The retailers

(07:09):
see it. They tell me how much they're you know,
enjoying the new book and that it's having a really
cool ripple effect. And I'm sure we're going to talk
at length about that, you know, this evening, because there's
all sorts of cool stuff that it's kind of gone
with that. The industry is always moving, you know, it's
always changing and things are going on. But yeah, last
time you and I spoke, conye was still at Marvel.

(07:32):
We were coming out of the sort of pandemic pause,
and I was hoping that we were going to get,
you know, all kinds of momentum. But honestly, just plans
had changed over at Marvel and just in general, and
instead of kind of winding up, we ended up winding down.
I did do the Conyean three hundred issue, and that

(07:52):
ended up being the last one of the monthly series.
That was the sunsetting of the whole thing, which was
honestly surreal because it's like, I wanted to be on
that book for such a long time, and I was
hoping to have this big, crazy, long run and and
and now we're in this whole other, different state. So
it's just it's utterly, utterly bizarre, but in the best

(08:13):
way possible. But yeah, the people over at Signatures, that's
the people who run coming in all the Roberty Howard
character library. They're really sweet. Fred Malberg the guy in charge,
and and jays Leetterberg and and just everyone over there.
They you know, Fred said, when things were wrapping up,
they're like, we thought, you know, you had a really

(08:34):
good handle on the character, and we like what you did.
But obviously you know, plans have changed and we're going
to be moving on, you know, please stay in touch.
And I was sort of like, well, that's that's nice,
but that's what everyone kind of says. That's the professional
and you don't know what you know, what send you
those emails. You don't know if that's with a GTFO
attached to it or like, you know, professionally speaking like yeah,

(08:58):
like well, you know, well that's cool. And it's not
like I never thought I would ever do Conan again.
I just in my head I sort of envisioned, like, oh,
if there's another anniversary or a one shot or like
a you know, the equivalent of the All Star Game
where you come out and you wave and you go
Ahi coneand and you you know, crack a little thing
like that. That was kind of how I had envisioned it. Honestly,

(09:18):
there was no way that when you lose one of
those flagship books, that's just the past. That's a milestone
for your career and you did what you could do.
Sometimes it goes along and sometimes it doesn't. But they
genuinely did stay in touch, and a little while later
they reached out to me and they said, you know,
we're looking at something very different, and this is something

(09:40):
a lot of people don't realize. So the Conan series
is being published at Titan, but it's not your typical
licensing deal, so it's actually a publishing partnership. So Heroics
Signature is actively involved in the creative on creating the
stuff between those covers in particular, and funding at those
aspects of it and things like that. And Titan is

(10:00):
publishing it in English, and they're the primary publisher of
the comic, but then the book's also being published in
you know, six other languages through Panini and whatnot. And
so the idea was that, you know, Conan's been almost
continuously published for over fifty years in comics, the characters
got a strong brand, and Heroic felt like they wanted

(10:22):
to have a stronger hand on the steering wheel. So
they wanted to really control the creative and if that
meant it wasn't a licensing deal, then that's fine. And
so they were looking at those kinds of options and
they had already I don't know if they had worked
out the deal or they were in the midst of
finalizing the deal for Titan to do the pros. And
Titan has their comic division, So it looked like something
where they could just bring it all under the same tent,

(10:45):
but they needed a proposal. What what do you do
you know, with the property, what do you keep, what
do you change, what do you refine? And whatnot? And
it was, you know, the term of bakeoff, where you
have multiple writers pitching on a concept. You know, it's
always one of those awkward things where you're pitching on
a book and then you find out many months later

(11:06):
who you were up against, and you're like, oh, everyone's
you know, someone got it and everyone else has given
them side eye or whatever. But I don't know who
pitched on the book. I i'd heard, you know that
I think ten or twelve different writers that were pitching wow,
and to varying degrees. And I don't know if that
was here's a storyline, here's a plan, here's a whatever.

(11:26):
And I kind of, you know, I told my wife,
I said, well, I'm not I'm amazed they're even asking
me to pitch, because like, I just did it, you know,
And that's not how this stuff works. You don't move
between publishers and get the same gig. Like, that's not
how you and she's like, well, then why did they
ask you? And I said, you know, because they they're
being nice and they're professional and they're polite. And she's

(11:49):
just like, or they thought it was really good and
you had potential and they want you to actively pitch.
And so she kind of you know, built me up,
kind of rebuilt me. I don't know, whatever you want
to whatever you want to call it. And for me,
I wrote that document up. And for me it was
almost like it wasn't a eulogy, but it was like
getting it out of my head. It was like, well,

(12:09):
I'm not going to get this thing. There's no way,
so I might as well be unvarnished. And that wasn't
mean or anything, but just like like just unfiltered. Here's
what's cool about Conan, Here's why I'm passionate about it,
Here's what the property feels like it's missing to me,
Here's what the fan base seems really hungry for. And
I think there's some potential here and wishing you all
the best and you know all that kind of stuff.

(12:32):
And sent in this document with no genuinely no preconceived
notions that this was going to happen, Like I sent
that thing in and it was really cathartic for me
because I could step back and just go, Okay, that
was my time with Conan. I got those thoughts out
of my head. I've got other cool projects that I'm
building on, and you know, you can't obsess over the

(12:56):
one that got away in a sense. And then I
don't know, it must have been a couple of weeks later,
Fred says, hey, can we jump on a zoom call?
And I still couldn't see it in my head. I
was like, Oh, they're turning down people on zoom calls.
That is the most polite thing, you know. I like that.
And then that seems so stupid and naive now that

(13:16):
I think about it. But it was like it just
seemed so impossible, like it didn't even enter my mind.
I told my wife was, Oh, I'm getting out a
call with the coney On people. She's like why, I said,
I think they're just they're calling everyone and they're going
to do like a hey, we're going in a different
creative direction, stay in touch, you know, how's your family
kind of stuff. And she's like, well, that's classy, and
I'm like they are. They seem like really crazy folks.

(13:38):
But we get on this call and they're both smiling
from ear to ear and they're like, you know, Jim,
we read through all the documents and we passed them
around the office and we talked to, you know, all
sorts of certain people, and then we took all the
names off the documents and we knew who wrote what,
but just to you know, keep it pure, reading back
and forth passages and arguing and all sorts of different stuff.
And I was like, yeah, okay, cool. And I was

(13:58):
waiting like I could literally hear the next statement it
was going to be. And we've decided to go in
a different creative direction. But we know we love your
passion and we love for you to be involved in
some future capacity. Blah blah blah blah blah and U.
And instead they just say and and we are more
confident than ever that you're still the guy. And I
just I think my eyes bugged out, like I was

(14:21):
so thrown off that they that this was what they
were saying. And I said, are you serious? And they go,
are you not? And I was like, no, No, I'm
totally down for this. I just cannot believe that this
is happening. You know what I mean, and terrified in
the sense that I knew the pressure was really on

(14:41):
that we had to come out of the gate just
like my God, like we had to come out swinging
like like crazy. And so then the task team we
got to find our teams that are like up to
you know, up to the bar, and man oh man,
we did not we did not disappoint. I am so thankful.
Roberto de Latore was our you know, opening salvo, and

(15:05):
that Free Complict Day issue hit like a thunderclap and
people freaked out and I was freaking out. And then
Doug Braithwaite, you know, stepping in for the opposing arcs,
and it's like the two of those together, it's been
like like titans. Like I feel like so unbelievably fortunate,
and so it has been one of the most creatively

(15:27):
satisfying projects. I don't know if you saw the news
at San Diego. I signed a long term contract, so
they they gave me twelve issues. They were sort of like,
you know, as much as we love your ideas and
we think these are cool, the market is crazy and
comics are wild, and no one knows what retailers will
respond to you tried, but sometimes it just doesn't take root.

(15:51):
And so we get we will promise you twelve for sure,
for sure, we can do these twelve issues. So I
kind of built this arc that was, if we all
only get the twelve, you get a satisfying kind of
epic adventure. But if we can go further, I've got
way bigger, mythic kind of plans. And yeah, those twelve
just what a rush, what a crazy, crazy launch. We

(16:13):
launched at San Diego Comic Con last year. People freaked out.
Over the course in the next couple of months, we
had six printings of issue one. We did three printings
of issue two and three, and then two printings I
think four and five. We just kept We did that
the joke they called the Immortal Hulk, where we like
launched and then dipped and then kept rising. So after

(16:36):
like issue three sold more than two, and then four
sold more than three, and five and six and seven,
and it just kept rising right through like the first
eight issues, which is insane. And I have never ever
gotten a response to a book like this. I haven't
gotten a response like this when I was doing Avengers,
when I was doing D and d or Rick and

(16:58):
Morty or Stranger Things or Iron Man like nothing and nothing,
and all those experiences have been amazing. But what I
realized was so like, you know, Wade and Ewing and
I did you know Avengers together when Infinity War was
coming out. Yes, we did the second weekly one when

(17:20):
Endgame was coming out, and that was amazing because the
Avengers was the hottest media property on planet Earth. But
and I was doing tons of interviews and all sorts
of promotion, but it wasn't about us. It wasn't about
the comics. It was like, have you guys met Robert
Downey Junior? You know what I mean? Like are you
going to get to go to the premiere? Like all

(17:40):
sorts of these Hollywood style questions, and so you're riding
the lightning on that thing and you're having a very
cool experience because everyone's talking about Avengers, you know, and
your grandmother knows what you do for a living finally
and stuff like that, But it's not actually about the
comics are just this swirl of satellite product, do you

(18:02):
know what I mean? And Rick and Morty was the hottest,
you know show on television, and Stranger Things, you know,
was super hot and d and d was ascendant. The
fifth edition was the best selling one of all time.
And so again you're you're part of this swirling storm
of stuff and it's very cool and it's very exciting,
and it's like, I'm very fortunate that I've been in

(18:24):
those places and gotten to contribute to those things. But
they they're not about you, you know, They're about the cartoon,
they're about the game, they're about the Netflix show. And
so it was always, even when I was on a
hot book, even when it was selling really well, or
when people were excited about the title, they were excited
about the media spectacle. And this is the first time

(18:48):
in my career that like, Conan is hot right now.
Sounds weird to say that, but it's like Conan is
a big deal right now. There's no new movie, there's
no new video game, there's no satellite. We're not on
the fringes of the discussion. We're the pillar. We're the
central reason why people are talking about Cone. Yeah, so

(19:08):
every time Conan comes up, it's because the book is good,
because the writing is great, because the art is phenomenal,
because it's consistent and it comes out on time, and
it's crushing. It you know, and so that is such
a that is such a cool feeling to realize that
we're getting all the messages are like this very natural grassroots.

(19:32):
Are you reading this book? Why aren't you reading this book?
You know, old school fans who've been collecting since the
seventies coming out of the woodwork. I got retailers telling
me that they've got people who are starting up profiles
that haven't had a profile in twenty twenty five years,
and now they're their day and date every issue that
they're buying collections of Savage sort of magazine, and they're

(19:53):
selling through them because their back issue bins are turning
on Coneyan books. You know, Like that's that's like the
highest kind of compliment that you can imagine, that you
are changing the face of their retail, that you are
exciting a fan base that has been dormant, you know,
in that way and electrifying them to read, and that

(20:15):
once a month is not enough, you know what I mean,
That they want to they want that feeling back. And
I knew we were doing really well, Like the book
launched like crazy and people were pumped for it, and
you're like, okay, but that's the number one, okay, but
you know, we're just getting started. I did New York
last year and I was at New York Comic Con
and we had maybe four or five of these guys
like old enough to be my dad, and they came

(20:37):
over to the table and they were like shaking my
hand vigorously and they were like, kid, you have no idea.
This is you know, really really sharp stuff. And I
feel like I'm fifteen again and this means so much
to me. And you're just like, oh, this is really
cool and this is such an honor, and you really
it galvanizes your understanding that you're part of this broader legacy.

