Robert E. Howard: Bringing Brawn to The Weird... Completing The Triangle

I've always thought of the Big Three of Dark Pulp to be Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and Robert E. Howard.  I might be off in this supposition, but to me, those three stand elite from all others that blazed the trail in those heady, creative days before the Second Great War.

It was an era when books, magazines, comics, and radio filled up the space in one's brain now occupied by television, multi-media noise, and electronic clutter.  Fantasy entertainment had to be earned via active involvement (outside of the cinema, which wasn't doing much in the way of the fantastic and strange back then).  Imagination was crafted, not given, and was bolstered by such pulpy gems as Adventure, Amazing Stories, Black Mask, Dime Detective, Flying Aces, Horror Stories, Marvel Tales, Oriental Stories, Planet Stories, Spicy Detective (SPICY DETECTIVE?! YES!! I so love that this exists), Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Unknown and, of course, Weird Tales, which brought HPL, CAS, and REH to the masses (such as they were).

In terms of physical stature and creative scope, H.P. was the bookish outsider, the fragile and sickly New England gentleman who reached beyond the very conception of the cosmos through his startling imagination, taking him places he'd never dare go in person, and creating new vistas and entities of  horror rooted deeply in xenophobic, sexual, and social fears.  Cosmic terror.  Nameless dread from beyond rooted time and space.  A cold, disinterested universe, roiling with ageless creatures of chaos birthed before our reality blinked into existence.  Humanity as a fly speck upon the bleached desert of a billion strange realities.

Robert E. Howard - "Two-Gun Bob" - was the beer swigging southern brawler, as bold and gritty as the plains of west/central Texas, who seemed to relish crafting characters and lands based on his reverence for physical strength and primal violence.  Barbarism.  Battle.  Bloodshed.  Noble death.

While he also explored a few classically "Lovecraftian" tales, REH is best know for his hulking heroes, all ropey muscle and swinging blade. "Thews."  Conan the Cimmerian, Bran Mak Morn, Kull of Atlantis - smashing skulls, cleaving torsos, and bedding maidens, with a sort of brutish innocence found in a humanity unencumbered by civilizing laws.  A celebration of the steel inside human flesh.


Clark Ashton Smith always seemed to bridge the gap between the two disparate pen pals and admiring contemporaries, both stylistically and physically.  One part dipped in the squishy and squamous of Lovecraft, another part bathed in the blood, sweat, and iron of Howard's newly minted "sword and sorcery."  A third part pulpy, poetic sci-fi all his own.  CAS lived a frugal, yet rugged existence in the hill country of Auburn, California.  More Renaissance Man than Mountain Man (yet both just the same), who divided his time between sculpting, painting, poetry, dazzling wordsmithery, and other artistic pursuits.  He was refined, but also sturdy.  A deft creator of high fantasy and sword and sorcery, while also a master, in his own right, of true cosmic horror, sci-fi, and weird fiction.

I've discussed HPL and CAS a bit here at The Cosmicomicon already, but I haven't yet delved into Robert E. Howard.  Part of that is due to my creative focus at the moment, which is very much in the House of Lovecraft, buttressed (*snicker*) by Columns of Clark Ashton.  But the other reason is based on my own ignorance.  Sure, like any starry eyed 70's child with a rapid and searching imagination, deeply steeped in fertile and seemingly limitless womb of Dungeons& Dragons, comics, and Dragon Magazine, not to mention the genre-establishing art of His Highness Frank Frazetta, I've always grown up with an awareness and zeal for Conan the Cimmerian.  How could one not?  He was the epitome of the Invincible Noble Savage.  The non-super yet impossibly heroic SuperSavage who lived by basic principles of honor, strength, and deadly justice.  He was an Old West gunslinger who brandished a blade instead of a six shooter.  He was all I wanted to be as a kid, aside from a bit of book learning and some general standards relating to modesty and hygiene.  Conan was the pre-history Ultimate Warrior before the WWF was a glint in Vinnie McMahon's greed-bulged eye.

He was Conan, and he was all Robert E. Howard.  What an achievement.  What a contribution to fantasy.

The strangely (at the time) black 'n white artwork, magazine-size comic Savage Sword of Conan looms large in my mind during my comic frenzy years of teenage years.  This was in the days before the explosion of truly graphic "graphic novels," and the unbridled violence and blood lust of "comic book character" thrilled me to the marrow.

Soon came John Milius' gritty film Conan The Barbarian, starring a my state's current governor (and a Viking Jew Fro that will last throughout the ages), looms as one of the "biggest" films of my childhood, even though the production values became a bit suspect as I aged into adulthood, when magic dimmed in the face of cut-rate props and costuming).

