“You’ll find it by sunset only, my lady,” Guy of Garlot had told her with a sidelong grin marring his comely dark face. “Mists and wilderness ring it round, and there’s magic in the swamps about Hellsgarde. Magic—and worse, if legends speak truth. You’ll never come upon it save at evening.” —C. L. Moore, “Hellsgarde” in Weird Tales (Apr 1939)
The last Jirel of Joiry story came out 15 months after the previous story, “Quest of the Starstone.” In that time, Moore had been publishing less. The market was changing. New fantasy and weird fiction magazines were out, Weird Tales had been sold and the offices moved to New York City; the editor Farnsworth Wright would soon be fired and, in 1940, would die. Moore’s connections to the magazine were fraying. But there was this one last hurrah.
While it wouldn’t be quite correct to say that the Jirel of Joiry tales to this point were formulaic, they did share very similar plots: Jirel would travel to some other land or dimension, face a supernatural peril, and overcome it through ingenuity and sheer spirit. The details varied, and sometimes she faced sorceresses or wizards and other times alien spirits and gods, but it was a common theme, one largely shared with several early Northwest Smith yarns. “Hellsgarde” still has that theme, but it is developed in a very different way, and with much more style and plot, than the previous tales—and for a good reason.
This is a horror story.
There are strong Gothic setting elements, and readers might well see it as an old dark house tale, with the decaying castle and the creepy family. Yet without sacrificing any of the adventurous elements—Jirel of Joiry is a woman of action, even when trapped in a cell, and her escape is murderous and bloody—this is definitely a story that emphasizes the creepy above the fantasy. It is the darkest of the original Jirel stories, and with neither a typical ghost or typical ghost-hunters, but something much more deliciously weird.
“With the passage of years the spirits of the violent dead draw farther and farther away from their deathscenes. Andred is long dead, and he revisits Hellsgarde Castle less often and less vindictively as the years go by. We have striven a long while to draw him back— but you alone succeeded. No, lady, you must endure Andred’s violence once again, or—” —C. L. Moore, “Hellsgarde” in Weird Tales (Apr 1939)
The peril to Jirel in this story is exquisite. Once again, she is in a scenario where swordplay is of limited use. She is bound by loyalty to her retainers, she is physically trapped in the castle by the hunters after Andred’s spirit, and her vitality is a beacon to Andred’s ghost itself. It isn’t the first time that something about Jirel’s violent life has attracted supernatural attention (cf. “The Dark Land” (1936) by C. L. Moore), but the threat is more visceral this time, more rapacious. That adds a sense of personal danger, a threat of sensual violence to a tale that is already designed to unnerve. And like a great writer of the weird, C. L. Moore knows enough to leave the last horror unknown, only hinted at.
It’s a wonderful story, and the readers thought so too:
Hellsgarde was the most welcome story of the current issue, for it has the qualities one associates with C. L. Moore: beauty of style, an owtré air, and narrative unpredictability […] —J. Vernon Shea in “The Eyrie,” Weird Tales (Jun-Jul 1939)
Hellsgarde was a superb, grand and everything else kind of story; I loved it to the very last exciting word. —Ethel Tucker in “The Eyrie,” Weird Tales (Jun-Jul 1939)
And C. L. Moore gives us the one and only Jirel of Joiry! Boy! Whatanissue! I hope that C. L. Moore delights us in future issues with more stories of Northwest Smith and Jirel. —John V. Baltadonis in “The Eyrie,” Weird Tales (Jun-Jul 1939)
You do give us thrill-mad fans such nice ‘oogy’ stories. Look at Jirel of Joiry—she certainly does get around. How about getting her and Northwest Smith to meet again. They did quite some time ago. They should get better acquainted, don’t you think?’ —Elaine McIntire in “The Eyrie,” Weird Tales (Jun-Jul 1939)
There would be no sequel. Jirel of Joiry had run her course under Moore, and there was little left of Northwest Smith. Which doesn’t mean that the story of “Hellsgarde” ends here.
In 1967, “Hellsgarde” was reprinted in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine (Nov 1967). This digest was published by Leo Margulies, who had bought the rights to Weird Tales, and edited by Cylvia Kleinman Margulies, his wife. Back numbers from Weird Tales tended to fill out the issues in the “Department of Lost Stories.” However, probably for reasons of space, when “Hellsgarde” was reprinted it was significantly abridged, and in parts rewritten. This was likely done by the editor, as reprints of “Hellsgarde” in Moore’s own collections follow the 1939 text.
Did Moore intend “Hellsgarde” as a send-off for Jirel? Did she lose contact with the character, after so many years and stories? Or was it just that she lost contact with Weird Tales, and focused her energies on the future—to her upcoming marriage with Henry Kuttner, and the career they would build together? We may never know.
Glad you liked “The Dark Land”. I made the drawing a long time ago, and wrote the story so I could bring it in, with the addition of a cadaverous head and a swirl of vagueness. —C. L. Moore to H. P. Lovecraft, 30 Jan 1936, Letters to C. L. Moore and Others 108
We don’t know much about how C. L. Moore came to write “The Dark Land,” the fourth published adventure of Jirel of Joiry, and saw print in the January 1936 issue of Weird Tales, except that it drew on ideas Moore had at some point before she first conceived of Jirel, and which she now turned to for inspiration:
Jirel’s Guillaume whom I so ruthlessly slew in the first of her stories, yet whom I can’t quite let die, was patterned after the drawing of Pav of Romne with which I illustrated her latest story, “The Dark Land” in Weird Tales. I made that drawing somewhere in the remote past, and have cherished it all these years in the confidence that someday it would come in handy. I meant to use it to illustrate “Black God’s Kiss,” first of the Jirel tales, but somehow the story got out of hand, and I’ve never since been able to introduce a situation it would fit until “The Dark Land.” —C. L. Moore, “An Autobiographical Sketch of C. L. Moore,” Echoes of Valor 2, 37-38
Like most of Moore’s series stories, this tale was effectively a standalone episode; and like many of them, Jirel swiftly finds herself in another dimension, facing a supernatural threat wildly beyond her abilities.
“Our dear lady has dabbled too often in forbidden things,” he murmured to himself above the crucifix. “Too often. . . .” —C. L. Moore, “The Dark Land” in Weird Tales (Jan 1936)
Once again, Jirel of Joiry is up against a dangerous, domineering suitor—an echo of the overbearing Guillaume in “Black God’s Kiss” (1934) by C. L. Moore. The central conflict is effectively a weird social drama, a contest of wills (literally) between Pav of Romne and Jirel of Joiry, as the alien king seeks to seduce or dominate Jirel without destroying her. In that, more than most of Jirel’s stories, there is a fierce resistance that is emblematic of the character that would become Red Sonja, who would give herself to no man who had not bested her in combat.
“Give me a weapon! There is no man alive who is not somehow vulnerable. I shall learn your weakness, Pav of Romne, and slay you with it. And if I fail—then take me.” —C. L. Moore, “The Dark Land” in Weird Tales (Jan 1936)
It is sword & sorcery without much swordplay; Jirel is weaponless in the traditional sense, but then she is facing enemies that cannot be slain with a yard of steel. Like many of Moore’s stories, it deals with entities that are both vastly alien from human conception, and yet peculiarly attracted to either the human form or spirit. It is an aspect of sword & sorcery, the indomitable nature of the human spirit, that separates the swordswomen from the damsels in distress.
While the fans received “The Dark Land” positively, this tendency toward spiritual or psychic warfare was noted:
The Dark Land, by C. L. Moore, gets my vote for first place. . . . For originality of ideas in fantastic realms, Moore takes first place. However, can C. L. Moore discover something else instead of the hero’s (or heroine’s, as the case may be) tremendous will-power, to beat the foe? —Michael Liene in The ‘Eyrie,’ Weird Tales (Mar 1936)
Another reader noted another running theme in Moore’s stories:
Can’t C. L. Moore write anything but woman-witch-halfbreed stories? Shambleau, The Dark Land, Yvala, ye gods! —Willis Conover in The ‘Eyrie,’ Weird Tales (Mar 1936)
“The Dark Land” also aroused little comment from Moore’s peers, beyond polite acknowledgement. it wasn’t a bad story, but it lacked the vast originality of her earliest stories in Weird Tales.