(21:00):
But then I did Emerald City Comic Con in March,
and I probably had fifty of those guys, and you're like, oh, okay,
like this is not this is just just rippling outwards,
like it's the good word of mouth has gone on
long enough that these guys who were pretty much out

(21:20):
of comics, or they were they had sworn off of
hitting the comic store or collecting a book, it's finally
woken them up. And they're like, all right, let's see
if this is, you know, worth its weight. And they're
sticking around and you know, that has been really really
cool and new readers who've never read a Conam book before,

(21:41):
and on and on and on, you know, and so
that's been probably the most amazing aspect of this thing
is is realizing that we've got this really cool thing.
And so although they told me I had twelve issues
to prove it, by like issue three or four, we
were already negotiating, like, ohay, we got to do a
long term, we got to build out this mythic thing.

(22:05):
And so at San Diego we announced that I've signed
an extension on my Conan contract. I'm going to be
on the book for at least three more years.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
Yeah, which in current comics is not it just doesn't
really happen, you know what I mean. I'm not exclusive,
so I can take other writing from other publishers, but
I'm committed to this title and we've got this really
cool thing, and it's like, I'm on this book to
at least issue fifty and let's build something for the ages,
you know, And that is I don't want to say

(22:37):
unheard of, but in current comics, it's highly unusual because
some people will do longer runs than that, but they're
always looking over their shoulder every six or eight months,
you know, not knowing if they're going to get the
rug pulled out from under them or a reboot or
what may have you. And I'm just like, you know,
like issue fifteen is going to be coming out in
a couple of weeks, and I'm writing issue twenty four,

(23:00):
you know, so this is like next summer stuff like
that's that's a really good fun spot to be, you know,
and planning out much further than that structurally, as far
as any of that goes. We brought back Savage sort
of Conan in the original black and white format, magazine sized,
and that was a real test case as well, because

(23:24):
readers said that's what they wanted. But you know, I
think if I if I'm remember correctly, I had to
ask Marvel about that. I said, when they were going
to bring back Savage or why they weren't doing black
and white magazine size, and they said they pulled their retailers,
and retailers said they didn't want it. And so Titan
was sort of defiant, and Heroic was very much defiant,

(23:47):
like we're going to we want to see like because
people keep saying it's such a nostalgic format and and
all these things. We'll do six issues comes out, you know,
bi monthly, and we'll see if there's a readership for it.
And lo and behold that thing's blown up. And now
it's you know, doing amazing as well. And so I
think there's been a really good it's a it's a

(24:09):
natural kind of a growth rather than trying to you know, oversaturate,
and we're we're striking a chord which feels really really special.
I'm blathering up a storm. I haven't even left your
room to breathe here.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
I'm sorry, Jim. It's all good information and it inspires
more questions. So without spoiling, yeah, can you go over
some of the cliff notes of this is what Conan
should be, this is what the readers want.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Right, so, you know, first and foremost, you've got to
look at the original source material. So Roberty Howard wrote,
depending on how you count it, like twenty one twenty
two original Conan stories that some were published after his demise,
but those form the kind of canon. There's a handful
of fragments as well, and so the character has a

(24:58):
much larger pop culture print thanks to the movie. Thanks
to the games and everything else, but that we need
to hewe back to the original as much as possible,
that there's an audience that wants a really raw and
intense kind of pulp feel, and that we could serve
them in a way that even more intense than an

(25:21):
experience than what you know, Marvel's kind of was able
to do in terms of their their baseline publishing, where
they're you know, doing teen rated kind of stuff, and
even at dark Horse they didn't you know, kind of
hit the full whatever you want to call it, our
rated kind of button, and that we could do that
with Titan. Then on top of that, I felt it

(25:43):
was really and that's your core audience, Like the readership
is in their thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, Like I'm not
not worried about an eight year old necessarily picking this
book up, you know, or something like that. But then
also the fact that what was really important to me
was this idea that we were going to use the

(26:06):
original kind of canon stories but not just readapt them.
I felt like one of the it's not even a mistake,
but they had done twice. At Marvel they had done it,
and then at dark Horse they had tried to tell
Conan as a youth and then tell every single story
in between. And the character is mythic, he's iconic. He's
like Batman, he's like spider Man, Wonder Woman, Superman. He's

(26:29):
older than Superman. He's a genre defining character. There are
an infinite number of stories you can tell, and so
trying to fill in every gap, trying to it limits
possibilities instead of opens them up. And so the original
weird Tales stories, the prose stories from the pulps, they
jumped around like crazy. The very first published Conan story,

(26:52):
he's already a king. We don't start looking back to
his youth and tell the third one. And so what
I wanted to do was jump around the timeline, but
you would have thematic arcs. So we'll have some stories
when he's young, and someone he's in his prime, and
someone he's a king. But what you'll notice when you're
reading the monthly book, even though we're jumping around the

(27:13):
timeline thematically, I'm showing you something when you need it.
So the first year, for example, of the New Conan series,
we built on this idea of the Blackstone. It's this
mythic kind of mcguffin material, and you were peppering in
these moments exactly when Conan had interacted with this material

(27:33):
and the ripple effect that it had in terms of adventures.
And now this mini series we've got going this fall.
First issue came out a couple of weeks ago called
Battle Blackstone, kind of finishes that off. It takes that
to a whole other level, and it actually ties in
a bunch of other Roberty Howard characters. I want you
to know that the main monthly book was always just

(27:55):
the high Borean age, that we're not sending you off
to crossover stuff outside of the monthly book, but that
the monthly book can always build our myth and can
build the mythology that we can then pay off in
other places, or we can then do more with in
other titles like Savage Sword or these kind of event

(28:15):
mini series. And so if you're reading the monthly book,
you're going to get Wicket entertainment. We're going to earn
the cover price every single month. But the more you read,
the more you're going to see we've got this cool
thing built out. And even though we're jumping around the timeline,
you're going to notice these inner kind of weaving stories
and all kinds of cool symbols and concepts and sometimes

(28:38):
specific phrases that are going to weave their way back through.
So the more you're paying attention, the more you're going
to get out of the book. And each year has
its own kind of pillar, and these core concepts and
themes and stuff that we're trying to explore about Howard's
original writing about the Hyborian age, about what makes Conan

(29:01):
such a cool character and why he is the pop
culture icon that he can be. And then more audacious
was this idea that there were certain concepts of the
character that have now become Let me show you another example.
You know, Superman didn't originally fly, he jumped around, and

(29:23):
he wasn't at the Daily Planet originally, and there was
no Jimmy Olsen and there was no Kryptonite. But if
you didn't have those things in a Superman story, they
would feel deficient, right because they are so tightly packed
into what makes that character who they are. And I
feel like there are a few things in Conan that
are like that as well, and so what I wanted

(29:43):
to kind of do was fuse some of those into
the kind of core story and without losing the canon
that the Roberty Howard stories are still the baseline. You know,
I'm not just trying to say, oh, the Arnold movie
is canon now, but that there's also stuff in there.
There's certain phrases, or there's certain symbols, things like the

(30:03):
Atlantean sword and stuff like that that have taken on
such a great significance that to the vast majority of
the public they are just part and parcel of Conan.
So how can we incorporate those into the ongoing story
in a way that feels natural and holistic without losing
you know, what makes the character who they were from

(30:26):
the start, And so that has not really been done before,
and so far, so good, we've been able to do that.
The fan base is not, you know, like threatening from
my head or anything like that, but we're doing all
sorts of kind of cool stuff to drive the story
forward and keep people guessing. And the other thing I

(30:46):
said was really crucial was that we weren't just going
to readapt existing you know, Roberty Howard stories. As cool
as those are, I really really didn't want to be
a cover band, you know what I mean. The hits
have been played so well, you know, and if you
just redo them over and over again, it's almost impossible

(31:07):
for me to surprise you. And that if you just
know for the next five months we're doing whatever tower
the elephant, then you'll wait for the trade, or you
might forget to pick up the monthly book at all
or the trade, because you know the way that thing's
going to pay off. And yet if I change the
story and the ending, what have I done? You know,
You've just spit on the Mona Lisa or whatever. So

(31:32):
I said, you know, you have to tell new stories
so that from month to month people don't know what
they're going to get, that they feel that excitement of
the great unknown. That we can use those stories as
to inform the character. And I can tell you which
between which stories, you know, my stories take place, and
we'll reference them in flashbacks or sometimes plot points or

(31:53):
characters will carry over from them. But that we're not
just coldly going through the motions, because that will feel
it'll just lack momentum, you know, let alone the fact
that almost every one of those stories has been adapted
in such phenomenal fashion by either John Bussema or Barry
windsor Smith or Carrie Nord or you know, Tim Truman

(32:15):
or whoever, and now you're just inviting brutal comparison, you know, unnecessarily.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
So yeah, have you have you had the opportunity to
talk to Roy Thomas or some of the other writers
or the former artists and everything that have worked on.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
So it's fascinating. One of the things we've been able
to do with Savage Sword is it is a classic
kind of black and white oversized magazine anthology, and so
we're doing a mixture of classic artists and writers are
coming back and new people have never done them before.
And so Roy's contributing essays and he's got a story
coming up. Carrie Nord's just did a story with actually

(32:54):
with Frank Tierry, which was a lot of fun. We've
been jeff Isherwood's going to be doing a new Savage
Sword story. So it does feel like, hey, you're still
part of the high Borian family. You're you know, you're
not just in the past. It's an ongoing kind of
celebration and that's cool about that book. I've only met
Roy once in person. I don't know if I told

(33:15):
just anecdote, but it's a good one. Anyways, I met
Roy at a Paris Comic Con in twenty nineteen, and
I was there for the French launch of Rick and
Morty Dungeons and Dragons, and they thought they had enough
books for the whole weekend, and it turns out we
sold out of them in like three four hours, and

(33:35):
so all of a sudden, I have nothing to do.
I got this three day show and in half a
day we're out of books. They're calling their distributor trying
to get more. I got nothing to do, so I'm
wandering around. I stopped by Panini, I signed some of
my Marvel stuff, and then I'm kind of a free
floating operator. And Roy is one of the guests of
honor at the show. He's got like a two and

(33:56):
a half hour line, and I'm like, man, I don't
want to wait in a line for two and a
half hours to just like shake his hand and get
something signed. I'm gonna I'm going to flex a little.
So I called my the French rep for Paris Comic Con,
and I said, I'm one of the other guests. Is
there any way I can set up a meeting with
with Roy through his you know, representative or whatever, and

(34:18):
they said it would be their pleasure to make it happen.
So the next day, about twenty minutes before his first signing,
we were kind of backstage and I got to chat
with him and it was a delight. He was wonderful.
Let me see if I can find that photo, I'll
share it on the thing. But it was so cool.
It was just it was just so nice, and so
we ended up I was chatting with her. I was

(34:41):
super nervous. It's weird. I don't get really starstruck very often.
I've had a few over the years, and because those
have gone well, I kind of like, I'm fine, now,
you know what I mean. Like, you know, you meet whatever,
Frank Miller or like Neil Gaiman or someone, you're sort
of like, booh, and then you wait, they're human beings.

(35:01):
It's going to be your don't don't freak out or whatever.
But this one I was for some reason. The thing too, though,
was I had also I was going to be writing
the Conan Monthly book at Marvel, and it hadn't been
announced yet, and so I had this weird like secret
that I was carrying around, and I just you know,

(35:21):
couldn't wait to announce this thing, and then I'm going
to be meeting Roy Thomas, and so it carried all
sorts of funky significance. I'm hunting for this photo on
time the story here, and so I said to him,
you know, mister Thomas is a huge influence. And I
grew up reading Conan and it meant so much to me,
and that all the things that you need to say,
and that's great and you're glad you do it and

(35:44):
all that jazz. But then it was like I we
I said, you know, I've actually written some Conan and
he was like, oh have you Now what have you written?
I said, recent stuff. You wouldn't you wouldn't have read it.
It's modern, you know. He said, no, No, I'm coming
back to do a story for King's Eye. Conan Mark

(36:08):
the editor. He sent me a box full of everything.
I read it all and I was just like, oh crap,
he read it all. And so then I was really
nervous and I said, well, I did this story in
Savage Sword, and Marvel had done Savage Sword like a
full color anthology, and it was a three part story
called The Gambler Patch Zirker drew it and he goes,

(36:30):
I read it, and I was like, oh, that's great,
and he goes, I liked it, and I was like okay,
and I thought he was just pulling my leg. I
thought he was just being super nice and professional and
that's what you always say. And then he starts going
through the story and telling me what part of the
plot he really liked, and the turns and the little
moments that felt how wordy and and whatever. And I'm

(36:52):
feeling my body like my soul is leaving my body,
like I'm getting tingles, and I'm all kind of messed
up and like, oh crap, Roy Thomas. Then I conehand right,
you know, like what the hell? And I was really
taken aback and I thanked him so much. That was
really wonderful to hear. And then I said, mister Thoms,
I've got a bit of a secret. I'm going to

(37:12):
be taking over the monthly title. I'm the new flagshipwriter
of Cony and the Barbarian. And he looks at me
and he goes, is that so? And I said yeah,
And then he slaps a hand on my shoulder and
he goes, welcome to the fraternity. Wow, Like come on wonderful.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
Yeah, are you kidding me? That's fantastic.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
I walked Do you have swearing on this show?

