Hey, scholars, can you identify this thing?

[Greg Hatcher]

Okay, some of you may recall that I've been on a Savage Sword kick for the last couple of weeks. I just scored a copy of this on eBay:

http://gallery.conan.no/albums/ssoc_super_annual/01_G.highlight.jpg

So i go to look it up on GCD and it's not listed. What the hell is it? I'm assuming it's some kind of reprint package since I got it for about two dollars, but it's annoying me. I want to know what's IN it. Can anyone tell me what exactly the table of contents is for this?

Sure, I could wait a week for it to show up, but wanting to know, it's like an itch I can't scratch. Here is a bigger picture (http://gallery.conan.no/albums/ssoc_super_annual/01_G.jpg) if you need a better look.

[Roquefort Raider]

I have the issue at home, but just from memory I think it contains a reprint of Conan the barbarian #10, Kull the conqueror #2 and Monsters on the prowl #16.

My guess is that there might have been another early Conan story reprinted in there, but I'll have to check.

In any case, it's nice for completists but hardly indispensable (unlike another all-reprint book, King-Size Conan the barbarian #1, which features a stunning Windsor-Smith cover).

(By the way, as an ex-Savage Sword fanatic, I commend you on your excellent tastes)!


Cheers,

- Ben

[Greg Hatcher]

Well, I'm not a completist really. I just have had a hanker on for some Conan, particularly the old Roy Thomas Savage Sword stuff, ever since we got to meet him at the Emerald City Con. (Roy, that is, not Conan.) I've been picking over the back-issue stacks here in town but they just don't seem to have any from my era, it's all Michael Fleisher and Chuck Dixon and so on. I was buying Savage Sword whenever I saw it -- intermittently, this was before comics shops really had gotten a foothold -- from about #14 up through around #36 or #37. (Look in #30 and you'll find a letter from me, along with one from a young John Ostrander -- wonder whatever happened to him?)

Anyway, talking to Roy reminded me how much I used to really love that book, and Julie got interested too, so I started looking. Mile High and other dealers want WAY too much for them, at least on our limited budget. So I've been settling for CONAN SAGA a lot of the time, and eBaying to see if I can't plug the holes in that run. This particular lot was 5.00 for three issues; #31, #32, and the mystery book you see above. I had bid on another one that was four for 10.00, but it looks like I got skunked out of that one. Oh well.

But really it's not completism driving this. It's nostalgia. Reading through those big ol' black-and-white books with the grey wash-tones in the art -- and I wish more of today's B/W indie books would try that look! -- it makes me feel fifteen again, by Crom.

On a related note, I have been trolling for the Moench/DeZuniga DOC SAVAGE magazines that came out from Marvel around then as well, but I'm too cheap to go after them hard on eBay. Maybe if we get a big check next month.

[Roquefort Raider]

I was buying Savage Sword whenever I saw it -- intermittently, this was before comics shops really had gotten a foothold -- from about #14 up through around #36 or #37. (Look in #30 and you'll find a letter from me, along with one from a young John Ostrander -- wonder whatever happened to him?)

I'll look that up!

I checked the contents of the book: it's reprints of Conan the barbarian #10 and #13, and of Monsters on the prowl #16 and Kull the conqueror #3.

MotP is pretty hard to find, so it might be worth it for the nice Severin art (it's the start of a two-part Kull story).

Good luck with hunting down the hyborian magic!

Cheers,

- Ben

[T GUy]

No, I've never come across this issue either.

As far as I remembered, one year Marvel put out a load of Annual/Special issues of or for their B&W line. I assume that this is one of those. However, all the other ones I've ever come across have been part of the standard series numbering (although still all-reprint) - the only one I can recall off the top of my head is Savage Tales, which I've just looked up on the GCD - which lists it as an independent series with its own No. 1 (and only). Shows you what I know...

[Roquefort Raider]

Maybe it's worth mentioning that there were two colored Savage Sword of Conan "specials" -they were actually Marvel Super Special #2 and #9. The first one had John Buscema-Alfredo Alcala art; it was an adaptation of the R.E. Howard pirate story "Black Vulmea's vengeance". It was colored by Marie Severin. The second had an adaptation of "The blodd-stained god", a REH story re-written as a Conan tale by L. Sprague de Camp; it had art by Buscema and DeZuniga. MSS#9 also had a bonus story: a Red Sonja tale drawn in a decidedly non-commercial style by Howard Chaykin. It was a pivotal moment in the life of Big Red, as she comes face to face with the Goddess who gave her her skills and sort of comes to the realization that the power was in herself all along.

Well worth hunting down.