I read your “Dark Land”, and liked it well. —Forrest J Ackermann to C. L. Moore, 12 Feb [1936]
Jan. & Feb. W T issues very poor—saved only by Moore stories. —H. P. Lovecraft to Emil Petaja, 1 Apr 1936, LEP 472
Have skimmed recent W T issues—though I suppose another is out today. Jan. & Feb. poor—each redeemed only by a Moore story. —H. P. Lovecraft to Duane W. Rimel, 1 Apr 1936, LFB 316
Moore herself doesn’t comment on how she felt about this story; but there is a notable gap between “The Dark Land” and the next two (and final) Jirel of Joiry stories, “Quest of the Starstone” (WT Nov 1937) and “Hellsgarde” (WT Apr 1939) and when she returns to the character it is with a very different plot.
And WT is publishing in July either the Smith story which Wright has entitled THE COLD GREY GOD, all about a lovely Venusian named Judai, or else a Jirel story we have been revising for months. He hasn’t decided yet which to use. —C. L. Moore to R. H. Barlow, 20 Mar 1935, MSS. Brown Digital Repository
Farnsworth Wright, editor of Weird Tales, chose “Jirel Meets Magic,” the third published adventure of Jirel of Joiry, for the July 1935 issue. The story itself is a standalone adventure, making no direct reference to the previous episodes, “Black God’s Kiss” (WT Oct 1934) and “Black God’s Shadow” (WT Dec 1934), though Jirel notes that “She had met magic before.” It opens on an action-filled scene as Jirel invades a castle, seeking the wizard Giraud…who has fled in a most peculiar manner:
Feet had trodden in that blood, not the mailed feet of armed men, but the tread of shapeless cloth shoes such as surely none but Giraud would have worn when the castle was besieged and failing, and every man’s help needed. Those bloody tracks led straight across the room toward the wall, and in that wall—a window.
Jirel stared. To her a window was a narrow slit deep in stone, made for the shooting of arrows, and never covered save in the coldest weather. But this window was broad and low, and instead of the usual animal pelt for hangings a curtain of purple velvet had been drawn back to disclose shutters carved out of something that might have been ivory had any beast alive been huge enough to yield such great unbroken sheets of whiteness. The shutters were unlatched, swinging slightly ajar, and upon them Jirel saw the smeaar of bloody fingers. —C. L. Moore, “Jirel Meets Magic” in WT Jul 1935
The idea of a massive piece of ivory recalls Lord Dunsany’s “Idle Days on the Yann” and Lovecraft’s “The Doom That Came to Sarnath”; the overall plot of a sorcerer escaping through a door or window, followed by their avid pursuer into a strange world, strongly recalls Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Door to Saturn” (Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror Jan 1932)—and it has to be admitted, fits a formula for the Jirel and Northwest Smith stories, which often see the protagonists head into other dimensions.
Yet Moore puts her own spin on things. For the first time, she gives Jirel a woman antagonist in the sorceress Jarisme, and the utter cattiness of the first encounter emphasize’s Jirel’s imp of the perverse.
“I am the sorceress Jarisme, and high ruler over all this land. Did you think to buy me, then, earth-woman?”
Jirel smiled her sweetest, most poisonous smile.
“You will forgive me,” she purred. “At the first glance at you I did not think your price could be high….” —C. L. Moore, “Jirel Meets Magic” in WT Jul 1935
It is worth noting that while fans often refer to Jirel and Conan together, Jirel is not a barbarian. She is strong, obstinate, determined, vengeful, and bold, but not a barbarian, nor does Moore develop the themes in her stories in quite the way Robert E. Howard does. “Jirel Meets Magic” is simply a journey for vengeance in a magical land, swordswoman versus sorceress, but it is not couched as part of some greater conflict or some historical or philosophical clash, only a conflict of personalities.
Jirel’s quest for vengeance has the outlines of familiar quest-narratives from heroic fantasy, overcoming obstacles through cleverness, luck, a swift blade, and sheer bloody force of will. There’s also a prophecy, though that comes so late in the story as to be almost an afterthought. It is a competent enough story, and the many details of Jirel’s encounters with magic do much to make it an enjoyable one, though it lacks a touch of the originality of the “Black God’s Shadow,” being essentially yet another quest for vengeance, this one more bloody and less intimate.
Weird Tales readers seemed to appreciate “Jirel Meets Magic,” which placed as the #3 favorite story in the issue. One reader noted:
C. L. Moore, with a long line of successes already to her credit, certainly gave us the best to date in Jirel Meets Magic. Moore’s stories are following, more and more, a trend toward sheer fantasy, of which there is a pitiful lack in present-day fiction. Parts of this story were strongly reminiscent of A. Merritt’s imaginative descriptions, and I hardly believe a better compliment could be given a writer than to compare one with the incomparable. —B. M. Reynolds, “The Eyrie,” WT Sep 1935
The comment is accurate; while Moore’s Northwest Smith stories were very much science-fantasy, with gods and magic impinging on an interplanetary setting, science fiction was not impinging on the adventures of Jirel of Joiry at all. She was not traveling to different planets, and the sorcerers and wizards were not using sufficiently advanced technology; this was sorcery more akin to something out of Bullfinch’s Mythology, with a healthy dose of imagination.
It is a distinction that arch-fan Forrest J. Ackerman probably appreciated, since he was usually disinclined to fantasy splashing over into science fiction:
Just liked your JIREL MEETS MAGIC. It is unfortunate I have to read a number of stories in snatches; so that I had to cut off, and continue later, about five times on MAGIC. As it was almost entirely strange-sensations and alien-vistas—little action—I found it rather hard to get into the story anew each time. but even at that, I completed it last nite and rate it Good. —Forrest J. Ackerman to C. L. Moore, 6 Jul 1935
It is probably notable that in their future collaborations, the emphasis was on the sci-fi, not the magic. H. P. Lovecraft was also a bit more stinting in his praise:
Read July W T recently—a distinctively mediocre issue, even though Hectograph Eddie [Edmond Hamilton] does get hold of another old plot to run into the ground. The translation from Meyrink has a great idea—& the Moore item presents excellent dream material. — H. P. Lovecraft to August Derleth, 15 Jul 1935, Essential Solitude 2.704
July W T is pretty mediocre—though it was refreshing to see Hectograph Eddie with a new plot. The Moore item was excellent—even though it seems to shew a tendency of C L M’s to drop into a rut. — H. P. Lovecraft to Duane W. Rimel, 4 Aug 1935, Letters to F. Lee Baldwin et al. 281
“Jirel Meets Magic” was written at a time when series characters rarely experienced much in the way of character growth, and plots were not always developed over multiple episodes. It is very much a story written that could have been Jirel’s last, if the reader response was weak, and C. L. Moore was obviously still plotting on a story-by-story basis, not looking ahead to long narrative arcs, or to develop a distinct setting in the way Howard was doing with his Conan tales. We never get the backstory of where Guichard is in relation to Joiry, or why Giraud decided to ambush her men, for example.
Which may be why “Jirel Meets Magic” seems, in hindsight, like an example of a very generic heroic fantasy story, years before these things became common. The story is a solid, enjoyable potboiler. It’s unfortunate we don’t have more information on why Wright sent it back for revision. Not enough plot? Too explicit, with the naked dryad dying? Something obviously didn’t click, the first time he read it. But the readers like it, and clamored for more. So C. L. Moore would give them more…and, in time, it would even inspire a bit of fan-art.
I’m so glad you liked Jirel and the BLACK GOD’S KISS. You know, I never can tell when a story’s good or not. It never fails to surprise me when people are complementary. Jirel was considerable fun, but I hadn’t considered the story is very good. Somehow it seems—along with the rest of my later efforts, to lack the unity that SHAMBLEAU, BLACK THIRST and, in a smaller measure, SCARLET DREAM had. And I am awfully sorry, but I’ve already finished a sequel. I can hear you gritting your teeth, but please, mister, a girl has to live. You can shut your eyes and hold your nose, if necessary, when it comes out, but Mr. Wright was very much enthused about Jirel and wants more. And when he cracks the whip I’ve got to jump. —C. L. Moore to R. H. Barlow, 5 Jul 1934, MSS. Brown Digital Repository
“Black God’s Kiss” (Weird Tales Oct 1934), the first tale of Jirel of Joiry, had been published a scant two months before. If Farnsworth Wright, editor of Weird Tales, had already suggested C. L. Moore write a sequel, starting what was effectively a second series character in the magazine before the first episode had even been published, suggests he had great faith in both Moore and the character.
Unlike with Northwest Smith, whose subsequent stories so far have been largely disconnected episodes with no strict continuity, “Black God’s Shadow” was a direct sequel to “Black God’s Kiss.” Appropriately, the story begins with a brief recap of the first, as Jirel regrets her supernatural vengeance on Guillaume, who had sought to conquer her. Jirel is haunted by her decision—and Guillaume’s ghost. So Jirel resolves to return to the dark land and save his damned soul, if she can.