Speaker 1 (37:34):
You can absolutely swear on this show. Yes.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
So I walked back to my table and my wife
looks at me and she goes, are you fucking high?
Because I look I looked like I was stoned, like
I was tingley. I was like, whoa, I was really
wigged out, And I said, no, I just it's like
I basically got knighted by you know, Roy Thomas. It
was very very sweet. Let me let me see if

(37:58):
I can share the It's prett right, Yeah, hold on
share screen.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
This is great because truly my guests never take control this.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
I bring my own, bring my own stuff there. It is. Yeah,
it's very appropriate. I'm saying, dang, that was a great moment. Yeah, man,
I walked over there just absolutely just buzzin', buzzin' like
you would not believe.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
You know, that's wonderful. Hey man, Listen, the reality is
and it's kind of appropriate that we're talking about Conan.
There is like an alchemy to writing and drawing Conan
that a lot of other comics just don't have because
of the pedigree because of the history.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
Because so many artists bring their best to that book,
like they it unlocks something really cool, you know, in them.
You know, I've been such a fan of Doug Braithwaite
for so long. I met him years ago. He had
done Justice and all that kind of stuff, and I
was just like, wow, this guy's crazy, you know, and
he was such a sweet guy. We had chat. We

(39:09):
were in this festival in northern England, and he was
very quiet and confident and you know, knew what he
did well and all this kind of stuff, and I thought, now,
that guy, that's an artist right there. You know. I
never imagined that I would get to meet him. And
then what happened was, you know, we knew Dilatory wasn't
going to be able to do every month, like it

(39:31):
would just kill him. He can do a book in
a month, but you know that grind will just it'll
it'll wreck you. And we sew that we were planned
out in advance. We didn't want it to be a
burden or for him to feel like we were going
to put more wicks in the candle than he could burn.
And so Doug was just going to do Titan had
recommended Doug, and Doug was going to do some variant

(39:53):
covers and then just on a lark, I think, they said, hey,
you wouldn't be up for interiors, would you? And he said,
you know, I've always you know, I've never drawn Conan before.
I'm actually really excited to do it, and said he said,
can we get on a call? And I thought, oh crap,
you know, and and my editor at the time, Matt,

(40:14):
he was like, Doug says, he knows you, and I'm like, yeah,
we met at a convention like years ago, but I
was more of a like I had been doing skull
Kickers in a couple of things, but he doesn't really
know my work or whatever. And so we get on
this call and we have this wonderful conversation and he's
very cagy in the sense he's like, I'm just going
to do these four issues and that's kind of, you know,
my limit on it. I you know, I don't know

(40:35):
if I'm built for this or not. And he said,
I don't really I haven't read the original stories. I
read the comics and I love them, but you guys
are the experts. And we said, no, we're we're going
to send you tons of reference. We'll get you all
lined up, I'll give you explain to you the significance
of all the things that we're doing. And we got
we were working on the third issue of his ARC,
so that would have been six seven issues seven, and

(40:57):
we were like, you know, Doug, these are just stunning.
We're so happy. Diego Rodriguez is color in the hell
out of this. I can't believe how beautiful it is.
We would love for you to stick around for more issues,
and he was very kind of didn't want to commit,
and I thought, oh God, how do I convince this
guy to stick around? He's so perfect on the book.
And a couple of weeks later he asked if we

(41:17):
could jump on a zoom call and he said that
he was having the most fun he's had, you know,
in years and years, and he asked if it would
be okay for him to stick around, and I was
just like, are you kidding? You know, And so then
he found out I was negotiating a long term contract
and then he's like, well, now I want to stick
around even longer. And that's just like the coolest. You know.

(41:38):
What I'm really excited about is I'm going to the
UK at the end of October, I'm going to be
doing MCMXPO in London. I'm actually running a Dungeons and
Dragons game in a castle up in Newcastle's I know, right,
this is my life now for the fiftieth anniversary of
d which tell my ten year old south any of

(42:00):
this crazy shit. Uh. And then we're gonna do some signings.
So so Doug lives up there, so we're gonna we're
gonna grab dinner and hang out and do some signings.
I'm going to go up to Scotland for a bit
because I've never been, and uh, with a bit of luck,
I can lure him up there as well and get
him to do a couple of signings up in Scotland.
I just want to hang out with that guy. Man,
that guy, he's the best. And uh yeah, if we're

(42:23):
attached at the hip for the latter half of that trip,
I'd be one hundred percent down with that because he
is just an absolute gentleman and just a stellar professional.
And to tell you how hard he's working on this book,
Holy crap, I'm going to show you, guys. I'm going
to give you an exclusive here. I'm going to show
you review pages from Conan number fifteen.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
If I may really quick, another reason, folks for who
are listening, this is why you got to watch the videos.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
You got to watch the video. Yeah, you want to
hear the audio. You're gonna be like, what exclusive, I'm.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
Glad you're I'm glad I'm in the car with you
as you're driving or while you're exercising.

Speaker 2 (42:55):
It's cool.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
But if you've got time, come to the video because
you get to see quel images like what just.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Yeah, So here is these are pages from Conan fifteen.
So this is like just bang and stuff. Wo yeah yeah.
So it's Frost. It's daughter ninety years this year, and
so we wanted to you know, it's we wanted to
give a twist on the classic story. So we're telling it,

(43:21):
but we're doing some other cool stuff as well. I
don't want to ruin it. But it's beautiful, just stunning,
stunning stuff. But here's the thing that makes me laugh.
So you know, we get this great confrontation and then
the two page spread. I gotta go bigger, all right,
So this two page spread. Love it absolutely stunning. All
you know, Starkings comes in with this title lettering whatever

(43:43):
this is the second version of the two page spread.
So Doug drew a completely solid, really well drawn two
page spread of Conan standing amongst the dead. It looked fine,
no problem with it whatsoever. You know, you wouldn't thought
anything wrong with it. And then like three or four

(44:05):
days later, Doug just sends an email. He goes, I
don't like it. I'm going to start over. And I
was like, what, like Like that's the kind of dedication
he's got to the book that he wanted to do this.
He knew this key moment was critical. He wanted to
make it the best it could be, Like no compromise,
you know what I mean. And the good thing is

(44:26):
because we've got the buffer and because you know, heroics
goal at the end of the day, their job is
to sell Conan and the Roberty Howard characters. And they
know an evergreen, high quality book is better than pumping
out stuff, you know what I mean. And so they
give us the space, and they give us the time
to make the book as beautiful as humanly possible. And

(44:49):
I never want to take that for granted, you know.
And so he is drawing some of the best damp
pages of his life and Diego's coloring best pages of
his life and Richard Starking's you know, everybody, everyone's putting
their all into it.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Yeah, they are they making because that's a great money
shot and would make a fantastic poster that they mean.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
What's so crazy is between between you know, DILATORI and Braithwait.
I feel like every issue we've got one of those moments,
like I build in these very big cinematic moment. Yeah,
the way I always say to that when I'm doing
the script, I'm like, this is the one. This is
the one that people are going to close the book
and go, what the hell was that? You know what

(45:33):
I mean, as much as human as possible. I'll show
you one that was from DELATOI did like an issue
for and it's you know, they used it in trailers,
they used all over the place because it's that moment.
It's that crazy cinematic, you know moment, and it's the
kind of thing that back in the day, you wouldn't
have generally gotten the space to do that in the

(45:54):
classic comics. So we kind of get the best of
both worlds, where we've got this bronze age kind of feel,
but we're also opening up the aperture and doing even crazier,
cooler stuff. Is it going to show you?

Speaker 1 (46:06):
Do you want to reveal or you want me to reveal?

Speaker 2 (46:09):
Go for it all right here? It comes in right
like big basting, two page spread storytelling. Right, so you
know when when we can produce those and put that
at the right moment, that every just about every issue
has one of those bangers, It has one of those payoffs,
and you're like, that's you're going to get your money's worth.

(46:32):
You're going to get your money's worth. Visually. We've got
essays in the back. So there's this guy, Jeffrey Shanks.
He is a Conan scholar. He's a Roberty Howard scholar.
And I'm like, this guy knows so much about pulp.
He is literally an archaeologist who's also obsessed with pulp
and history and stuff like that. And so he's been
writing about, you know, pulp storytelling forever. And he was

(46:56):
a consultant on a bunch of the Conan stuff previously,
and he was pointed towards me as a resource, like
this is a guy you should talk to if you
ever have any questions or he needs some clarification on
the high born age. Jeff is our guy, and we
got on a couple of calls and we just like
thick as thieves. Man, Like the minute I realize how
deep the rabbit hole went. This guy knows everything about

(47:17):
everything when it comes to pulp, and it's not just
Conan or even just Roberty Howard. We'll talk and he'll say,
did you know the reason why Howard was into this
is because he was reading this stuff and he was
obsessed with these authors and this research and these concepts
that were really big in the twenties and the thirties.

(47:37):
If you want to know more about that than you
should read this. And he just laser focuses me on
all this cool source material or I'm throwing out big
mythic ideas for our long term plans. And I go,
do you think that works? And he goes, not only
does that work, but if you take this thing, this
obscure little bit and bring it over, then it works
even better, you know what I mean? Like, take this

(47:59):
little string and tie it off. And you know there's
twenty hardcore fans like me who are going to lose
their minds and other people are going to you know,
have a greater appreciation of it. So very early on.
I don't know if it was me, but I said
I would. He did an essay in the Free Complict
Day issue all about Roberty Howard and its cast up characters,

(48:19):
and I said, is there any reason why we can't
do that every damn issue, like I you know, And
they were like, well, you know, is Jeff's going to
get you know, bored with this or he's you know,
he only has so much he can say. And Jeff
just starts laughing. He's like, oh, I'm bottomless man, Like
you just tell me what we're doing. So every issue
he's got a really cool essay. And what it does

(48:39):
is it bolsters. It gives you more bang for your buck,
so you're getting more to read if you want to
read it right. But not only that, but it legitimizes
and deepens your appreciation for the source material. It tells
you that we're not just shooting from the hip, that
we're thinking deeply about this stuff, that we care deeply
about the legacy of it, and that we have a

(49:02):
plan in mind, you know what I mean, And that
is it's kind of worth its weight in gold. And
I felt that when you know, when we did Wayward,
Zach Davison was writing those essays in the back about
Yo Kai and Japanese mythology and culture. It grounded us,
it anchored us, and proved to readers that we weren't
just playing off of cliches, you know what I mean

(49:24):
that we had a deep well that we were kind
of working with. And Jeff's stuff does that. And now
it's to a point where Jeff just wrote a story
in the latest Savage Sword because there's these two occult
investigators that Roberty Howard had called, Kirawin and Conrad, and
we were talking about how they were going to tie
into the black Stone stuff, and Jeff had all sorts

(49:47):
of ideas and I said, Okay, well you're going to
write the short story that ties into it. He's like, well,
I've never written a comic before. And I'm like, get readybody,
you're going to learn, you know, because he's got a
good he's got a good head for narrative. He knows
the pull matarial and his references are immaculate. And I
was like, dude, I'd get jump to speed on format.
You know, the primacy of the page and the real

(50:07):
estate of the panels, and we're going to put you
with a rock and artist and it'll all work out,
you know. And so I really kind of mentored him
on it, like we went through he sent me his outline,
and I helped him break it into page count and
then break that into panels and then understand the importance
of a page turn and stuff that you take for
granted once you understand comics as a medium. And it

(50:30):
was fascinating, you know, teaching him and then having him
respond so excitedly where he's like, oh man, there's like
a lot going on here. You're like, yeah, when it works,
it all feels very effortless. You know. It's the same
thing with like good comic lettering. If you've got good
comic lettering, your eye is too busy flowing down the
page for you to really worry about it. But if

(50:50):
the lettering sucks, you won't notice anything else because the
page is broken and you don't know where you're supposed
to be reading or when you know.

