Getting into Conan, The Barbarian; have questions

[shaxper]

By the way, does anyone know why volumes 4 and 6 of the Chronicles of Conan trades are out of print? I wondered if vol. 4's being out of print had something to do with Red Sonja appearing within and copyright issues, but what about vol. 6? Anyone have any reason to believe it will be back in print soon?

[Roquefort Raider]

Heck, in Black Colossus, we have a character named "Taurus" that I KNOW has come up before in another story, but I can't remember where, and I don't care to research it.

Like Amalric, Taurus seemes to have been a common Hyboran name. There was a Taurus in tower of the elephant; he was the famous thief who accompanied Conan. The Taurus from Black colossus is a different man, a counselor to princess Yasmela.

Roy Thomas tried to circumvent the overabundance of characters with similar names when he adapted these stories; for example, he changed the Amalric from black colossus to Malthom, to differenciate him from the Amalric of hour of the dragon and from the one in drums of Tombalku. Only that caused a funny situation: when Roy came back to the Conan titles after a hiatus of a decade, he had forgotten about the name change and treated Amalric and Malthom as two different characters, having each of them die in a different way!

[shaxper]

Like Amalric, Taurus seemes to have been a common Hyboran name. There was a Taurus in tower of the elephant; he was the famous thief who accompanied Conan. The Taurus from Black colossus is a different man, a counselor to princess Yasmela.

Roy Thomas tried to circumvent the overabundance of characters with similar names when he adapted these stories; for example, he changed the Amalric from black colossus to Malthom, to differenciate him from the Amalric of hour of the dragon and from the one in drums of Tombalku. Only that caused a funny situation: when Roy came back to the Conan titles after a hiatus of a decade, he had forgotten about the name change and treated Amalric and Malthom as two different characters, having each of them die in a different way!

Thanks much for all this. Boy am I glad I'm not the guy writing a reviews thread and keeping track of all this this time around

[benday-dot]

Like Amalric, Taurus seemes to have been a common Hyboran name. There was a Taurus in tower of the elephant; he was the famous thief who accompanied Conan. The Taurus from Black colossus is a different man, a counselor to princess Yasmela.

Roy Thomas tried to circumvent the overabundance of characters with similar names when he adapted these stories; for example, he changed the Amalric from black colossus to Malthom, to differenciate him from the Amalric of hour of the dragon and from the one in drums of Tombalku. Only that caused a funny situation: when Roy came back to the Conan titles after a hiatus of a decade, he had forgotten about the name change and treated Amalric and Malthom as two different characters, having each of them die in a different way!

Good point. Likewise, REH used very similar names for some supporting characters showing up in the Kull story, "By This Axe I Rule!" and the first Conan story "The Phoenix on the Sword". The similarities between elements of the Kull and Conan mythos seem to show Howard was more concerned with perfecting his storytelling skills and working to get those ideas down on paper just the way he wanted as he moved through his tales, than with paying the keenest attention to continuity and worrying about a little recycling.

[MRP]

Good point. Likewise, REH used very similar names for some supporting characters showing up in the Kull story, "By This Axe I Rule!" and the first Conan story "The Phoenix on the Sword". The similarities between elements of the Kull and Conan mythos seem to show Howard was more concerned with perfecting his storytelling skills and working to get those ideas down on paper just the way he wanted as he moved through his tales, than with paying the keenest attention to continuity and worrying about a little recycling.

Well that's because as I said before Bye This Axe was rejected and REH gave up on Kull at that point, and rewrote the story as a Conan story-The Phoenix on the Sword which was the first published Conan story. REH wasn't using similar names, he was using the same story with a different protagonist. He never intended By the Axe to be seen again, and it wasn't until Glenn Lord and company started making unfinished story fragments available to meet the demand for new REH material.

-M