If “Black God’s Kiss” was an echo of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), then “Black God’s Shadow” is reminiscent of Through the Looking Glass (1871); sufficiently self-contained for new readers, but retreading familiar themes. There is no solid mythology here as in “Dust of the Gods” (1934) or Lovecraft’s Mythos, Jirel experiences these things and interpreted them through instinct as much as her rational mind, but there is no secret history, no account of forbidden names—but there is an elemental, spiritual struggle which is the hallmark of most of Moore’s stories so far, a contest of the human spirit against something inhuman.
If this be sword & sorcery, it was not quite in the same vein as Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian; Jirel’s sword avails her little during her trek to the underworld, but there is a certain similarity of character that the two share. For when Conan says:
Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content. —Robert E. Howard, “Queen of the Black Coast” (Weird Tales May 1934)
It seems to presage when Jirel feels:
She remembered laughter, and singing and gayety—she remembered slaughter and blood and the wild clang of mail—she remembered kisses in the dark, and the hard grip of men’s arms about her body. —C. L. Moore, “Black God’s Shadow” (Weird Tales Dec 1934)
At the end of the story, Jirel is content, much as Conan had somber satisfaction after meting out death to what killed his own lover, Bêlit. Yet there the parallels end; Conan does not replay the descent of Inanna, and Jirel’s quest is one of mercy—or at least, freedom from the memory of Gillaume that haunts her—and that supernatural adventure is as much an assuage to her grief as it is an exorcism.
While Roy Thomas & co. never say so explicitly, “Black God’s Shadow” may have another Conan connection, as one line in it strongly recalls the character of Red Sonja‘s insistence that no man shall have her unless she be beaten in battle:
For she had been the commander of the strongest fortress in the kingdom, and called no man master, and it was her proudest boast that Joiry would never fall, and that no lover dared lay hands upon her save in answer to her smile. —C. L. Moore, “Black God’s Shadow” (Weird Tales Dec 1934)
Jirel is less than virginal, a point that C. L. Moore never lingers on but makes apparent, even in this second episode. Like Northwest Smith, she is presented neither as a slut or a nun, and shows no shame at sexual desire, but neither is she ruled by it, nor does any moral punish her for it. In an age of flappers who flaunted sexual norms, Jirel perhaps represents the kind of woman that many wished they could be.
Moore worried about how this second character would be received:
What did you think of BLACK GOD’S KISS? And B. G.’S. SHADOW? Jirel doesn’t seem to have gone over so well, though Mr. Wright thought B.G.’S. K. the best I had done up to that time. I’m working on another Jirel story now.—Oh, I was forgetting. You haven’t read all my stories, have you? —C. L. Moore to Forrest J. Ackerman, 3 Dec 1934
This is especially true in Moore’s letters to R. H. Barlow, who was trying to gently nudge her from falling into the trap of pulp pap.
I am terrified every time I think about your warnings not to get hackneyed. You’ll have to let me know when I begin to show signs of it. You must, tho, give me a little latitude in the matter of continuing Smith and Jirel stories ad nauseam. I know how you hate it. Keen an eye on me, tho, and tell me all my faults. I get such an awful swelled-head when people flatter me that I do need someone to say flatly, “That’s awful!” sometimes. All of which I’ve remarked on before, of course. Not that I don’t enjoy the compliments you relay too. —C. L. Moore to R. H. Barlow, 31 Dec 1934, MSS. Brown Digital Repository
There was enough support for Jirel in the ‘Eyrie’ to give Moore a swelled head, even if it was slightly less effusive than for Northwest Smith:
Jirel of Joiry
Gertrude Hemken, of Chicago, writes: “About C. L. Moore and The Black God’s Kiss: that Amazon, Jirel, is a gal after my own heart, by gum. Somehow I always preferred women of that type, to clinging vines, or sweet little ones who shudder at the thought of killing a fly. Of course, it isn’t supposed to be nice for women to curse a blue streak as Jirel did, but, shucks, it makes her all the more interesting (to me). And now we find Jirel again in this issue (December). Gosh, I could stand her for every issue, and keep yelling for more. She’s just that kind of a girl. What more can I say but that I am immensely fond of her, and stand a bit in awe of such a maid, although fictitious? Long live C. L. Moore, who has the ability to create such dynamic characters as Jirel of Joiry and Northwest Smith.[“] —The ‘Eyrie’, Weird Tales Feb 1935
Lovecraft was slightly less effusive in his praise, though he wrote to several correspondents that the Jirel sequel was the second-best story in the issue, e.g.
The December W T is strikingly better than its mediocre predecessor. Klarkash-Ton’s fascinating “Xeethra” easily leads, with “The Black God’s Shadow” as a fair second. —H. P. Lovecraft to F. Lee Baldwin, 7 Dec 1934, Letters to F. Lee Baldwin, etc. 114
In a later letter, Lovecraft expanded slightly:
“The Black God’s Kiss”, despite overtones of conventional romance, is great stuff. The other-world description & suggestions are stupendous. “Black God’s Shadow” not quite up to it. —H. P. Lovecraft to Duane W. Rimel, 22 Dec 1934, Letters to F. Lee Baldwin, etc. 248
Which is fair. “Black God’s Kiss” had novelty on its side, and the romantic schmaltz that Lovecraft disliked never really came in until the end. In “Black God’s Shadow,” Moore starts out where she left off, and drags Jirel back down through the same passage. Twice, however, was enough. When next Jirel of Joiry returned, it would be with a new and more original adventure.
Derivative works all share a connection with the parent work. Every story with Cthulhu derives, directly or indirectly, from Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu.” Every story with Conan the Cimmerian derives from the original stories written by Robert E. Howard. From the humble pages of Weird Tales have spun out thousands of creative works in a dizzying array of media—short stories, novels, comics (strips, books, magazines, and graphic novels), cartoons, live-action and animated films, music, paintings, sculptures, toys, video games—and one of the key thing to remember about these works is that they aren’t being created in a vacuum, but in communication with one another.
The Atlantean sword in the film Conan the Barbarian (1982) owes nothing to anything in the stories of Robert E. Howard; the closest the Texas pulpster managed to a special weapon was in the first Conan tale, “The Phoenix on the Sword,” and that sword was broken in the course of the story. Some of the pastiche tales and comic book stories that followed included magic weapons, but none of them served as the immediate inspiration for the Atlantean sword in the film either. Nevertheless, the sword featured extensively in the poster and marketing materials for both Conan the Barbarian and its sequel Conan the Destroyer (1984)—and, unsurprisingly, was represented fairly faithfully in the Marvel Comic adaptations of the films.
Art by Bob Camp
For many years, outside the movie continuities, the Atlantean sword was not a key feature of most Conan media. While it continued to have lingering appeal because of the tie to the film—including multiple weapon makers providing official or bootleg versions of the sword for fans and collectors—publishers like Marvel and Dark Horse did not lean into that aspect of the film iconography.
More recently, however, the iconic Atlantean sword has seen increased placement in both official and unofficial Conan media. The latest Conan comics published by Titan have deliberately leaned into a melding of the iconic looks of previous incarnations of the Cimmerian, drawing both from the John Buscema/Ernie Chan era of Marvel Comics as well as the 1982 film. It’s little surprise that when Conan does actually go to Atlantis in Conan the Barbarian #11, the Atlantean sword—or at least a good facsimile—makes an appearance.
Art by Roberto de la Torre, Color by Diego Rodriguez
Outside of the official comics, works produced in areas where the Conan the Cimmerian stories by Robert E. Howard have fallen into the official domain have had fewer qualms about borrowing the iconic imagery of the Atlantean sword. Such is the case for Sangre Bárbara (2021) by El Torres, Joe Bocardo, & Manoli Martínez, and such is also the case for Conan de Cimmeria (2021) by the creative team of Ángel Gª Nieto (writer), Julio Rod (artist), & Esteban Navarro (colorist).
Hace mucho tiempo, en una era no soñada, caminó Conan, el Cimmerio, que a lo largo de su turbulent existential vivió multiud de fastuosas adventuras.
Dejadme que os cuente cual cronista de un tiempo olvidado sus grandes y magníficas hazañas, que lo convertieron en Leyenda.
Long ago, in an age undreamed of, walked Conan the Cimmerian, who throughout his turbulent life lived a multitude of magnificent adventures.
Let me tell you like a chronicler of a forgotten time his great and magnificent exploits, which made him a Legend.