Speaker 1 (50:59):
I agree, so absolutely agree.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
Fun Jeff sent me a photo of him holding the
Savage Sword magazine when he got his comp copies, and
he's like, you know, I have a lot of books
in this house, but this one's extra special. And you're like,
you know, I know that feeling man when you when
you get that book, especially your first one, your first
comic with your name on the cover. What the hell, man,

(51:22):
that is the coolest feeling you saw that Savage Sword
number one, the Joe Justco cover, Joe First Justco did
Joe's first cover in like his first coning cover in
twenty twenty four, twenty five years. Oh my god, oh
my god, man, I was so rocked. What the hell

(51:42):
it was like? I pulled those comp copies out of
the box and I had like a moment because it
was simultaneously a time capsule. But my name's hold on, Jimmy.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
I didn't realize you put it up, pulled on there
it is, yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
Right, and it's like, dude has a missed a step.
If anything, he's leveled up. It's instantly iconic.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
And and that's the other thing, because I really I
do think because somebody mentioned, oh yeah, Usab said that,
you know, Delatory is greater than Bussema, and then I mean, well,
well yeah, and if I knew, the point is Buscema
was hitting monthly deadlines and So for.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
The absolutely reverence is the character.

Speaker 1 (52:31):
But now artists are given more time to do that
beast thing.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
Yes, the kind of page layouts that de Latorrea is doing,
these like how foster by way of you know, like
like he's playing off these European artists and the Bondescina
stuff that he grew up on. And and it's got
little peppers of toath and all sorts of things in
there that that Big John just a didn't have the
time to do. The market wasn't really prime for that

(52:58):
kind of stuff, And there's a whole different host of
influences involved. We've got better you know, paper stock and
color and fidelity and you got it. And so John's
never to be topped in my head, you know, we
stand on the shoulders of frost giants or whatever you
want to say, Like like Big John and Barry, like
those guys make you know that they transformed, and without

(53:22):
the comic you don't have the movie, and without the movie,
you don't have the pop culture explosion. Right, So I
don't think it's about saying better than I think it's
saying what's amazing? Is that exactly that spiritual success or
that that that what I love about dilatory stuff is
he's acknowledging the past, but then he's able to take
that look and feel and give it this dynamic quality.

(53:47):
He's able to lay out a page that the kiarasciro
of his black and whites. His thoughtfulness in terms of
the way his gesture and his figure work is very
fri zetta. I make it feel like this lost graphic
novel from the Bronze Age, but like super charged in

(54:08):
a way that you've never seen before with you know,
like like and Savage Sword was the natty book where
you could be a little more violent and a little
more sexy, and then we can tune those dials as well.
Like I joke around that we're giving people the Cone
book that they thought they read when they were fifteen,
but now they're fifty and it still feels like you're

(54:29):
fifteen because it's accuracy and it's actually sexy, and not
that the other ones weren't, but they were like titillating,
and they were like teasing, and still the majority of
the violence was in the shadows and stuff, and I
never wanted to be exploitive. I never want the book
to feel like we're pushing past that line, but that
it's appropriately pulpy in the best way possible. You know.

(54:50):
That's that's that's what's important to me, is that we're
hitting that mark and that it really does that we're
building on that cool legacy. But we're also welcoming everyone
to the party that if you've never read Conan before
Boom ConA the Barbarian number one, or now you know
volume one and two and three's coming out in October,
that it's a nice clean area to jump in. You

(55:12):
can do it. And now Blackstone is like this was
the real dream stuff. Being able to do the Blackstone
Book is like really surreal because you know, in the plan,
you say, Okay, we need to rebuild trust with the
fan base. We got to get them in the store monthly.
We got to prove we can do it. Titan actually
asked me originally for ten issues in twelve months, and

(55:33):
I said, no, we had to do twelve and twelve.
I said, it was absolutely mission critical that we built
the habit that every four weeks someone knows they're going
to get a book. And we had a couple issues
ship late, and I was getting really frustrated. In some ways.
It was a real proof that we were doing something special,
because the book would ship a week late, and I
would get angry messages from retailers and readers, and I'm like,

(55:57):
that means you knew it was supposed to be out
this week and you're angry that you're not getting it.
That is not ideal. I want to please the customer,
but in terms of your excitement and your investment, damn,
that's working man.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
And so.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
Blackstone was sort of like, and if it goes well,
we can start to bring these other characters into the mythology.
And what we can start to do is something really
ludicrously ambitious, and it's actually built on a really interesting tradition.
So I don't know if you know this. Once so
Roy on the Monthly Book and eventually on Savage Sword

(56:36):
as a as a kind of a kickstart to get
more ideas out there. He would take other Roberty Howard
stories and he would follow the serial numbers off and
turn them into Conan stories. So there are over two
hundred Roberty Howard short stories and there's about twenty something
you know Conan in stories, depending on how you measure it.
But Roy would take like an l Barrack story, this

(56:57):
pulp kind of explorer, and he would just follow the
serial numbers off and he'd put it in the kind
of Middle Eastern Ish kind of area of the high
Borian Age, and boom, it's a Conan story where he
takes one of the lovecrafty and style of horror stories
and he just instead of everyone running away, Conan's going
to fight the monster and he's going to do the thing.
And it was a way to get a Howardian pulpy

(57:18):
kind of feel, extended out past the original stories and
keep that momentum going. And it got to the point
where when he ran out of most of that material
that he could adapt, he started buying the reproduction rights
to I don't want to use this disparagingly, but for
lack of a better term, Conan ripoff novels and making

(57:38):
them actual Conain and comics. And you see some of
those original issues, it'll say based on some other novel
by some other novelist, and he just sort of fuses
it into a fantasy story, you know, in the high
Born Age. And so I said, I don't want to
do that. I don't want to steal other people's stuff,
and I don't want to repurpose Howard that way. But

(58:00):
what I want to say is, instead of taking the
original horror story of the Blackstone that really happened in
the nineteen twenties, when Howard says it happens, and Kieran
and Conrad happens in the twenties and the thirties, and
elba Ax happening in the twenties and in the fifteen hundreds,
you've got you know, Solomon Kin and jark Agnus. All
those stories actually happened, but they are thematically connected, and

(58:24):
they're going to start to be symbolically connected and eventually
connected via the supernatural. And so we can bring those
characters together in a really cool way that feels like
it crosses time in reality and is bigger and says
something more, and use the rising Tide to raise all ships.

(58:44):
That Conan obviously has the biggest pop culture footprint out
of all of them by geometrically. But then if I
make Kieran and Conrad cool, and Dark Agnes cool and
Solomon Kane cool, and they're alongside Conan, maybe you want
to read some more of their adventures. Maybe you're excited
about that broader kind of pulp me, Lou and I

(59:06):
can bring you on board. And in some ways that's
the that's the ultimate sort of test because ConA. It's
not like I'm not putting my heart into ConA, and
I absolutely am one, but most no one has a
vested interest not no one, but very people have vested
interest in El Barrak. If we get an L. Barrack

(59:27):
readership out of this, you're like, well, that was us,
Like we built that. You know, sure, if patch Zurker
can build a Solomon Kane kind of hardcore and that
character has been published at Marvel in that dark Horse,
But if we can make it sustainable and excuting, that
speaks volumes to you know that we're really making a

(59:47):
mark long term in terms of this publishing plan.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
If I, if I may, I'm going to put my
one request in because I didn't see it in the
first chest here. And I love the fact that all
these other Howard characters and are reflecting in this story.
But and you know this is and I listen, it
was a product of its time. And there are a
lot of things about Sailor Costigan that I love. I

(01:00:17):
as a boxing guy, I always love those stories and
people have asked me, like, you know, sanitize the the You're.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Gonna love to hear this though. You're gonna love to
hear this please. So Jilla Torre loves the boxing stuff
and he's like, I really want to draw a boxing story.
And I'm like, dude, whatever you want to draw, I
want to put the words to it. Holy crap, because
your work is so phenomenal. So we have plans, man, So,
like I said, every year of the series we are doing,

(01:00:49):
we've got these big thematic kind of pushes, and I'll
tell you that every fall we're going to have one
of these four issue mini series that kind of take
a bunch of characters. If you're just reading the Monthly
Coning book, it's always going to be coning, Like Solomon
Kane is not going to appear in the Monthly Conan book.
But in Savage Sword, all bets are off. And in
these mini series that are sort of these these yearly

(01:01:12):
payoffs for all of our plot lines and our building,
that's where you're going to be able to see really
cool interactions. And I didn't want to use them all
at once because then it dilutes it. So everyone asked me,
They're like I can't believe you didn't use you know, coal,
And I was like, don't worry. Like I got plans
for Call and we had Call show up some issues
at Conan, but like like the Thurian Age and the

(01:01:34):
Hybrid and Age are tightly wound together. But I got
plans for Call and Brule, don't worry, and I got
plans for Brend Macmoorn, and I got plans for your boy,
you know, Steve Castim. So it's it's, uh, yeah, it's
gonna be really fun because I can put those cards
down and I know I can put those cards down
two years from now. Do you know what I mean?

(01:01:54):
That that it doesn't have to be all at once,
And that feels so cool to know. I know where
we're at now, I know where we're gonna be at
a year from now, you know, the next Free Comic
Book Day issue, the next uh you know, the next summer.
Like it's not written, but it's all built. And that's
what's so pat about it. And so what's really fun

(01:02:18):
is we've got the structure in place. Everyone's pushing in
the same direction. The crew at Heroic Signatures are so
supportive and so wonderful, you know, Chris Butterra, my editor.
He is a great collaborator and he's really fun to
riff with and chat with, and he's always enthusiastic. Ashley
Hodgkins our assistant editor. She's super sweet and super organized

(01:02:39):
and somehow keeps all the files moving through the system
on a monthly book and now multiple you know books
with the mini series. We have these conference calls and
we're just laughing and we're excited and we're pumped, and
everyone's just putting themselves into it. You know. They started
up an official cone and the Barbarian YouTube channel. I
don't know if you've check out. And the guy who

(01:03:01):
hosts that, Sean Curly, He is a delight and he's
you know, we did I'm jumping all over the place.
We did Robberley Howard Days. So it's this little book
festival in cross Plains, Texas, where Roberty Howard lived the
majority of his life and where he passed away. It's
a town of less than one thousand people. Someone told
me they said the population of cross Plains is under

(01:03:25):
a thousand and falling. That was the way it was
described to me. Right, Just getting there is quite a task.
I flew into Dallas. I rented a car and it's
a good three and a half hour drive and the
last forty five minutes is mostly dirt roads, you know.
And they have this little gathering and it started up,

(01:03:46):
I don't want to put an exact date on it,
at least twenty five years ago, where a bunch of
these Howard fans just showed up as close to Howard's
the anniversary of Howard's death as possible to be at
the house. The house is an American heritage home. It's
a museum. And because it's such a small town, when
you get there, the museum's locked. You have to phone

(01:04:07):
a phone number that's on the front of the house,
and these little old ladies will come and they're delightful
and they'll unlock the house and they'll give you a
little tour, and then they encourage you to buy stuff
at the gift shop to keep the house up. But
during Howard Days it's open for like, you know, two
days straight, and people make this not to sound too dramatic,
but like a pilgrimage out of it, you know. And

(01:04:28):
they have all sorts of stuff throughout the city. They have,
you know, the library has a bunch of the original
manuscripts on display, and they have a little banquet and
they have a barbecue and they have panels and stuff.
But it's like, so this is a town of less
than a thousand people, and we brought, you know, two
hundred three hundred people, Like we changed the face of

(01:04:50):
the town for two days, three days really because I
came in a day early so that Sean, the guy
who runs the YouTube site for Conan, he came in
with a camp and we just filmed documentary material for
the YouTube channel. We must have filmed eight hours worth
of stuff at least, you know, normally all the rooms
are roped off, and they just took all the ropes down.