But, I plan on changing all of that in the coming months.  I've heard the clarion call of the battle horn from beyond The Black River, and will attend to my deadly duty.  Digesting "The Hyborian Age" and "Almuric" in the last week has re-lit my fire to reacquaint myself with with this giant, pugilist of a writer, with a legacy of stellar work and legions of extremely loyal fans.

As we gear up for the coming new Conan movie, lets all remember to pay homage to the the Brainfather of it all - Robert E. Howard. He was respected and admired by all of the Pulp Masters, especially HPL, who carried on an extensive epistolary relationship with REH for years.  They were tight.  Tight in a way that is surprising to me, based on their individual personalities.  But nothing bonds the blood tighter than a shared love of the strange, the threatening... the Weird Horror.

So, I raise my froth rimmed goblet to you, Robert E. Howard.  Long may your words ring out, like the sound of clashing steel on the battle plain, till the last glint of human savagery is sucked from this mortal coil.  The time will come.  But in the mean time, let us remember the words of your best-born son:

Mongol General: What is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.

Advice to live by, my fine feathered friends.

Okay... Off with you.  Jog on.

I'm reading... I'm remembering...

Cosmic Horror - Human Vision: The Art of Mike Dubisch Seeps Into Burbank, California February 1st -15th

Before I loved Lovecraft, I loved comic books.  And before I loved comic books, I loved Dungeons & Dragons.

I reveled in the images and situations it conjured up in my young, searching mind - images it forced ME to conjure, as if a barely willing apprentice unsure in his craft.  Looking back, it was the first true creative storytelling that I ever undertook, outside of fibbing to my mother about where I was all day, and why my mouth was missing a tooth and my bike most of its spokes.

Alone in my room or around a giddy, soda-stained gaming table, I'd drift for hours in waking dreams, striding the fantastical, endless world organized - but certainly not solely created - by Gary Gygax, marveling at the possibility of infinite realms where anything weird, wonderful, and horrify was possible.  I'd ruminate on the low violence of high fantasy.  Spare with the gods and monsters.  Taste the steel, sweat and sulphur of sword, and of sorcery. It was my cloak against the mundane regular world.  It was imagination personified.

Fortunately, these reveries were fed by the plethora of artwork that accompanied the first wave of D&D in the late 1970's.  The Monsters Manual.  The Tomb of Horrors.  Dragon Magazine.  Man alive, Dragon Magazine... (deep sigh).  It ALWAYS had the most amazing covers, with all the best fantasy artists, including icons like Boris and, of course, the Grand Master Frank Frazetta.  I'd stare at these covers for hours, wondering what was around the next bend in the landscape, wishing it were all real...







I'd like to think that Mike Dubisch grew up the same way, imagining and dreaming from the same fuel, peering into shapeless vistas and giving them form and purpose and monstrous intent.  Judging by the subject matter, range, and enthusiasm of his artwork, I might be on to something.  Take a look...

I first met Mike Dubisch at the 1st Annual H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival last September.  We (and renowned Perilous Press author Cody Goodfellow, who was just named by Ellen Datlow as one of the Best Horror Writers of 2010, along with fellow Cosmicomicon friends Joseph S. Pulver and Wilum Pugmire, among others) spent several minutes chatting about the the past, present, and future of Lovecraftian/Mythosian/Weirdish art, literature, and film.  I must say that I enjoyed it thoroughly, especially as it was one of the first interviews I conducted that day, on assignment for Yog-Sothoth.com (home to all things Call of Cthulhu, and the best and most active Lovecraftian message on the net).

Just four short months later (has it really only been that long?), I'm taking time out of my Friday night to wrestle with blogspot to vigorously pimp his latest show, thankfully dropped on earth at the Hyaena Gallery, just mere miles from Cosmicomicon HQ, as the raven flies.  I do this because he's that good.  His work is that cool.  

Instead of blathering on, I'll post some of his work, and you be the judge.  Mike's most recent work is the Black Velvet Necronomicon, which goes a little something like this.

Mike's show at the Hyaena Gallery opens on February 1st, 2011, and runs through February 15th.  Opening Reception is Saturday, February 5th, from 8 pm til the witching hour.  That's where I'll be.

Artist Mike Dubisch has been making waves in the world of H.P.Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos fandom for the last few years. His art was featured at the H.P.Lovecraft Film Festivals in Portland Oregon and LA.

His drawings and paintings of dark fantasy have appeared in numerous publications for Star Wars, Dungeons & Dragons, IDW, and Aliens VS Predator. His painting for Mythos magazine "Strange Aeons" Holiday issue was chosen for inclusion in the Frank Frazetta Tribute Exhibition in march, honoring the late grand master of fantasy illustration.

Dubisch will present an assortment of recent horror, mythos and monster based art, all with his unique sympathetic approach, finding a beautiful elegance, personality and deeper meaning in the genre of horror fantasy art.