Conan de Cimmeriais a standalone Spanish-language graphic novel that tells three original stories based on the Conan character created by Robert E. Howard, each one telling a brief adventure of the Cimmerian at a different point in his career. It is essentially identical in general form and intent to the majority of comics produced officially by the owners of the Conan trademarks, just produced independently. The prominent usage of the Atlantean sword in the first story, “La Forja del Destino” (“The Forge of Destiny”), is perhaps the most notable artistic callback to other Conan-related works, but the book also appears to draw inspiration from the classic Marvel comics, while still taking the opportunity to present an original—if recognizable—version of the barbarian.
The stories are a bit more violent and bloody than the classic Marvel Comics, but not so gore-filled as to detract from what are essentially pulpy adventure tales; there is one scene with the topless corpse of a woman, but other than that, there is no nudity or sex. It is the kind of Conan comics that could please everyone from 13 to 93 in terms of being exactly what it sets out to be: the kind of broad-appeal Conan comic that is reminiscent and evocative of what has come before, but which is distinctly original, an addition to the Conan cycle that is respectful of the source material.
In an era when properties falling into the public domain often leads to a splurge of derivative trash that pays little to no respect for the original, it’s nice to find examples of works where the creators basically want to use the stories to create new tales of character they like, int he style in which they’d like to read them.
“You have succeeded today;” it said, “but you have lost yourself, Jirel, once of Joiry.[“] —Molly Tanzer, “Jirel and the Mirror of Truth” in New Edge Sword & Sorcery #3
Jirel of Joiry appeared in Weird Tales with “Black God’s Kiss” (1934) by C. L. Moore. That style of story had no name yet, and very few peers to compare it to. Readers immediately saw in Jirel a warrior akin to Conan the Cimmerian and Kull of Atlantis, embattled against wizards and stranger foes that blended adventure and horror, might thews and magic, swords and sorcery.
As a consequence, the initial spate of adventures from C. L. Moore’s typewriter were a bit raw. There was little continuity and less worldbuilding. Jirel herself was a boldly sketched character, and her personal trials shaped her development—yet Moore never tried to portray her at different ages as Robert E. Howard had done with Conan, never sought to reconcile her fantastic France with the real world, and the adventures she went on were the definition of episodic. Where readers could look forward to Conan as a king and know he spent a varied career as a thief, pirate, and mercenary soldier, Jirel was little different in her last adventure than she was at her first.
Jirel of Joiry had no destiny, no future, almost no past to speak of.
So when Molly Tanzer received permission from C. L. Moore’s heirs to do a new authorized Jirel story, she had some decisions to make. Ninety years of steady development has refined heroic fantasy fiction far from its roots in pulp fiction. There have probably been a hundred stories about mystic Mirrors of Truth, not least because Robert E. Howard had a go at the idea with “The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune” (1929), and the pages of at least ten thousand paperback novels is stained with the blood of cunning wizards and magical gewgaws who learned, far too late, what the tip of the blade feels like as it cleaves their liver (or black heart, or festering brain, etc.) in two.
In this respect, “Jirel and the Mirror of Truth” reads like a fairly competent and well-written sword & sorcery story in a fairly old-school mode. If the heroine wasn’t Jirel, readers would still have no doubt that Jirel’s literary DNA was in the mix, much as most barbarians in fiction have a little bit of Howard’s Cimmerian in them. If it lacks something of the raw and sensual language of C. L. Moore, that’s because Tanzer is a smart enough writer not to fall in the trap of trying to pastiche Moore’s prose style. Better, it shows a solid understanding of one of Moore’s central themes: the Jirel stories are always about a contest of spirit as much (or more) than flesh.
It doesn’t take much genre savviness to glance at the title and decide the question will emerge, sooner or later, “Who is Jirel of Joiry?” The answer, however, might surprise a few folks. Molly Tanzer doesn’t regurgitate bits of old Moore stories, though she draws on elements of them; she illustrates who Jirel is through her actions and interactions with others, especially her new companion, Thevin Galois. Less a girlfriend and more than a sidekick, Thevin is a kind of Enkidu to Jirel’s Gilgamesh; the two are alike, but they complement each other. Perhaps they reflect one another’s strengths and weaknesses, their potentialities. Thevin is what Jirel might have been; Jirel is what Thevin might yet be.
When it came to amorous matters, Thevin preferred the company of women, and did not give much notice to men’s attentions. —Molly Tanzer, “Jirel and the Mirror of Truth” in New Edge Sword & Sorcery #3
Tanzer likes LGBTQ+ characters in her stories, and in this respect Thevin as a lesbian works well. Her sexuality is stated, there’s a hint of tension and attraction with Jirel, but this isn’t Thirsty Sword Lesbians or Dagger Kiss where the question is whether they’ll kiss. If anything, it’s nice to just see the representation of a character where their sexuality is relevant to their character but not the main focus of the story or present just to fulfill a lurid scene or two—there is actual porn out there for folks that want erotic tales of lesbian swordswoman. Tanzer is focused on telling Jirel’s story.
For readers who start with “Black God’s Kiss” and read through the whole C. L. Moore-penned Jirel of Joiry saga to “Hellsgarde” (1939), “Jirel and the Mirror of Truth” might be a bit of a jolt in style. There’s a bit more of Michael Moorcock and Joanna Russ in the style than Robert E. Howard and C. L. Moore. Yet it is a well-written story, and a cut above the pastiche of yesteryear. With a little luck, Jirel’s new adventures may have just begun.
South of Stygia are the vast black kingdoms of the Amazons, the Kushites, the Atlaians and the hybrid empire of Zembabwe. —Robert E. Howard, “The Hyborian Age”
The Hyborian Age of Conan the Cimmerian was no mythical white space, occupied only by pale Caucasians. In formulating the adventures of the Cimmerian, Robert E. Howard drew on everything he knew: Conan’s travels encompass not just a fantasy geography, but chronologies and genres. The barbarian might find himself leading a battle of European-style medieval knights; on the deck of a ship whose pirates could have stepped out of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island; in a frontier wilderness fort reminiscent of pioneer Texas; in a stone temple that might have stood in some fantastic vision of ancient Egypt—and in a fantasy equivalent of Africa, populated by Black people, who were to Conan’s friends, allies, enemies, and lovers.
The Conan stories, while fantasy and aimed at Weird Tales, grew out of Howard’s love for history and adventure fiction, and writing historical adventure stories for magazines like Oriental Stories. The conceit of the Hyborian Age is that by setting it before any known period, Howard had a free hand to invent details that would otherwise trip him up if trying to write a realistic historical yarn.
For pulps like Adventure, accuracy was paramount; the magazine prided itself on publishing stories from people who knew their subject, who had gone out and lived in exotic lands, and returned to tell the tale. To that end, Adventure invited readers to write in with their questions, for Adventure’s stable of writers to answer. In September 2024, scholar Patrice Louinet came across a letter printed in a copy of Adventure (30 December 1923):
White Man and Native of West Africa
HAUSAS—trading-factory terms—marriage ceremonies and customs:
Question:—”I am writing to get some information in regard to the customs, habits, etc., of the natives of that part of Africa which is included in your section in ‘Ask Adventure.’
Are the natives of a war-like stock? That is, did they come from a fighting race?
How much authority does the superintendent of a trading-post possess?
Do the whites interfere with the natives in dealing with native criminals?
What are some of the punishments of native wrong-doers by the whites? By the natives themselves?
What are some marriage customs among the natives? Am I right in supposing a native has full power to punish his wife in any way he pleases?
Have the morals of the African natives been raised by the rule of the white men or have they decreased in standard?
Is the ceremony of Mumbo-Jumbo—or something of some name like that—for the correcting of disobedient women used in that part of Africa? If so, how is it carried out?
What is the customary costume of the natives?
I apologize for asking so many questions, but I am very much interested in Africa. If by any chance this letter should be published in Adventure, please do not print my name.” —R.E.H., Cross Plains, Texas. Text from REH.world.
This would be Robert E. Howard of Cross Plains, Texas—and if the questions of a 17-year-old boy seem somewhat ignorant, it must be remembered that knowledge of Africa was by no means widespread in the rural United States during the 1920s and 30s. For many years and even decades to come, Africa would be the metaphorical “dark continent,” whose peoples, geography, and history were intermixed with fantasy, racism, and plain ignorance. Howard’s questions were honest ones, and it is to his credit that he sought out answers instead of immediately falling back to stereotypes and fantasy when he wrote his first few African stories.
The Conan boom in the 1960s and 70s brought with it not just an increased admiration for Robert E. Howard as a writer and Conan the Cimmerian as a character, but new criticism and new sensibilities. As Marvel Comics adapted Howard’s character and stories to a new medium, they had to face the reality that this was a new world: the Civil Rights movement had won victories with the decision in Brown vs. the Board of Education (1954) and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Black Pride and other movements raised awareness of the roots of the African diaspora in the United States and surrounding countries.