(01:05:11):
So we're just walking through the house and we're going
to all this stuff. They had brought back Howard's original
writing table, which had finally been found, and that weekend
they put it back in place. And almost as soon
as they placed it, they were like, okay, Jim, sit
at the table. And I was like, are you nuts?
Like and yet and yet there we were, you know,
and we were filming an interview at one point, and

(01:05:33):
it was so funny. I'm sitting in the room Howard's
little writing room, which is right beside his mother's room
where he tried to look after her while she was unwell.
And I'm sitting in the chair and I'm talking to
the camera and I said, you know when Roberty Howard
made Conan, and I'm talking about the creation of the character,
and Sean just stops and he goes, let's do that
take again. Can you motion over to the table? And

(01:05:56):
I said right, And so I start talking and I
just sort of died midway through. I go, you know
when Robert, when Robbie Howard made Conan, And Sean goes,
don't pause like that. I said, no, dude, it's like
the gravity of like I'm sitting at his freaking desk,
Like it's not like this abstract thing, you know, We're
like we're right here, right now in the spot. And

(01:06:18):
sean' isn't that cool? And I was like, yes, it's
beyond cool. It's crazy. You know. The second morning, I'm
sitting on the porch and I get there early before
they open everything up and before the festival officially starts,
and it's just me. I'm just sitting on the porch
and Jeff Shanks, who goes every year. He meets me
there and we're just sitting on the porch and we're

(01:06:39):
talking about life, and we're talking about the book, and
we're talking about everything. Man, And I'm like, you know,
we're sitting on doctor Howard's porch here, like you know.
And he goes, yeah, oh, yeah, this is new for
you because he does it every year, right, Yeah, it's
pretty new for me. And he goes, well, you know,
you'll be back every year now you're part of the family.
I said, yeah, but it does feel like a family reunion.

(01:07:01):
It's got all those notes. But I'm the weird cousin.
You guys didn't know about it, and I have a
deed to the house. Like it's like it's different, it's weird, man,
Like I've got my I'm really really driving this thing.
Like it's really very very exciting, and that he is
so welcoming that I could easily have been treated like
an interloper, you know what I mean. But the community

(01:07:22):
that is sweet. Mark Finn he wrote probably the best
biography of Roberty Howard called Blood and Thunder. He was
just a sweet dude and really really nice and high
fives all around and stuff like that. Just all of them.
Bill Cavalier, he's one of the guys who organizes the
festival and he's been there for ages. There's something called
the Roberty Howard Foundation, and that's a group of scholars

(01:07:45):
and literary archivists and their job. They're not the family
and they're not the rights holders. It's really important to
sort of state that their job is to promote the
work of Roberty Howard and to solidify his importance as
as one of the most important American authors, you know,
of original and the father of an entire genre of storytelling.

(01:08:07):
And they have their own set of awards, and I
had heard of them, you know, vaguely, but it's like,
it's called the Roberty Howard Foundation Award. And I think
to most people they assume that it's like, oh, so
like Conan gets it, and you're like, they actually don't
give it out to Conyan very often. They would rather
give it to a writer who they feel writes in
a pulp like style like Howard. You know, there's frustrations

(01:08:32):
around the commercialization and the sensationalization of Conan as this
commercial property versus the literary significance of the work. Right,
and you know, it's always art and commerce. They're always
you know, in strange interlocking, you know issues. And so
when I had asked vaguely about the Roberty Howard Foundation stuff,

(01:08:54):
what I was essentially told was, you know, these are
the hardest core of hardcore fans. You will never please them.
Do the best you can write the stories that you
think are have value, and you know, if they like it, great,
and if they don't, don't take it personal. Most of
these guys, anything outside of adapting Howard they consider pretty much,

(01:09:15):
you know, anathema. And so you're like, okay, that's the baseline.
You'll never please them. And so this year, you know,
I've been writing conin stuff since Gale and I did
the crossover at dark Horse with red Sonia twenty fifteen,
and these guys never make in my direction, you know.
And that was fine, Like I hadn't really ever thought

(01:09:36):
of it, honestly. And then we got nominated for for
the Literary Award this year with Bound in Blackstone, and
I was like, oh, that's amazing, and Jeff's like, you
don't understand, that's actually more than amazing. The only comics
that have ever been nominated, they don't nominate comics normally,
and when they do, they're always just adaptations of Howard,

(01:09:58):
like you did you know whatever, Tower the Elephant, You
did a really nice job. Good you know, maybe you're
on our radar, but they don't do original work. And
so I was like whoah. So he's like, yeah, you're real,
you know, kind of a dark horse nomination. Just be
thrilled you got it, and I was. I was genuinely thrilled.
I got it. Sure, And so we went we did

(01:10:18):
the banquet and then we did the award ceremony thing
and we won it. You know, de Lettore and Vilarubi
and I we we won the their Literary Award. And
that was sort of a little bit of a ripple
because that doesn't happen, you know what I mean. And
to have something that is both commercially successful and is

(01:10:39):
also now considered by some of the most stringent and
like intense fandom that we're doing right by the source material,
that feels unbelievably special. And you know, I'm not I
can't cater to any one particular thing, and you know
that I've got to make the stories that I think matter.
But it does death that bolster my you know, it

(01:11:02):
bolsters my batteries. It makes me feel really really good.
So I go to pick up this plaque. I come
up to any album claps and whatever. A Bill Cavalier.
He hands me this plaque and he puts a big
hand on my shoulder and he goes, you know, Jim,
we don't normally give him to the funny books, but
you guys are doing a nice job, so keep it up.
And it was just like cool, yeah, yeah, and telling

(01:11:26):
me how how you know I'm the new generation and
I'm like, dude, I'm almost fifty. Like we got to
really speak to a younger. We got to you know,
I'm not saying that we change the character, but we
also need to do outreach. Like one things that's been
really cool to me is hearing from people in their
twenties and thirties who are reading the book and have
never they know Conan as a broader pop culture thing

(01:11:49):
or Arnold Troitzenegger or whatever. They don't realize how deep
it can be, and that the characters older than Superman.
That defines a genre that a bunch of the stereotypes
and cliche that have kind of grown up. Some of
them are formed from the basis of Conan, but some
of them are just extrapolations, the big dumb Barbarian probably
being the most obvious one. Conin is not a stupid character,

(01:12:14):
especially in the original Howard stories. This guy becomes a
king by his own hand because he has a great
deal of guile, because he is an incredible judge of character,
because he has leadership instincts and battle instincts, He knows
multiple languages. By the time he's king, he is very
well read and thoughtful. You know. A lot of that
stuff grows out of the Milius movie because Arnold looked

(01:12:39):
like he'd stepped out of a Phrasetta painting, but obviously
as an actor he was pretty raw. And Millius realizes, okay, well,
well this guy's not narrating his own movie, and we
got to keep kind of dialogue to a minimum. The
body is the instrument. We're going to use that to
its maximum capacity, you know, But inadvertently it casts this

(01:12:59):
incredibly low shadow now, and it's a thing that you
kind of have to make peace with when you're writing
the character. At first, you know, you want to whatever
push up your glasses and be like, well, actually, you know,
there is no riddle of Steel in the original books
or whatever, or you know, actually he's not done at all.

(01:13:20):
And I like all that stuff I just said, right,
But on the other hand, what I've kind of realized
is that it's an entry point to any conversation about
the character, not in a bad way. If I go
onto the street and I say the word Barbarian, someone's
going to say Arnold, or they're going to say Conan,
and not at a comic con, look just anywhere. That

(01:13:40):
kind of that that the character is that kind of
pop culture penetration that has value man in the same
way that now you can say the Avengers or even
Guardians of the Galaxy and stuff. Everyone knows what that is.
So rather than turn up my nose to someone that
assumes that it's going to be Arnold Schwartz New or nothing,

(01:14:01):
I'm like, yeah, did you think that movie was cool?
Guess what? You know, there's these ongoing adventures and this
character has all this significance, and these stories are even
cooler than you realize. And they took a little bit
of this and a little bit of that and they
fused it together and that. But the prime ingredients wait
till you see them they're really really sweet. You know,
that's much more valuable.

Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
Sorry, unlike unlike Doc Savage's film that didn't uh you know,
has an endual and and that's pally hard, but yeah
it did, you know, So no, I can appreciate that.
And again, as you say, no, this is the movies,
and especially the first one good entry level.

Speaker 2 (01:14:40):
It gives you that, it gives you the entry point
for the conversation. The Frizeta paintings are iconic for a reason,
and they sold hundreds of thousands or millions of books.
I want to understand that, and I want to channel that,
and I want to use that energy and go, yes,
we are all part of this thing. That's why something

(01:15:01):
like the Alanian sort is so valuable. It's so iconic
as a piece of pop culture, you know design. So
if I can bring that into the comics and you're
never read the comic, but you know that sword and
you're like, oh cool, great, now you're surprised. You're reading
something that's built on Howard and done with as much

(01:15:22):
love and enthusiasm as we can pump into it. So
it's all things, you know, Like I knew that that
we could get some really good engagement on our first
issue and whatever, dozens of variant covers and all the
tricks that you do in publishing to try and bolster yourself.
But what really mattered to me was like, are people

(01:15:43):
reading do they care? On issue thirteen, fourteen, fifteen? And
what's amazing to me is like the number of reviews
we get on the book for issue fourteen is equivalent
to what I would have seen with an issue one
or two on most among other series. That people are,
more outlets are talking about it, more outlets are engaging
with it. Readers are you know the Blackstone Book is

(01:16:06):
making people run back and grab the first couple of trades,
and that they're talking about it and they're excited about it.
That is really really rare and special, you know. But
professionals I've known for years and they're friends of mine
or their acquaintances suddenly being like, dude, I am reading
this book, you know what I mean? Like, like people

(01:16:28):
are you know? Tamasi was talking to me and he's
just like, this book is crazy. I can't believe how beautiful. Yeah,
we're fine, Dolatore, what the hell? And I was like,
I know, I know, right, and stuff like that, or
or you know Chris Cantwell, and he's just like, in
the nicest way possible, like I didn't think you had

(01:16:49):
it in you, Like this stuff just pours out me.
You know. I had one of my most fun conversations ever.
I've told this anecdote before, but it's too good not
to and for your listeners if they haven't heard it before.
So I've never met Richard Starkings, I never worked with
him before. What a delightful guy. He's a legend man,

(01:17:10):
one of my favorite people. Indeed, when I found out
he was gonna be lettering my book, I was like,
this is bonkers. And then later I found out he
requested to letter the book because he had seen De
Latore's stuff, and so all of a sudden, I'm having
these messages back and forth with Richard and he's so
excited and so hard working and passionate whatever, and I
just I was at San Diego and we had the

(01:17:32):
advanced copies of the book launching there and I just
wanted to thank him. So I went by the comic
Craft booth there and he's holding court because of course
he is. He's freaking Richard Starkings was like twelve people
chatting with him, and so I walk past and I
kind of circle around, and I figure, wow, it's preview night.
I'll come back around and hopefully I can catch him
with maybe one or two people and I can kind
of wedge my way in there. And I start walking

(01:17:54):
away from the booth and all of a sudden, I hear, oh, Jim, Jim,
you know I'm gonna walk away all you. I was
just like what. And I turned around and Richard Starky
is like running into the aisle and I'm like, Richard,
I didn't even think you knew what I looked like.
And he goes, well, of course I do. I've been
watching all your interviews.

Speaker 1 (01:18:11):
And I was just what.