Adaption to this new reality was, at first, slow. “The Vale of Lost Women”(1967) by Robert E. Howard is one example of how 1930s stereotypes and prejudice found an unwelcome audience in the 1960s and 70s, and how later writers and artists worked to make this work acceptable to a contemporary audience of all races. Not every creator was so conscientious; in 1975, Black fan Charles R. Saunders wrote “Die Black Dog! A Look At Racism in Fantasy Literature.” While it was one thing for something Robert E. Howard, who died in 1936 and never lived to see the changes in US society, to rely on racial stereotypes the essay specifically called out latter-day creators of Conan pastiche for continuing to use such lazy and biased storytelling nearly four decades later.
Just because Charles R. Saunders called out writers of heroic fantasy doesn’t mean he stepped away from the genre; quite the opposite. In 1980, Saunders published two related essays: “Hyborian Africa” was published in the fanzine Paragon #1 (May 1980), and “To Kush and Beyond: The Black Kingdoms of the Hyborian Age” was published in Savage Sword of Conan #56 (Sep 1980). Both essays deal with similar subject matter: an exploration of the “Black Kingdoms” mentioned in Howard’s essay “The Hyborian Age,” references to which are sprinkled throughout Conan’s adventures. However, the purpose and approach of each essay is different.
The historical derivation of the lands south of Stygia, the Black Kingdoms, are less obvious. Nonetheless, a look at any reference work on African history quickly exposes Howard’s inspirations for the names of some of his Black Kingdoms, if not their cultural backgrounds [.] Kush, Punt, Darfar, Zembabwei and Amazon are names as familiar to African scholars as those of Poland, France, Spain and Italy are to students of the European past. —Charles R. Saunders, “Hyborian Africa,” Paragon #1 (1980), 27
“Hyborian Africa” looks at the historical sources and inspiration behind Howard’s stories. Given that this was a fanzine and that Howard studies was in its infancy, the usual apparatus of scholarly writing is neither present nor expected: no footnotes, no bibliography. However, Saunders’ care in the article is evident. He addresses only the stories written by Robert E. Howard, not later pastiches or derivative material from the Marvel comic books. It is brief, at only a little over two pages, but the history offered is largely accurate…and if Saunders criticizes some of Howard’s depictions of these fantasy versions of African kingdoms, he also offers a parting observation:
Although Howard’s depictions of Hyborian Age blacks consisted primarily of stock racist stereotypes, he did do more research into African history than such contemporaries as Edgar Rice Burroughs. Even today, the mention of the wor[d] “Kush’ would draw only blank stares from most people. With the exception of Darfar, Howard’s historical foundations for his Black Kingdoms were as solid as those of the rest of Conan’s world. And this is to his credit. —Charles R. Saunders, “Hyborian Africa,” Paragon #1 (1980), 29
“To Kush and Beyond: The Black Kingdoms of the Hyborian Age” was published as a literary exploration of the Black Kingdoms as they appear in the broader Conan mythology, which includes not just Howard’s stories but also stories that were completed or re-written by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter like “Hawks over Shem,” “The Snout in the Dark,” and “The City of Skulls.” In adapting Conan stories to comics, Marvel had included some of de Camp and Carter’s creations, including Conan’s ally Juma the Kushite, and so Saunders incorporates that lore into his survey of the Black Kingdoms of the Hyborian Age. Saunders’ work provided an explanation and codification of lore on the world of Conan that both readers and writers could reference.
Being published in a comics magazine, Saunders’ essay was illustrated by Conan artists John Buscema and Gene Day, and being of a scholarly character includes a page of endnote citations, for a total of 7 pages. Saunders’ interest in African history is still present, though less explicit. In the closing paragraph, for example, he writes:
The cataclysm that formed the outlinees of the modern world separated the land south of the River Styx from the rest of the world, and raised up from the sea the entire west coast of what is now Africa. Much of the history and lore of the Black Kingdoms perished in the disaster—yet the Black Kingdoms did not truly die. Kush, Darfar and Punt rose again in historical times, and the West African Kingdom of Dahomey boasted a formidable corps of Amazon warriors. Like so many other nations and races, the African can trace their history “back into the mists of the forgotten Hyborian Age….” —Charles R. Saunders, Savage Sword of Conan #56 (1980), 54
While the two essays have very different purposes, considered together gives the sense that Charles R. Saunders wasn’t just chronicling the lore of the Hyborian world and glossing it to make it fit. Saunders was studying the work of Howard and other writers to see how they used Black characters and African history in their stories, for good or for ill—and he used those lessons when he wrote his own fiction, the kind of heroic fantasy series that he wanted to read.
Saunders combined his interests in African history and heroic fantasy in his own fiction, including the Dossouye stories about fantasy warrior-women that were first published in the anthology Amazons! (1979), and the Nyumbani setting stories that feature his hero Imaro—who would star in Saunder’s first novel, Imaro (1981). These are the critical early stories of Sword & Soul (see Milton J. Davis’ A Sword and Soul Primer), and they represent a desire to look beyond what other people have written to what stories have not been written, that need to be written, and to write them.
Giant spiders are traditional. The square-cube law be damned.
In “The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save For Sacnoth” (1908), the hero Leothric deals with an oversized arachnid. In “The Tower of the Elephant” (1933) by Robert E. Howard, a young Cimmerian faced eight-legged death. In “The Seven Geases” (1934) by Clark Ashton Smith, Atlach-Nacha spins their web endlessly in the dark. In “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath,” H. P. Lovecraft wrote of the bloated purple spiders that warred with the almost-men of Leng, and in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1937), the giant spiders of Mirkwood nearly put an end to Bilbo and his party—and they’re nothing compared to Shelob, who guards the threshold of Mordor in The Lord of the Rings (1955).
Spiders work on many levels. They are first and foremost predators, not scavengers or placid eaters of vegetables or waste. Alien in outline, fascinating in their anatomy and habits. Some leap, some spin, some are venomous. Fantasy spiders tend to all three; like the giant serpents of Sword & Sorcery, they combine and maximize the attributes and horrors of everyday attercops and exaggerate them past any natural bound. A normal spider, if scared, may bite; their venom may hurt, but few spiders are a serious threat to humans. A human need not fear being wrapped up in their web like a fly, their fluids sucked out, until a mummified corpse is left trapped forever.
In a Sword & Sorcery setting? Well, the human might be the fly. But the fly might also have a sword.
“Never Threaten A Spider” (2024) by Sara Century advertises to the readers what is about to come. It’s right there in the title. Readers who pick up a copy of Profane Altars: Weird Sword & Sorcery will not be disappointed by false advertising. Yet the giant spider in this story isn’t quite a box-tick on some giant list of Sword & Sorcery tropes, either.
Writers and readers of Sword & Sorcery (or Heroic Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, or however you chose to label that squirming grey cross-genre where fantasy, horror, and adventure fiction have mixed and mingled) today face a different problem than Robert E. Howard & co. did in the 1930s. Howard’s Conan basically defined a genre; peers like C. L. Moore’s Jirel of Joiry, Clifford Ball’s Duar the Accursed and Rand the Rogue, Fritz Leiber Jr.’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Henry Kuttner’s Elak of Atlantis, Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné, Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane, Manly Wade Wellman’s Kardios, Joanna Russ’ Alyx…a whole chain of swordsmen, swordswomen, and sorcerers have entrenched expectations of what an S&S tale is, can, and must be.
Robert E. Howard and C. L. Moore didn’t have to worry so much. They were inventing, not imitating. Tolkien’s major competition at novel-length were works like The Worm Ouroboros (1922) by E. R. Eddison and The Broken Sword (1954) by Poul Anderson. There were no Tolkienian imitators; his readers had few expectations. They were allowed to be awed, excited, amused, and entertained.
Several decades and hundreds of fantasy stories, novels, roleplaying games, comics, cartoons, and films later, and readers tend to be a bit more jaded. They’ve seen it all before. They recognize the tropes. Writers have to struggle against expectations. What should be in a fantasy adventure story? What’s too old-fashioned? How to buck expectations?
“Never Threaten A Spider” feels like it tiptoes on those questions. At a straight read, it is a straightforward adventure yarn, with a thin skein of worldbuilding, a little horror, a little action, not too heavy on the sorcery, and perhaps with a slightly unfinished feel. Not everything is explained and not all of the names are a random conglomeration of syllables, both of which are endearing. Not everything has to be explained. Writers are allowed a little mystery, to hint instead of explaining every detail. We don’t need three thousand years of history about the dead queen and the jewel of the nameless spider-god.