Speaker 2 (01:18:12):
And he goes, oh, this is the greatest. The ConA
and stuff is so great. And I was like, oh,
thank you. And then he goes, it's really pouring out
of you. It's like it's coming out of your skin.
You've got the Roberty Howard, It's coming through your fingers.
I was like, yeah, man, it really feels like it
feels really special, Like I've got the lyricism, and I'm like,
I'm steeped in the material. I'm marinating in it. I

(01:18:34):
can't get enough of it. I'm not copying, but I've
got that that rush, like it sounds a bit like
Howard in all the Best Ways. And he goes doula
Toy Delatoy's drawing like a fucking demon. I was like, right,
And so there we are. We're in the big aisle
in the middle of San Diego Comic Con, excitedly jumping
up and down about our own fucking comic, like two

(01:18:57):
big kids, you know. And he's telling me this is
the most funn he's had lettering in over a decade,
and he's so dedicated to the book and like, what
a what an honor it is to be part of
this team. And I'm just like, are you kidding me?
Like it's the craziest thing. And even now he'll just
send me little Facebook messages and he's like nudging captions

(01:19:18):
or he's like, do you think the title should be
a little bit smaller. I'm like, you're Richard fucking Starkings man, Like,
I trust your judgment. What are you talking about? You know,
Like it's all great. I'm down, everything rules, the font choices, everything.
That guy is just wow, such a yeah, virtue and

(01:19:38):
now I gotta break makes the books more important. I
gotta break. So the Blackstone mini series is being drawn
by this guy, Jonas Sharf. Have you seen his stuff before? Man,
oh my god, he's so good. He's so good. Yeah
that covers by Zaffino. Hold on, I'll show you some
sharp I'll show you some short stuff. Please do Yeah,

(01:19:59):
my here, get another exclusive going here. So we got
some issue to pages. So this is Blackstone number two.
Fuck man, this guy is amazing. I loved his black
and whites. He did a Witcher graphic novel and I
thought the black and whites were phenomenal. And so we'd
reached out to him and asked if he wanted to

(01:20:20):
do some stuff, and he was busy, and I just
kept kind of needling, and finally we got him on
board for this mini series. So last year at New York,
we he and I went for dinner with editorial and
I laid out the whole Blackstone story, how it's all
gonna work and what it is and all this stuff,
and man, oh man, he was like totally on board.

(01:20:41):
And he was a little bit intimidated by the sheer
amount of characters and the locations of the time periods,
but you know, up for it, up for the task,
my god, as he delivered, and the complexity of some
of the fight scenes and the crazy visuals and the
supernatural bombast. He is just bringing it man in the

(01:21:02):
coolest way possible. I could not be more happy. And
so it's like all cylinders, like everyone's putting their all
into it. Yeah, and you know when you're at the
front of one of these like all you know, when
you're writing the outlines and then you're writing the scripts
and people are looking to you to drive that thing

(01:21:24):
forward and then to keep that momentum going. You know,
every time you get outwork like this, it's easy because
you're just like, how could I how can I do
anything less than than you know, put the thunderclap on it,
like it's crazy. It's so fun. And everyone on the
team is like that, that's what's so cool. You know.

(01:21:44):
Joo Canola, he's the colorist on it, and he's doing
a killer job. Everyone is just just so sweet to
work with. And again, we've got the space, we've got
the deadline, we've got the buffer. Like Jonas was done
drawing all four issues so that we hadn't lettered issue one,
and we had all four in the can, so I
could make sure that thematically and dialogue wise, that we

(01:22:12):
can reflect back and forth and that we're hitting all
of our marks in terms of plot, the kind of
thing that can be really hard to do on a
monthly book. You know, on so many monthly books you
feel like you're throwing track down in front of the
train while it's rushing absolutely and you're like, oh, there's
a canyon, we have no bridge. What are we doing,

(01:22:33):
you know with the train. So it's it's such a
cool ride. Oh, thank you to the people that are posting.
It means so much to hey watching. Hey, what the heck, dude,
you are the greatest I am. I love that you're
in the chat right now. That is so amazing. Well,
I guess if you're here, I'm going to show a
couple more pages.

Speaker 1 (01:22:54):
There you go. Excellent, great work man.

Speaker 2 (01:22:56):
Well, this stuff is so fun and the atmosphere is
so great, and we've got this, you know, James Allison,
who's this He might be the first meta Arthurial character
in fiction. You know, he's appearing here in multiple timelines
before everyone, and it's wicked wicked shit man. It's so good.

(01:23:19):
The eerie kind of color palettes and the stark lighting
and the punchy atmosphere, it's all. It's all crushing. So
Joos not drawing it. Jows are colorist. Jonas Sharf is
the is the line artist on this series, and he
is just banging it and everyone everyone's just delivering the goods.

(01:23:41):
Could not be could not be more proud and so
like today, for example, I'm going over lettering on issue four,
which doesn't come out until December, but everything's, you know,
getting rounded up. Jeff's already got his essays done for
all the Blackstone issues. It was one of those funny
things where they were like, Jeff, are you interested in
doing says for then? Yes, of course. You know, we

(01:24:02):
got to give people the context and make this thing
as strong as possible. So we're on a pulp parade. Buddy,
it is. You could see it. It's just like pouring
out of me. It is such a fun ride right now.
And I'm doing other stuff as well. My wife and
I are still doing the Young Adventures guides for Dungeons
and Dragons. I've got a couple other comic projects kind

(01:24:23):
of in the hopper. But obviously so much of my
focus right now is heavily Highborian, as we say, it's
it's all the best kind of qualities and getting to
to build this. I've always wanted to do a long
run on a series, and on so many of the
monthly series we would have these big plans and they

(01:24:45):
would they would always have to be scaled back the
reality of the monthly publishing market where you just don't
know four or five months from now where you're going
to be at and and you'd get these moments where
readers would say to you, oh, this seemed like there
was a subplot there, whatever happened to that, and you like, yep,
you know, and you feel foolish because you need to

(01:25:05):
set this material up. But then you don't always get
to pay it off. And what feels so cool and
so exciting right now is it will it will get
paid off. And these I get to you know, we
had a little flashback moment in Conan number one. Let
me see if I can pull that up here. So
in Conan number one we have we talked about the
Battle of Anarium. This is this really key moment in

(01:25:28):
Conan's life, and we show this really stillatory. It's ridiculous,
the most bonkers artwork you've seen, the Battle of Anarium.
And then we see this flashback, this weird sort of
flashback of Conan hold on sharing here.

Speaker 1 (01:25:46):
This is great, Jim, I really appreciate that your noble truly.

Speaker 2 (01:25:50):
Thankfully my folders are organized. So there's Conan, you know,
battling in Venarium against the these Aquilonian soldiers. But then
there's two shots of Conan hunting a friggin bear and
you're like, okay, okay, and it talks about the fact
that he traveled north and he couldn't find a challenge
you know, that could stop him, and it's like this

(01:26:11):
weird little bit, like what does that mean? And literally
a year later, so in issue thirteen we tell the
story of that bear hunt. Because we're not just going
in order, we can jump around. You don't need to
know that right now. That's not important to the current
I get it, it's not thematically critical. But when it
is critical, when the time comes, then we're going to

(01:26:34):
show you. And so there we are issue thirteen, and
it's like Doug Braithwaite is drawing that arc and I
poor Doug Braithwaite. I said, dude, we're gonna do a
bear hunt. Hope you like drawing animals, and lo and
behold he draws the living crap out of it, of course,
of course, and so here we are, literally, you know,

(01:26:58):
twelve issues later, we get to pay off this little bit.
And there's these flashbacks to when Conan's younger, in his
youth and he's figuring out stuff about what it is
to be a warrior. And then we're intercutting with this
amazing bare fight, right and he's got it on his back,
just like we saw, you know, a year earlier. And
there's multiple instances of that. There's stuff that we've already

(01:27:21):
teased that's in the second story arc that is just
like a little aside. Sometimes it's a bit of dialogue
or a visual thing, and I'm going to bring it
back eight, ten, twelve, sometimes fifteen issues later. You're going
to find out what that's all about. It doesn't interrupt
the flow, you know, it's you're going to get it
when you need it. And that's what's really really cool.
And so and I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid you're

(01:27:43):
never going to get to it, you know, like I
was saying that looking over your shoulder every six or
eight months, right, you know, the best problem. You know.
Zadarski congratulated me on the on the contract and he
was like, surprise, you get to plan. You just got
the best comics. And we were laughing about that. You know,
it's been really yeah, yeah, it's really cool.

Speaker 1 (01:28:06):
Yeah, no, Jim, Truly, it's rare, especially now and after
so many stories have been told over the years of
various characters. It's always great when a creator, a new
a new voice comes along and it's like, no, this
guy gets it or this woman gets it, and truly
and and you know, it's again, you know, the proof

(01:28:29):
is there, and I'm so glad that the readership and
that the stores appreciate what you.

Speaker 2 (01:28:35):
I've got all sorts of projects I've worked on, I've
been incredibly proud of and and sometimes the sales don't
find it. It's you know, quality is not just numbers,
you know what I mean. You can see it all
the time, whatever, whether it's movie box office and then
they become a cult hit, you know, or they never
run that audience. But there's that little tight audience that

(01:28:55):
it speaks very closely to them. I don't think commercial
success begats art or or whatever when when both of
those things are working in unison the way you hope
they do. And and that good word of mouth is
so so valuable where people are really like like people

(01:29:15):
not only buying whatever multiple covers and variants, but buying
extra copies. I was at fan Expo, you know, Canada,
at the big show in Toronto. Oh cool, so I
got to follow.

Speaker 1 (01:29:27):
No, no, I'm sorry, I'm doing this because I don't want to,
but I say.

Speaker 2 (01:29:33):
I'm not fanax but Toronto. And there's these guys coming
over the table and they've they've brought books to get signed,
but they've also got a stack of books for a
bunch of their friends, people that couldn't make it to
the show, but also people they just wanted to get hooked.
And so that's like as a gift, Hey, I bought
them the first train and you personalize it to sell
and so and you're like, oh, that's you know, it happens,

(01:29:54):
but constantly, constantly, constantly, you know what I mean? That
was the thing all or someone comes over the table
and you were about and you're used to having to
hand sell your own book and someone comes over the
table and they pick up the trade and they hand
it to their buddy and they go, you're buying this,
and you're like, well, I guess he's buying it, you
know what I mean, because you're gonna freaking love it.
Chuck this oat. And then the guy flips like two pages,

(01:30:16):
sees the dilatory art or the Braithwait art and goes
all right, and you're like, boom, let's go. You know
what I mean, I did That's great. Then yeah, it's
crazy that you know again, these guys old enough to
my dad, some of them coming over like sparkles in
their eyes and they're like, mister zub, it's such an
honor to meet you. And I'm like, come on now,

(01:30:36):
don't be like that. That's silly.

Speaker 1 (01:30:38):
But Jim, that's the thing, man. And I know, as
someone who you'll forgive, the phrase straddles the older generation
and the younger generation. Sure, and honestly I get it
because a lot of their books were my first books
and reading a lot of those paperbacks in the seventies
and eighties. Yeah, and I mean, I'm as I told you,

(01:31:00):
sixty around the corner, ladies and gentlemen for your humble
host here. And I understand because really it is so
wonderful when someone new comes along and they get that
thing that you've loved for decades, and it's like great,
now there's now there's new stuff that I can enjoy
just as much as I did forty years ago, fifty
years ago.

Speaker 2 (01:31:21):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:31:21):
I only met.

Speaker 2 (01:31:22):
It was was seeing that good word of mouth. The
first couple of months. You know, people are like this
tillatory guy, holy crops like Big John and Frank Frizetta
had a kid like it's the craziest book and whatever,
and you could literally there would be guys on social
media be like modern comics suck, I'm never buying this.
You know, my heart died at dark Horse and that's
where I'm done. And whatever, you know, blah blah blah

(01:31:44):
blah and whatever. That was, whether they stopped with Big
John or they stopped with Carrie Nord, or they stopped
with Tim Truman or you know what. Demarcation points a
little bit different for everybody, but stop at some point
or where you know, they tried the new Marvel cone
and they didn't dig it or whatever. And you know,
that was one of my big fears was that people
were like, oh, Zeb's done this and no one cared,

(01:32:06):
so why should we care, you know what I mean?
And I was just like, just give me enough time
to prove to you that we got something in the
tank here. And then month after month of this, like
relentless good word of mouth, and then you finally break
down those barriers and they do love this stuff. The
reason why it hurts, you know, is because they've always
loved it and they wanted it to keep going. And now, man,

(01:32:28):
that passion is so thick and so potent and powerful.
And I don't think we're perfect. I don't think that.
One of the things I warned Titan about. I said,
you know, we're getting this real honeymoon phase where people
love Dolatoria and they love Doug and they love these
stories because they're coming out. It'll settle a bit, like
when we can't be perfect. You know, we're gonna make mistakes.