On deeper consideration, however, this almost by-the-numbers S&S tale is anything but. It is a subtle subversion of expectations: a swordswoman who loses her sword early on. A thief who doesn’t really want to steal anything, and ultimately doesn’t. A hardboiled protagonist saved by a cute little bunny rabbit.
The hero of the story, a woman named Viy, isn’t some thinly-reskinned version of Conan, or Jirel of Joiry, Red Sonja, or Alyx. Warrior, thief, and outlaw, yes, but not her cynicism is balanced with homesickness, her rage by kindness. The readers don’t see her at her best in terms of skill and accomplishment: sans sword and thieve’s tools, she spends much of the story half-naked and wet, and she resorts at the penultimate struggle to picking up a club and to try and beat her foes to death.
Yet she’s smart enough to know when to run. That some fights aren’t winnable. That murder isn’t the job. For a genre that can sometimes exult in the murder hobo lifestyle, there is a real subversion in having a protagonist that doesn’t need to be a barbarian hero slaying all gods and monsters and macking on the nearest princess. There is something much more realistic about Viy’s failures, her flaws, and at last her triumphant escape with life and a jewel, even if it isn’t the one she came to the god-haunted swamp to steal.
Perhaps, if we’re lucky, we’ll read more of Viy’s adventures in the years to come.
Conan the Cimmerian first appeared in “The Phoenix on the Sword” by Robert E. Howard in Weird Tales (Dec 1932); his immediate literary antecedents were Conan the Irish Reaver in “The People of the Dark” (Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror Jun 1932), and the Atlantean barbarian Kull, who last appeared in “Kings of the Night” (Weird Tales Nov 1930). Like most of Howard’s heroes, Conan was male, and the gender politics of the Hyborian Age tended to be a combination of 1930s Texas and various historical periods and cultures as Howard understood them. There were warrior-women in Howard’s stories: Bêlit, the Queen of the Black Coast; the Valeria of the Red Brotherhood; Red Sonya of Rogatino; and Dark Agnes de Chastillon—but savage as they might be with sword or pistol, these were not barbarians per se, and they were always exceptions in male-dominated settings.
Howard wasn’t alone in producing warrior-women for his fantasy and weird adventure stories, with C. L. Moore’s Jirel of Joiry (who first appeared in “Black God’s Kiss” (1934)) being a notable peer to Conan in the pages of Weird Tales. Yet the Cimmerian’s popularity won out, and influenced generations of later media, from pastiche stories and novels to comics, beginning with Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian in 1970, and film, with Conan the Barbarian starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1982.
Many of these adaptations included warrior-women as well. Red Sonja was created by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith as a foil for the Cimmerian in the pages of Conan the Barbarian, and went on to an extensive career of her own. Valeria (played by Sandahl Bergman) in the 1982 film served as Conan’s ally and later lover. Later sword & sorcery works sometimes focused on female barbarians, such as Hundra (1983), Red Sonja (1985), Barbarian Queen (1985), Amazons (1986), Stormquest (1988), and Barbarian Queen II: The Empress Strikes Back (1990), but these were mostly poor pastiches that often captured the fur-bikini aesthetic but little to nothing of the character or power of Howard’s warriors, men or women.
So when French director Bertrand Mandico set out to make a film that took the popular conception of the ultramasculine figure of Conan and turned it on its head by making the barbarian female, that was an interesting premise. The resulting film is Conann, released to English audiences as She Is Conann, is a 2023 French-language film written and directed by Mandico.
However, the key aspect of this film is less Howard’s hero, and more Mandico’s definition of barbarism:
I wanted to make a film about barbarism, and tell what is for me the height of barbarism, it’s old age killing youth. So, in the figurative sense, physically, but at the same time, symbolically, by betraying convictions, etc. So I started with this idea and I invoked Conan, the character from Howard’s novels. I even went back to the source that inspired Howard. It’s a character from Celtic mythology named Conan with two n’s who was surrounded by dog-headed demons. I started from this mythology to traverse time, eras and to make a sort of survey of barbarism. All of this carried by a choir of actresses. —Bertrand Mandico, interview with Sara Bradbury
In a purely factual sense, Mandico has erred here. The mythological Conann and the Cynocephali (Dog-Headed People) he refers to appears to be a reference to The Voyage to the Other World Island in Early Irish Literature by Christa Maria Loffler or equivalent source. In that work, Conann (or Conainn) is one of the Tuatha de Danann, and the Cynocephali are another name for the Fomorians whom the Tuatha de Danann overthrew in the conquest of Ireland, as recorded in works like the Book of Invasions. Howard was certainly familiar with some of the content of the latter, because he discusses it in letters to Lovecraft, but it isn’t clear that Howard ever read the Book of Invasions himself, and makes no reference to dog-headed people (or even Fomorians) in his stories of Conan.
Still, the point of this film is not pastiche of Howard, or even of the 1982 Conan the Barbarian film; it is a film concerned entirely with Mandico’s concept of the barbarian, which is radically different from Howard’s, and starring a largely female cast. The film stars Elina Löwensohn as Rainer; Julia Riedler as Sanja; and six actors that play the eponymous Conann at various ages: Claire Duburcq (15), Christa Théret (25), Sandra Parfait (35), Agata Buzek (45), Nathalie Richard (55), and Françoise Brion (Queen Conann and dead Conann).
The film “Conan the Barbarian” was the symbol of virilism, of virility. And I found it really interesting to take the complete opposite of this character. With “The Wild Boys” [“Les garçons sauvages”], I had already wondered about the masculine-feminine shift with fairly aggressive characters. And there, I wanted to work on this barbarity and make it feminine. Then also bring a great breath of romanticism. Because barbarism, in itself, does not interest me. What interests me is the contrast between barbarism and romanticism. —Bertrand Mandico, Sur le tournage de Conan de Déviante, de Bertrand Mandico cf. Le réalisateur Bertrand Mandico féminise « Conan le Barbare »
The Nanterre National Drama Center, well known for its hybrid and avant-garde exhibitions, will welcome the filmmaker from January to February 2021, for a theatrical performance on the border of living theater and cinema which “will also give birth to a film shot in film” , and “will invite the public to settle in the middle of its various paintings and stories, in a circus-hell of rocks studded with bursts of tears and blood” —Bertrand Mandico adapte « Conan le Barbare » pour le théâtre des Amandiers
While production details are a bit hazy, French media reports from 2020-2021 or so indicate that what would become Conann started out as much more focused on the 1982 film for inspiration, which can perhaps be seen in the first act with the 15-year-old Conann, which partially seems a response to the opening of the 1982 Conan the barbarian where Conan’s mother is killed and he is enslaved. The earlier version of what would be Conann seems to have been much more of a multimedia/performance space, which may have suffered delays or transformations due to COVID-19. Yet the final film(s) that resulted seem fairly true to Mandico’s original vision as expressed in interviews and press releases.
I feel like a barbarian-adventurer myself in the way I built this project. As for Howard’s original novels, I have kept the esoteric impulse, the memory of an adaptation by Corben “Bloodstar,” but I especially see Conan as a pop figure, a war cry. In my project, Conan is girl(s) and woman(s), and they will evolve in a feminine world. I decided to offer actresses of all ages and all origins unusual characters and situations . There will be six Conans, as many as there are periods in his life. Each new Conan will come and kill the previous one because, for me, the height of barbarity is to kill one’s youth. —Bertrand Mandico, « Conan la barbare » : Bertrand Mandico nous présente sa prochaine œuvre monstre
Mandico references Richard Corben’s novel Bloodstar, which is an adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s “The Valley of the Worm.” Understanding that Conannis not in any strict or even broadly metaphorical sense related to Howard’s Conan as put on paper is important, because viewers who go in hoping for something like an adaptation of Red Nails where a female Conan and Valeria might kiss are going to be disappointed.
Mandico’s approach to filmmaking is very much surrealist, gritty, and avant garde compared to Conan the Barbarian and its sequel and pastiches. Director Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995) has been described as an Acid Western, and Mandico’s Conann might be described as Acid Sword & Sorcery. It has that punk aesthetic, not just in the sets, the wardrobe, the props where swords look forged out of scavenged bits of rebar, but in the attitude of the characters, which is often nihilistic, focused on the moment, and ultimately self-destructive—just as the darkest part of punk has always been a disenfranchised generation preying on itself.
But is it any good?