(01:32:50):
They're holding us up, they're putting us on a really
high pedestal in a really great way, in a very honorable,
you know way. But at some point we will, you know,
we'll stumble. But as long as the aggregate, as long
as we are honest and putting ourselves into it, then
the overall will be as strong as humanly possible. And
I really do believe that. You know that, and like

(01:33:14):
I guess it sort of rounds up the thing we're
talking about at the start. You know, when people are angry,
when people are passionate, or they're freaking out, you know,
I try and think very carefully about why why they're
sending me that angry message or why they they're very
particular about a specific thing. And not that I can
please everybody, but I'm a big boy. I can take

(01:33:36):
some criticism. I don't mind, especially if it's something I
can learn from, you know what I mean. And that's
where it's really helpful to me to go back to
that source material or to make sure that I've got
a good concept in mind. And it's not my job
to argue with every reader and get them on my side.
The work has to speak for itself and they're going
to make decisions about its quality. If someone makes like

(01:34:00):
a factual error, that's when I would point it out.
Like you know, so in the chat there's someone if
they think the jows the penciler instead of the colorist,
or you know, you miscredit someone for a worker, that's
something that's just pure fact. You know, this is the
artist that's who did it or whatever. That variant cover
is done by so and so. That's the only time
I'll usually speak up if someone misattributes a piece or whatever.

(01:34:22):
But otherwise it's not my job to win you over.
If the book's not doing it, then you know, then
we got to try harder, you know. And and and
in some ways, the few people that have come to
me and they've sort of said, oh, the book's not
for me, or you know, I don't get modern comics,
I'm like, well, we'll be here and we're going to
keep rocking them out month after month. And you know,

(01:34:43):
I'm pretty sure like a Joe Juesco cover's got to
get on your radar, Like, come on, man, you know,
like this, if you've ever loved the Conane comics, If
this guy can't at least turn your eyes our way
for a little bit, then I don't know what's left.

Speaker 1 (01:34:57):
You know, I can't get the as the covers of
the current arc and everything.

Speaker 2 (01:35:02):
It is so good.

Speaker 1 (01:35:03):
Again, these are I imagine at some point Titan will
if they haven't already released some sort of collection of
just those kinds. I'm sure.

Speaker 2 (01:35:11):
I'm sure. You know, people have asked us about hardcovers
and oversized and artists editions and that kind of stuff.
I don't think Titans ever had the bandwidth to be
able to do those kinds of things before to that degree.
The book is obviously a massive, massive hit for them.
It's their flagship title. Nick Landau, he's the owner of Titan.
You know. Last year I had breakfast with him at

(01:35:33):
the hotel in San Diego and literally the note I
got from a secretary was mister Landau wants to meet
his best selling comic author, and I was, oh, that's
very sweet. And we just literally talked for an hour
like who are you and what are you all about?
And who am I? And what am I all about?
We didn't even really talk business. It was just sort
of like like a catch up, you know, introduction. And

(01:35:54):
then this year, you know, I get a note from
the secretary and she's like, mister Landau would like to
meet for lunch. Here's his openings. And then we had
like a two hour lunch and when I got there,
he gave me a big hug like I was, you know,
like his son, like it was so sweet and got
into it and we were both just so excited. You know.
At one point that waitress comes over to get our

(01:36:15):
order and we're like, oh right, we're here for food
because we're just like, you know, all all momentum and
when are you coming to England and all this sort
of stuff. Like it was really really nice and so yeah,
that's where we're kind of at Titans obviously, you know,
all power behind us, the gang. It heroic is a delight,
and they've been so sweet and so excited. You know. Ashley,

(01:36:39):
my assistant editor, she'll contact me and she's sending me
the schedule and she's like worried about me. She's like,
you know, Jim, there's a lot of stuff coming. Do
I know you've got a convention. I'm like, you know
my convention calendar. She's like, oh yeah, I've plugged it
all into my schedule and all this stuff. I just
want to make sure that you have time with your
wife and all these kinds of things. And you're like, wow,
that is not nice. It's rare, you know that.

Speaker 1 (01:37:00):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:37:02):
We had a wonderful party at San Diego and at
one point I brought a friend along and you know,
you're having one of those moments you're off to one
side and everyone's celebrating having your time, but you just
get your little quiet spot right and he comes over
and he goes, well, I can see why you love
this so much. These people seem like this is a

(01:37:25):
business and we're all working together, but they're like they
really love working on this and they really love working
with you. And I was like, yeah, you know, this
is a really special moment. Like I'm we're celebrating one
year of the Conan series. We've got, you know, three
more years that we're planning out and it's going to

(01:37:45):
go fast. But what a cool ride. And to really
kind of have those moments where I'm trying to slow
down and just sort of drink it in and go
you never know, man, how long will this last? But
right now, what a cool, cool moment in my career.
And yeah, this is this is you know, it's really special.

Speaker 1 (01:38:07):
John, I A boy. That's that's great. Man. Hey, Rise
has an interesting question. Conan's world had so many different cultures.

Speaker 2 (01:38:14):
How do you guy, Reece York?

Speaker 1 (01:38:17):
Yeah, I mean dialog, so yeah, to make go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:38:25):
So one of the things in the original, like there's
references to the fact that people are speaking different languages,
uh in the in the high Borian age, and most
of the time Roy would just have everyone kind of talking.
If he wanted to have characters talking another language, he
wouldn't usually use the square brackets or whatnot on the
sides of it. He would just kind of have everyone

(01:38:46):
kind of talking whatever High Borian English, and if they
didn't decide, he would do it in kind of captions.
I'm trying not to fall into like everyone having really
ridiculous stereotype speech patterns, but you do try and give
them a little bit of their own sort of phonetic quality,

(01:39:07):
like I want Acier and the Vanny or in the
North to have for this Nordic kind of speech pattern,
or a little more that they speak in a particular fashion.
You know, all the Howard stuff has such a lyrical quality,
and at first it can feel a little bit intimidating
because you don't just want to copy what's been done before,

(01:39:28):
but you wanted to feel like an extension of that language.
And so one of the things I did was I
literally when I reread the Howard stories, Conan and other ones,
I had a pad of paper, and I would write
down words These are words I usually knew, but they're
not a word that would have normally come to mind
to use to describe something. Or I'd write down a

(01:39:49):
very odd turn of a phrase, or I'd write down
a real poetic and lyrical kind of quality in a sentence.
And then I did the same thing with a lot
of the Roy Tom issues, where if he was using
a particular word or he was describing something in a
really evocative way. I never wanted to copy it one
for one when I did my own writing, But it

(01:40:10):
was like just reminding myself to think outside of the
norm that I didn't want one character speech balloons to
just feel like it could be attached anywhere, you know
what I mean. And so that has been a really
powerful exercise. You know, Howard uses really lyrical language. Some
people call it purple prose if they're not a fan

(01:40:32):
of it, but I honestly don't think it goes purple
very often. It's very evocative, it's very potent in atmospheric,
and I try and put as much as possible. He
uses a literation. I probably use more alliteration than Howard does.
I find it very potent on the page, so I
will if I've got pairings or trios of things. I

(01:40:52):
try and use alliteration as much as I can, but
you can obviously over extend that, and every so often
chrispre my editor, he's like, I know what you're going
for here, but there's like one too many Like you,
you're pushing it past the point, and it's good to
have that extra pair of eyeballs on it. Certainly, I
try and read it back to myself and make sure

(01:41:14):
that it's working, and usually it's just a matter of
kind of rolling it off the tongue, you know, and
trying to get a feel for it. The two hardest
things I've had to write in Conan so far are
not comics. In the first issue of Savage sort Of Conan,
I wrote a prose story. So what happened was my
first feature story in Savage was going to be an
issue too, and I reached out to Chris and I said,

(01:41:36):
I have a favor to ask. A new Savage sort
Of Conan magazine is launching. I'm your flagship Conan writer.
Can I please have something in the first issue like
I'm dying. I'm dying if I don't have something in
the first issue. Sure, And he said, I'll do an essay,
I'll do just anything. Sure, And they said, we've already
got an essay from Roy Thomas, and we've already got

(01:41:59):
something from Jeff Shank And then Chris Goes, I got
a challenge for you. You know, mister Joe just goo's
doing the new cover, Why don't you write a short story,
a prose piece based on that cover. And I was like,
of course. And then the minute I committed to it,
I was absolutely terrified because now you're not just playing
in the playground of Roberty Howard's characters. Now you're playing

(01:42:22):
in the medium of Roberty Howard short pulp story almost
the same kind of word count. Who the hell do
you think you are? Who do you think that you
would try? And you know, like you're the Barbarian for
the Bard, But don't don't do that. And so Joe

(01:42:42):
had done a rough sketch of the cover, but he
hadn't settled on what part of the world it was
going to be in, and so he was like, do
you need it in the north? Do you need a jungle?
We're gonna have conin standing, you know, over bodies with
the sword and with the girl, and I said, you know,
we're going to have an instigia. It's going to be
the desert. I need a hot sky and whatever. So
there he is, makes that beautiful cover, and then I

(01:43:03):
got to write something to live up to it. I
probably sweated more over those three thousand words, John than
almost anything I've ever written. I've written seventy graphic novels
seven zero, hundreds of issues of comics, thousands of pages
of comics. Three thousand words. Thought I was gonna die.
My wife was like, you are whining so much, Like

(01:43:28):
what are you afraid of? I'm like, I'm in the ring,
Like I'm doing a Roberty Howard style story, and a
Roberty Howard in the first issue of the magazine, and
Joe justco and all this stuff, and I'm very proud
of it. I'm glad it turned out and people like it.
You do not see the blood between every sentence, you know,

(01:43:49):
own fears because I have no artist. I have no
rob Delatoria. I guess I have Joe Jusco did the image,
but still the pros I gotta describe every moment in
the action. Anyways, put it all on the line. People
liked it. People who actually write pros for a living
said it was competent. So I was like, thank god
for that. So then issue too, I've got the feature

(01:44:09):
story in the Savage Sword and that was a ton
of fun. Richard Pace drew this forty eight pager and
it's really wet, yes, and tragic and brutal. And then
Issue three I don't have anything in there, and I
go to Chris. I go, you know, I'm your flagship
Conan writer. I'd really like something and pretty much every

(01:44:30):
issue you can put me in and he goes, literally, Jim,
I have one page. I was like, one page. Oh, thanks,
cool man.

Speaker 1 (01:44:40):
Yeah, Richard, I wanted to balance the people that mentioned
the Wesley Richard.

Speaker 2 (01:44:45):
In Toronto and he was in my gaming group. We
would have board game nights and stuff, so hey, he's
a good dude. He would come over a few hours
early and he would be laying out pages on my
dining room table while we'd be hanging out in the afternoon.
It was really nice to have that really direct kind
of contact with as we were talking about concepts. So
an issue three, but Terra comes back to me and says, okay, Jim,

(01:45:06):
one page, I want you to write a poem. So
Robertie Howard wrote all sorts of these poems, and some
of them are all different subjects. But he wrote a
bunch of war poems and all sorts of stuff. Write
a war poem. I'm like, who the hell do you
think you are? You're going to write a poem? And
so I said, can we get someone to do a
pin up with it? They said, how about Dilatoria. I said, okay,

(01:45:27):
thank god, we got dilatory is going to do the
pin up. We can do this, man, we can do this,
and so lo and behold. I put together this poem.
I'm really proud of it. Actually, let me see if
I can pull it up here.

Speaker 1 (01:45:40):
Okay, while that's happening, Oh.

Speaker 2 (01:45:45):
Show, dude, get some rush, go bust out those pages. Man,
thank you so so much. This is so cool. I
love that he popped on. So this poem is called
Caldy de Crome and Dilatorre's got to pin up on it.
And man, oh man, again, the hours spent versus page present.

(01:46:07):
You can't really don't measure it, because I'm sure I
did not. I made less than minimum wage on this thing.
But that's not the point. So what a cool piece.
Of course Starkings comes in with the perfect font choice
and then yeah, and there it is.

Speaker 1 (01:46:24):
Look at that.