I realized, almost while making this film, that it concludes a trilogy. A trilogy that began with “Les garçons sauvages” [The Wild Boys], and continued with “After Blue” [Paradise Sale/Dirty Paradise]. So “Les garçons sauvages” would be paradise, “After Blue” the purgatory, and “Conann” hell. So there’s hell in my paradise, but there’s also a romantic dimension in my hell. —Bertrand Mandico, interview with Sara Bradbury
If you like Mandico’s other films, you’ll probably like Conann. If you haven’t seen his other films, it’s important to go into Conann with an open mind. There is a deliberate sense of theatricality: according to an interview, the sets were built inside a big warehouse in Luxembourg, and there’s a conscious sense that these are sets, not location shots. The camera moves, but it stays close, there’s no peeking around corners, and the narrative structure plays to that sense of place.
From the standpoint of pure cinematography, there are some beautifully shots, even when the subject is ugly; Mandico shot on film instead of digital camera, and that reality comes through in almost every frame. The contrast between the black-and-white and color segments works well. The practical effects come across very well, much like an 80’s horror film, and the visceral presence of the gore effects often blends with the rather surreal nature of the narrative. Costume and makeup deserve all due praise; the dog-like face mask of Ranier in particular is an effect that seems fundamentally simple but effective, as in the Twilight Zone episode The Masks. By contrast, the action sequences are not the best-choreographed; while there is plenty of bloodletting and bladework, the tone of the film and the shape of the narrative doesn’t build up much tension.
If there’s a major turn-off for audiences expecting something more akin to the nearly-dialogue-free first twenty minutes of Conan the Barbarian (1982), it is the script. There’s a lot of dialogue, a lot of philosophy, and a lot of narration, to the point where sometimes the best parts of the film are those rare moments when the characters stop talking and do something. Yet the philosophy is in a large sense why Mandico is here; the story is being told because this is how he puts barbarism—or at least his conception of it, the self-destructive Ouroboros that eats its own tail—on display. You either appreciate the film for what it is, or you don’t.
I want to adapt Conan the barbarian on stage. With only women. Several generations of women, who kill each other, fuck, betray each other, embrace, and love one another in a world doomed to disappear. —”Rainer, A Vicious Dog in Skull Valley”
Filmed alongside Conann and featured on the BluRay as bonus features are “L’Emission a déjà commencé” (“The Show Has Already Started”), an introductory segment to three short experimental/surrealist/metafictional films: “Rainer, A Vicious Dog in Skull Valley”; “Nous le Barbares” (“We Barbarians”), and “The Last Cartoon -Nonsense, Optimistic, Pessimistic.” These are much more in the deliberately arthaus vibe, but can be seen as meta-commentary and interactive with Conann as a film. By their nature, they tend to showcase different aspects of the film and its lead actors’ performances. If you like Conann, it’s worth watching these short films too.
“Rainer, A Vicious Dog in Skull Valley,” for example, is a meta-commentary on the difficulties of filming during the COVID-19 pandemic. A director reading Lips and Conan (a fictional paperback) wants to produce a play and makes a deal with the dog-faced demon Ranier to produce Conann. “The show must go on. At all costs.” The short film can say outright things that the film itself cannot say without breaking character.
Conann is very consciously a queer narrative. The eponymous Conann, in all of her incarnations, is primarily sexually interested in women, but their sexuality is fluid, especially in the short films, with relationships marked by violence, death, and betrayal. While the majority of the cast are women, some of the cast is deliberately more ambiguous: Christophe Bier is presented in drag throughout; Elina Löwensohn’s Ranier is consistently described as male, and all of them have a sexuality, implicit or explicit.
The nudity in the film isn’t particularly egregious as far as Sword & Sorcery cinema goes, but unlike those films the titillation doesn’t seem to be solely targeted for the male gaze. Women aren’t stripped to show vulnerability, but to tease titillation with violence: a recurring image is a breast with a vicious spike growing from the nipple. Sex and violence are often combined, but not in the sense of rape, but more in a BDSM-inflected sense of pain as an enhancement or counterpart of pleasure. Mandico plays with certain fetishistic images, but steers clear of anything to explicit; whatever else Conann may be, it is not sexploitation.
Of all the weird cinema with some strand of Robert E. Howard in their literary DNA, Conann and its bevy of short films are probably the strangest to yet see widespread release—and it can be very difficult, if you haven’t gone back through the interviews and press-releases, to see how Bertrand Mandico got from Conan to Conann. Yet if you are willing to watch it with an open mind, and appreciate the spectacle and the craft, the performances and the ideas on display, then Conann is at least an interesting film, far more than just another Sword & Sorcery pastiche.
This review deals with a work of pornography, and the history of erotic art and writing. As part of this review, selected images with cartoon depictions of genitalia and/or sexually explicit contact will be displayed. As such, please be advised before reading further.
It was a woman, dressed as von Kalmbach had not seen even the dandies of France dressed. She was tall, splendidly shaped, but lithe. From under a steel cap escaped rebellious tresses that rippled red gold in the sun over her compact shoulders. High boots of Cordovan leather came to her mid-thighs, which were cased in baggy breeches. She wore a shirt of fine Turkish mesh-mail tucked into her breeches. Her supple waist was confined by a flowing sash of green silk, into which were thrust a brace of pistols and a dagger, and from which depended a long Hungarian saber. Over all was carelessly thrown a scarlet cloak. —Robert E. Howard, “The Shadow of the Vulture” (The Magic Carpet Magazine Jan 1934)
In his stories, Robert E. Howard had written a number of warrior-women. Bêlit, the eponymous Queen of the Black Coast; Valeria, the pirate; Dark Agnes de Chastillon, who rejected the role of woman in medieval France to take up the blade; and Red Sonya of Rogatino, a fiery-tempered mercenary in the wars against the Ottoman Empire.
In February 1973, Marvel Comics’ Conan the Barbarian was coming close to the end of its second year. Writer Roy Thomas had freely adapted some of Howard’s Conan stories, and written some original stories of his own, generally following the outline of Conan’s career. Now, with issue #23, Thomas and artist Barry Windsor Smith (inked by Sal Buscema, John Adkins, and Chic Stone, adapted one of Howard’s non-Conan tales—”The Shadow of the Vulture” as a Conan tale, following the example provided by L. Sprague de Camp. Where “The Shadow of the Vulture” was set during the Siege of Vienna in 1529, Thomas borrowed from Howard’s references to Turan in stories like “The People of the Black Circle” and set it during a series of Turanian wars.
So Red Sonya of Rogatino was re-envisaged as Red Sonja of Hyrkania.
Conan the Barbarian #23 (1972)
Only a couple of pages later, Red Sonja turned up—dressed in a mailshirt and something which can only be described as red “hot pants,” a type of skimpy garment worn briefly (in every sense of the word) by young women in the early 1970s. This wasn’t the way I had seen Red Sonja in my mind, but Barry was the artist, and I didn’t feel like second-guessing him. Besides, he was a good enough artist to pull it off. —Roy Thomas, Barbarian Life: A Literary Biography of Conan the Barbarian, Vol. 1 (2018) 134
The new character elicited interest, with issue #24 titled “The Song of Red Sonja.” Then, she and Conan parted. She would not reappear until 1974, in the first issue of The Savage Sword of Conan, a full-sized comic magazine—where she played a prominent role. The cover features Conan and Red Sonja by Boris Vallejo; the first story “The Curse of the Undead-Man” was adapted by Roy Thomas from Robert E. Howard’s “The Mistress of Death” (a Dark Agnes fragment), with art by John Buscema, inked by Pablo Marcos, featured Sonja as a supporting character, and later on Red Sonja appeared in her first solo adventure “Red Sonja” written by Roy Thomas, and illustrated by Esteban Maroto, with inks by Neil Adams and Ernie Chau (often credited as Ernie Chan). Only this time, Red Sonja’s outfit had changed:
John BuscemaEsteban Maroto
Maroto had never done any work for Marvel (he would later contribute to Vampire Tales #s 3 and 4), but he clearly admired its books and had seen the two issues of Conan the Barbarian in which Sonja had made her debut. maroto was fond of drawing fantasy women in revealing outfits and decided to send an illustration of Sonja, rendered in this fashion, to the Marvel offices. The response was huge, and Thomas saw no reason why Sonja couldn’t wear a chainmail bikini if Conan paraded around in a lioncloth. In terms of the practicality of it, Thomas “came up with a mildly twisted rationale for her wearing clothing that deliberately tempted men when of course she’d cut off their fingers if they tried to go touchy-feely on her” (“A Fond Look Back at Big Red”). […]
So Red Sonja traded her mail-shirt and hot-pants for what would become an iconic chainmail bikini. She also gained a vow:
Savage Sword of Conan #1
Sonja would continue to reappear periodically in the pages of Conan the Barbarian, Savage Sword of Conan, and the short-lived Kull and the Barbarians both as a recurring character with Conan and in solo stories like “Episode” in Conan the Barbarian #48 (script by Roy Thomas, art by John Buscema, inked by Dick Giordino) but while she had received a great deal of character definition—an iconic outfit, and non-romantic foil to Conan who could fight as well as he could but didn’t let him or anyone else manhandle her—she hadn’t developed much backstory or lore. Like Jirel of Joiry, Red Sonja’s adventures were fantastic and at the same time disjointed. Any fan could pick up any comic with a Red Sonja story and need not have read any of the others. Yet between the cheesecake outfit and serious attitude, Red Sonja developed a fanbase.