Speaker 2 (01:46:25):
Yeah, super fun man, so cool and it turned out
really well and it's got a nice cadence to it.
And so at the Roberty Howard Days Festival, while I'm there,
one of the things they do in the evening everyone's
had a few beers and barbecue and all that stuff,
is they do a poetry reading, right, So they'll take
Howard poems and people will pick their favorites and they'll

(01:46:47):
stand on his porch and they'll like read this stuff
with gusto. So we're about four or five poems in
or whatever, and Bill Cavalier comes over and he goes,
I heard you've got yourself a poem. And I was
just like, oh, come on now, and He's just like,
come on, read it, read it, read it. I was like, okay.
So I got up there and I read it, and man,
I was the It was hot out, but I was

(01:47:08):
sweating more than normal, you know. And the little gathering
of the most hardcore Roberty Howard fans in the world,
and they clap and they were really sweet. Someone cracks
me open a beer and you're like, all right, I
did not face plants, you know, trying to uphold the
legacy as much as possible. It's it's been the craziest year. Man,

(01:47:29):
it's been such a cool ride.

Speaker 1 (01:47:31):
Well, here's hoping another three year as fun. And I
understand and you're being realistic about it in terms of yah,
thing's made level off. But again you've got hey, man,
you've got a plan and that's terrific. You're getting the
real estate and time to execute the plan, and that's wonderful, dude,
And truly this latest episode.

Speaker 2 (01:47:51):
Yeah, Blackstone's been amazing. You know. This is also the
first time I've ever gotten so you know, my books
come out in foreign languages and that's cool, but I
couldn't tell you usually when those foreign books come out,
Like yeah, when I went to France to launch the book,
I knew then, But otherwise I have no clue when
a particular book's coming out or what language or at

(01:48:14):
what point I know now, man, because every time one
of the Konam books comes out in a new language,
or whenever one of the trades come out, we get
flooded with messages. I get flooded messages at Italian and Spanish,
French and German. When the book came out in Portuguese, dude,
I had these guys on like Instagram Live and stuff,

(01:48:35):
waiving the book and screaming El barbaro, el barbaro. And
You're just like, all right, this is the craziest thing.
You know, Yeah, that is amazing, and it reminds you
again of the expansive legacy of this character. Characters got
a huge Mexican you know audience. There were these a

(01:48:58):
couple of guys who came up from Mexican go for
Howard Days and they really wanted to meet me, and
we did an interview in front of the house and stuff.
I mean, there were people in Howardays. So you talk
about rural Texas, right, There's a guy who comes from
France every year. There's people coming from Spain, like to
the middle of nowhere because because now it's this you know,

(01:49:20):
fun little fandom and all this kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:49:23):
There was a guy that lived around there and said
he would get his hair here it is Wesley again
and he says, I used to get my haircut across
planes all the towns are groceries were an hour drive
on the highway.

Speaker 2 (01:49:37):
Yeah man, yeah, so in cross Plains we counted. So
it's like there is a small grocery store, there's a
hardware store, there's a library, a post office, community center,
like four restaurants, there's a dairy queen, a subway, a
barbecue place, and a Mexican place, and four churches. No hotel.

(01:50:02):
You know, like there's nothing. It is blinking you miss it,
Like you can drive past the whole thing in a
couple of minutes. There is like three major cross streets,
not even really that you know. It is so tiny,
and the town seems kind of at odds with the
fact that this is what they're known for, and some

(01:50:23):
of the time embraced it because obviously once a year
they're going to get a small kind of injection of
commerce and other people just look at you, like your
weirdos and all that kind of stuff. Right in the library,
they were really sweet. They were doing a raffle and
stuff to raise money for the community and all that.
You know, it was really cool, but you realize like
that this weird legacy of the character, you know, and

(01:50:48):
that they didn't realize the extent of it even you know,
in the thirties, but let alone you know, since then.
So for example, in the house, there's a shelf full
of books and it's like very incomplete bunch of Roberty
Howard's books that he owned. The problem is when the
house was originally going to be sold, before they kept

(01:51:08):
as a heritage home, they were clearing stuff out of
the house, so almost all of Howard's personal books were
just given to the library. So now they've been taken
back from the library, but they still have the Dewey
decimal stickers on the spines, right, and they've got the
cards in the back because they don't want to damage
them anymore. So you have this little shelf of library

(01:51:29):
books that people were taking out of the library for decades,
and they're like Robert's personal copies. His name is in
the front cover, you know, crazy, Like that's the kind
of thing, like they just had no idea that these
things have value, that this is important. It's like the
writing table had been sold and was being used as
a coffee table, right like like what you know, you

(01:51:54):
don't know, you don't know, it's a table. It has
no meaning. Of course, if you don't know imbued with
all this other meaning. Right, It's like you go to
a museum and you see random bits of clothing, but
you go, no, it's important because of who had it
and when they had it and why, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:52:12):
Yeah, it's so stuff like that in suburban Chicago. So
I understand absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:52:19):
By the way. I was at Chicago Fan Expo this year,
because I know, I messaged you and I was like,
I'm giving you in Chicago and You're like, yeah, I'm not.
I'm like, what the hell? So but a day early
and so I managed to wander around, which I don't
normally have time to do. But I grabbed the train
because we were up in Rosemont for that show. Sure,

(01:52:40):
but I jerked on the train, which was worked out great,
got downtown, managed to do all the touristy stuff. I
went to the Art Institute of Chicago. It was really cool, wonderful,
a couple of music and things. I stopped in at
a couple of comic shops. So I stopped in at Challengers,
which was really cool, and then.

Speaker 1 (01:52:57):
I sent out our buddies absolutely sweet.

Speaker 2 (01:53:00):
They were great. They were really sweet. And then I
also stopped at Graham Crackers downtown.

Speaker 1 (01:53:07):
Not the Great store. Absolutely, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:53:08):
It was busy when I came into the Graham Cracker store.
And so I felt awkward because you want to do
that thing where you're like, I'm I'm a creator or whatever.
And so I I had sent them a I think
a tweet or a social media message like hey, I'm
going to come by, you know, I hope that's okay.
And so I'm talking to the woman at the front
counter and I was like him, I'm in town for

(01:53:30):
the convention and I sent a message and all of
a sudden, the magic guy just sort of looks over
and he goes, you freaking Jim's up. And I was
like I am yes, and he's like oh, and he
grabs a bunch of the conam books and we had
a great conversation and they were awesome. So you have
that weird moment. It's all the stores want you to say,
you know, if you're coming by or sign some stuff. Sure,
but you always feel weird about it. You always feel

(01:53:52):
nervous about it. You're like, does this mean anything?

Speaker 1 (01:53:56):
It does? I guarantee you, absolutely it does.

Speaker 2 (01:53:59):
I still get at those weird sort of moments yeah,
it's great. It was great. I had a really nice
day in Chicago. Was wonderful. Man, the Chicago fan X
boat had such a heart of comics. There were a
lot of retailers there. There was a ton of people
bringing the run By and bringing my Avenger stuff and
D and D and a creator own stuff of course
Wayward and skull Kickers and Glittering, and that was like

(01:54:22):
awesome because, don't get me wrong, working on these franchises
is great, but when someone brings you Wayward and says, man,
this is my favorite comic, You're like, this wouldn't exist,
you know, if we didn't make it, so that's even cooler.
It was a really fun ride, and I realized it
had been like six or seven years since I'd been
to Chicago, and I thought, oh wow, why. I don't

(01:54:43):
know why it had been so long, but I'm definitely
gonna be hitting up. We've got the twenty twenty five
schedule now. My wife and I are looking at the
calendar and she's like, please don't treat it like Tetris,
like you can't fill every box. And I'm like, I know,
but I'm excited and people love the book. And she's
like I know, and that's also a big difference because

(01:55:04):
of the lockdowns and all that. I just wasn't able
to promote the series when I was at Marvel. Well,
we were all at home. So now it feels like
all this pent up energy is just exploding everywhere in
the best way possible. So yeah, full events coming.

Speaker 1 (01:55:19):
Up, wonderful, Jim, Well, I hope that our pats cross
in twenty five, Yes, live, you know, it's been it's
been a long time since we've seen each other face
to face and birth. Yeah, but in the meantime I
can enjoy things like you know, but Battle of the
black Stone, fantastic new Ark that just started. And if again,
if you're a Howard fan beyond Conan, you'll be very

(01:55:40):
happy to see a lot of Howard Verse characters because
they're all the same universe. And that's wonderful and smart
thinking on your part. And yeah, it's a great it's
a great start to a new story that also ties
into previous arcs as well.

Speaker 2 (01:55:54):
So thanks man. Yeah, we're having an absolute ball and
it is a pleasure to be able to chat with
you about it, and hopefully we can do so again soon.
There's gonna be.

Speaker 1 (01:56:04):
All sooner than later. Jim, absolutely, man, please no count
on it.

Speaker 2 (01:56:10):
You are the best man, So thank you for making time.
And it's always a pleasure. I love listening to the
other episodes and all the different people that you line up,
so it's a it is an honor to be in
the mix. As they say, well.

Speaker 1 (01:56:25):
You bring it every time, Jim, And again, this is
another great conversation, and I'm thrilled that things are working
as well as they are and that the Conan fans
and the Howard fans are as receptive as they are
to what you and the rest of your group are doing. Again,
it's excellent work, and Conan deserves the best.

Speaker 2 (01:56:43):
Really, er crew is the best man. They make it
look so good every single time. The editorial crew is amazing,
Like everyone at Heroic is wonderful. You know, whether Chris
and Ashley and Fred and Jay and Marcos and Sean
love those guys to bits. You know, the team at
Titan has been really, really amazing and they're pushing it

(01:57:04):
at every single level you know it is. It has
been awesome. And then of course our creative teams are
just epic, beyond epic. I could not be more proud
of the work that they're putting out there, and you
would be nowhere without them. So Rob and Doug, we've
got Jonas now. And then you're going to be seeing
the work of Danica Breen. She's going to be coming

(01:57:26):
in to do two issues and her work is absolutely stellar.
She's upholding the high bar set by her contemporaries. And
then there's a guy named Fernando Dagnino. He did a
story in Savage sort of Conan that people really really
responded to and I responded to, and so we'll be
bringing him in the mix as well. You'll be seeing

(01:57:46):
more of him. So it's a big high Borean family man.
We're having a blast.

Speaker 1 (01:57:52):
There you go, and everybody should join Jim's zup stack
as well and get updates new regular newsletters from Jim.
What's going on with him. And Yeah, there's a cool.

Speaker 2 (01:58:02):
Thing called Sumerian September. So a bunch of these bloggers
and YouTubers are rereading Howard stories or rereading Conan pastiche
and kind of celebrating it, and so I decided to
join in. So I'm rereading all the original Conan stories
and just doing some straight thoughts and commentary and people
are finding that really interesting. So that's another little thing

(01:58:24):
you'll get if you're on the zupstack.

Speaker 1 (01:58:27):
Beautiful man, well done. Well, I appreciate it. Jim, thanks
for the great conversation, and I will let everyone know
that on the next episode of word Balloon a returning person.
Alexander Nevsky is this great Russian actor who's been in
America for about twenty five or thirty years now, and
he's been making action movies. It's ironic that we're talking

(01:58:48):
about Conan and arnoldst come up, because Arnold was his hero.
He was a mister Universe and a bodybuilder and also
a former amateur martial artist and karate guy. Well, he's
been making his own action movies and they're a lot
of fun, and he's got a brand new Western of
all things. But it's actually historically accurate, even though he's

(01:59:08):
got the thick Russian accent, because it's really based on
a true person who emigrated from Russia to the States
in that pre Civil War eighteen fifties era, became quite
well known, became a general in the Union Army, and
became a general through the Commander in chief himself, Abe Lincoln,

(01:59:29):
which is a great story. These are his Western adventures
after the Civil War, where that's where facts got a
little murky, so artistic license. Alexander is continuing to tell
his stories, but he's released the second movie in a
series of films about this character, and we have both
alex and the director on the show to talk about
it with our buddy Gabe Hartman, who was usually when

(01:59:53):
we talked about movies. So that's gonna be on the
next episode of Word Balloon coming up, both video and audio.
So until next time, every buddy, thanks a lot for
watching us. Stay safe, stay happy, stay healthy.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

Cardiac Cowboys

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Celebrating Conan #25 with Jim Zub pt 1

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

Cardiac Cowboys

All Episodes

Celebrating Conan #25 with Jim Zub pt 1

Stuff You Should Know