So it was that in Marvel Feature #1 (1975), “Red Sonja” by Thomas and Maroto was reprinted in color, with a new story “The Temple of Abomination” written by Roy Thomas with art by Dick Giordino (backgrounds inked by Terry Austin, colors by Michele Wolfman) to fill out the issue. These were still random episodes from an adventurous life, and most of the rest of the stories in Marvel Feature, which despite the title was essentially a soft-launch of a Red Sonja solo comic, are the same: random sword & sorcery adventures with little connective tissue to each other or the wider Hyborian world—except when Conan makes a guest-appearance in her comic for a change!
Yet in Kull in the Barbarians #3, Red Sonja got an origin story in “The Day of the Sword,” with a plot by Roy Thomas, script by Doug Moench, and art by Howard Chaykin. It’s not a pretty story: Sonja’s family is murdered, she’s raped, and then a goddess grants her the power for revenge…at a price. She cannot know the love of man unless defeated in battle. The origin of the vow mentioned back in Savage Sword of Conan #1.
Much ink has been spilled over this decision over the years. The rape-revenge origin was probably only possible because Kull and the Barbarians was a magazine and not a comic book, and so didn’t need to go through the Comics Code Authority; the divine vision is reminiscent of Joan d’Arc, the heroine of France, and there’s a touch of Dark Agnes in Sonja’s early desire to not be treated just like any other woman. The vow of chastity probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but it is needless to say the men writing and drawing Red Sonja probably didn’t ask any women what they thought of the idea.
In the years and decades to follow, Red Sonja’s origin—like her outfit—would be both iconic and problematic, and subject to redesign and reinterpretation from generations of creators, including Gail Simone, Nancy Collins, and Christopher Hastings. Through different series, Sonja has been both sexually active and celibate, worn the iconic chainmail bikini and exchanged it for different outfits, been saved by a goddess and saved herself without any divine help. Fans have alternately applauded Red Sonja’s strength and independence and lamented the focus on her sexuality, and the explicit idea that the only way to have sex with her was through violence.
The second issue of Marvel Feature (1976) was much of the same as the first, with a new Red Sonja story titled “Blood of the Hunter,” scripted by Bruce Jones with all art by Frank Thorne. As the series went on, Thorne would write as well as illustrate most of the Red Sonja stories for the remainder of Marvel Feature‘s 7-issue run. When the character got her own ongoing series Red Sonja in January 1977, it was Thorne who drew her—and would continue to do so through issue #11, when he left the series.
Thorne’s run on Red Sonja is notable for not using much of what was established in “The Day of the Sword,” and for his strong involvement with the Red Sonja fanbase, dressing up as a wizard at conventions and judging cosplay contests. Thorne’s Sonja doesn’t dwell over much on her origin or her oath, and continues on fighting monsters and more human villains, kicking ass and looking good while doing it. Thorne’s artistic take on Sonja was marked by eyes that seemed rimmed with kohl, and a warrior who was both vicious and voluptuous, but with a flirtatious sense of humor.
His last feature was “The Wizard and Red Sonja” in Savage Sword of Conan #29 (1978), a rather bizarre out-of-continuity story where a wizard (modeled on Thorne himself) accidentally summons several different versions of Red Sonja.
Savage Sword of Conan #29
This is, in part, meta-commentary, noting the many different ways that Red Sonja had been written and drawn at this point. She had been conceived without a real character arc, without even a comic of her own, and while she was popular, Red Sonja’s stories outside of her interactions with Conan had little continuity. Random fantasy adventures, often wildly different in tone and style.
Red Sonja #11 was Frank Thorne’s final issue; he left the series, and worked on others for which he had more creative control and artistic license…including Ghita of Alizarr, a fantasy swordswoman who was in many ways Red Sonja without the oath of celibacy and with graphic sexuality.
1984 issue 7
If Ghita of Alizarr was an X-rated Thorne’s Red Sonja with the copyrighted and trademarked serial numbers filed off, well…he wasn’t the only one thinking along those lines.
THORNE: One of the prouder moments is when some guy advertised an eight-page Tijuana bible of Red Sonja in The Buyer’s Guide. [Groth laughs]. I ordered a dozen! [Laughs.]
The title: Red Sonja and Conan, Hot and Dry.
GROTH: [Laughs.] That’s great.
THORNE: I keep, in the first of my really big scrapbooks. I’m just finishing filling up the fourth. These scrapbooks are like two by three feet and two inches thick. Sonja got a ton of media attention.
Red Sonja and Conan: Hot and Dry was an 8-pager (also called a Tijuana bible or bluesie) put together by Randy Crawford, who released a number of other parody sex comics in 1977 including Star Trek: Spock in Heat and a Plastic Man 8-pager. Tijuana bibles had first emerged in the 1930s, often crudely written, drawn, printed, and bound together with a staple or two—but these sexually explicit comics were incredibly popular. They often featured the unlicensed use of existing comic strip characters, popular athletes, Hollywood stars, and politicians, and even early comic book superheroes like Superman, Batman, and the Captain Marvel family.
Interest and production waned during the 1940s and 50s, but still carried on sporadically; the later Tijuana bibles published after the institution of the Comics Code Authority often seem to have crossover with underground comix, and might feature established characters such as Captain Ameria, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and the Archie gang, but publication and distribution were shifting. Within a year or so of Marvel publishing Conan the Barbarian in 1970, the first pornographic parody “Gonad the Barbarian” appeared in the San Francisco Ball, an adult-oriented underground newspaper in mocking parody of the San Francisco Call.
Red Sonja took a little longer. It’s clear from the cover image that Randy Crawford was looking at the Marvel Feature/Red Sonja (vol 1.) Frank Thorne-era Red Sonja for inspiration, with the straps, armlets, gloves, and pauldrons which would gradually be dropped from her wardrobe. There’s no mention of her origin, oath, goddess, or need to battle before the action begins.
Red Sonja #1 (1977)
Conan is an even rougher figure, although clearly John Buscema’s take on the character. Something of the notched nose and posture recalls Conan’s second meeting with Red Sonja.
Savage Sword of Conan #1
Readers can judge for themselves. Sorry for the roughness of these photos, these are the only ones I could get.
The inside rear cover includes a reprint of the cover for Crawford’s Plastic Man 8-pager
Erotica tends to be ephemeral: only 1,250 copies of Red Sonja and Conan: Hot and Dry were published, and they very rarely come onto the second-hand marketplace. Many have no doubt been lost or discarded, or damaged because of their fragile construction. Yet the crude content and art are the point. While today with the internet readers can find dozens of pornographic comics featuring Red Sonja, some lovingly rendered by digital artists, in the 1970s this kind of erotic fan-product was not just illegal (copyright violation, and possibly deemed obscene depending on the jurisdiction), it was representative of a seriously fringe commercial activity.
How the hell do you advertise a Red Sonja/Conan Tijuana bible? Without getting caught?
Randy Crawford apparently published an ad in the Comic Buyer’s Guide, but this was the sort of thing that would probably have been sold under the table at conventions, or by mail-order in severely plain envelopes. It was illicit fare for the true post-pubescent comic nerds to geek out over. It represents almost the opposite of Frank Thorne’s approach with Ghita of Alizarr—none of the characterization, the beautiful artwork, the erotic atmosphere—just a gonzo narrative, straight to sex and ending with a climax.
Frank Thorne, no doubt, got a good laugh out of it. Yet he was an artist; he may have wanted to see his favorite flame-haired swordswoman in flagrante delicto…but he also wanted to do right by her as a character. Nothing quite illustrates the difference between an avid fan’s pornographic fantasy and a dedicated artist’s erotic epic than to look at something like this, and see how crude the work could be, tossed out quick and printed on the cheap to make a few bucks.
Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein 