Like everywhere else in the U.S., Cross Plains, Texas is no stranger to the weird weather this winter is bringing us. Last Thursday (1-28-10), Arlene Stephenson of Project Pride let us know that a “mini-tornado” blew through town; while the Howard Museum escaped unscathed (other than the sign out front blowing down), it appears the 36 West Motel did not.

I don’t have any “official” damage reports other than what Arlene and Era Lee Hanke have related to us, (nobody in town was injured, Praise Crom!) but they tell us the 36 West was seriously trashed, sustaining major roof damge. As this motel is one block away from the Howard Museum, this will be quite a blow to those of us who come to Cross Plains in June for Howard Days if this place is not in operation.

I’m not going to try calling the 36 West for awhile – Crom, they’ve certainly got bigger fish to fry than someone wanting to know if they’ll have rooms for Howard Days. It might be difficult to call anyways, so I would ask the rest of you not to bother them right now either. We can hope for the best.

Last year at Howard Days, the 36 West owners asked Howard Days attendees to delay reserving rooms for 2010 until March 1st. That might be the time to see if the 36 West is still with us.

And if I hear more news and info, I’ll be sure and insert it here. Likewise, if anyone out there learns more info, let me know and we’ll keep you posted.

Well, as visions of sugarplums dance out of your heads and start to two-step towards the warm (very warm!) thoughts of Texas in June, I’m here to let y’all know that we at REH Central (REHupa and the REH Foundation) are in the early stages of working with Project Pride and gearing up for Robert E. Howard Days 2010.

As the bloom wears off the rose of our new Holiday toys, we can now turn our attention to the activities of REH Days. Set aside June 11th and 12th, check your ammo and point your pony in the direction of Cross Plains, Texas, for at least two (and usually four) days chock full of Howard Mania.

The 2010 version of HD is geared towards The Illustrators of Robert E. Howard, and to that end we’ve invited Jim & Ruth Keegan to be our Guests of Honor. Jim & Ruth, in additon to being the fantastic Art Duo responsible for illustrating the Del Rey two-volume set of THE BEST OF ROBERT E. HOWARD and the upcoming EL BORAK The Desert Adventures, are the creators of The Adventures of Two-Gun Bob, the wonderful biographical graphic comic strip that appears in every edition of a REH title from Dark Horse Comics.

There is much more planned on the art side of programming, including an REH art display, at least one book, original drawings from pros like the Keegans, Gary Gianni, Mark Schultz (et al) to be auctioned off at the Banquet and sold at the Swap Meet – all for the benefit of the Howard House and Project Pride.

All the regular Howard activities are there as well: The REH House is open to all (as is the Gift Shop), there’ll be Walking and Bus Tours, Celebration Banquet & Silent Auction, Swap Meet, Caddo Peak BBQ, plus the great fellowship we afford each other in gathering and Talking ’bout Bob. The Poetry Throwdown is coming back in a revised, insect-free fashion, and this year we will present the First Annual Robert E. Howard Foundation Awards. Also, not all the panels are slanted to REH art, so there’ll be plenty of things going on to satisfy your Howard cravings.

The Robert E. Howard Days 2010 Information Page will be updated soon, and we’ll keep you posted as we revise it along the way. I wanted to get y’all to be thinking about the warmer days coming, filled with that good REH Fellowship we partake of every year. In the meantime, most of the basic information is still on the ‘09 version (like hotels & such), so check that out. (A heads up: the folks who run the 36 West Motel in Cross Plains asked us this past HD to not contact them until March 1st for reservations, so be sure to mark that on your calendar – don’t everyone call at once!)

So start making your plans, check flight info, gather items to send to the Silent Auction and get ready for the Best Two Days in Howard Fandom. I’m looking forward to seeing y’all come to Texas in June!

Robert E. Howard Days 2009 was hot in more ways than the obvious one. In addition to both the 12th and 13th being over 100 degrees hot, we had hot guests and hot happenings.

After surviving a MONSTER thunderstorm while white-knuckling I-30 through Dallas, Cheryl and I arrived in Cross Plains to another nasty storm. It was like I was that guy with the rain cloud above his head from the Little Abner comic strip for the entire eight day trip! After the storms, it just got hot for the rest of the non-stormy weekend.

HD 09 featured not one but two incredibly hot Guests, Larry Thomas and Donald Sidney-Fryer. Mr. Thomas came in as New School Howard, DSF is Old School Howard, and they combined to give us all incredible insights on Howard the Man and Howard the Poet. The panel appearances of these two fine gentlemen, along with Barbara Barrett, gave us all some hot views of the Poetry of Robert E. Howard. Unfortunately, panelist Frank Coffman had to cool his heels in Chicago, a victim of storm-cancelled air flights. You were missed, Skipper!

While this won’t be a complete report, even though I’m starting to heat up here, suffice to say that all the regularly scheduled events turned out great, the Robert E. Howard House shined in the Texas sun, and a number of attendees wound up with shiny hot foreheads! We’ll change around the Poetry Throwdown for next year, the REH Foundation Awards will get started up, and we’re already planning for some more hot times. But that’s next year – this year was HOT!

Without question, the hottest event of the weekend, and one of the best show’n'tells ever from any Howard Days, happened on Saturday afternoon. Jack and Barbara Baum gave us a look into a heretofore unknown high school textbook that belonged to a 15 year old Robert E. Howard. How do we know it was Howard’s book? Well, he wrote his name and the date inside the front cover, along with drawing several cartoons. AND, to top it off, Howard made written comments after each section of the book. Wow! Talk about the icing on the cake of a fabulous weekend!

But, like all Howard Days, there’s never really enough time to do everything you want to do, so that’s why you keep coming back: to get to everything. Eventually I will, but in the meantime, I’ll bask in the heat from another well-spent weekend under a hot Texas sky.

Robert E. Howard Days, the yearly celebration of the Life and Works of Ol’ Two-Gun Bob Howard, is nigh upon us! Only a week away! This year’s event will officially take place next Friday and Saturday, June 12th & 13th, in the otherwise quiet town of Cross Plains, Texas, where REH lived and wrote all of his stories and poems. I say “officially” because some of us show up early and stay later, because we have so much fun!!

Project Pride, a local civic organization formed 20 years ago, took it upon themselves to first purchase and then restore the house where Robert E. Howard lived and worked, recognizing the importance of preserving the home that made their town famous all over the whole wide world. The House has been turned into a museum, and walking through it is like stepping back in time to the 1930’s. The work on the House has been done so lovingly and graciously that the Robert E. Howard House is listed in the National Historic Registry, and it has become enough of a tourist attraction to be listed in several of the Texas travel guides.

This year we’re trying something a little different by putting a theme to Howard Days: The Poetry of Robert E. Howard. There’ll be readings and panels devoted to this subject, with some great poetry experts on hand. Of course, the main subject is always Bob Howard, and the conversation and fellowship in his name is always the highlight of Howard Days.

Pretty much everything you need to know about Howard Days is available by clicking on the REH DAYS 2009 bar at the top of this page. The information has been continually updated. If you’re a fan of REH and you’ve never been to Howard Days, there’s always room for you to come on down (there’s just not room at the only local motel…). It’s a great way to sample the wonderful small town Texas hospitality and friendliness while enjoying the camraderie of folks who have come together in the name of our pal Bob Howard. Hope to see you there! Y’all come!

By the hoary beard of Crom, it continues to be a great time to be a fan (and collector) of Robert E. Howard! With REH Days staring us in the kisser, there has been a deluge of recent REH publishing and good stuff, the likes of which continually perpetuates the ongoing interest in Robert E. Howard. (Insert deep sigh of satisfaction from here in Northwest Cimmeriana…)

Undoubtedly, the most important bit of Howard publishing that has impacted us all in the last few years is the publishing of the three volumes of THE COLLECTED LETTERS, followed by THE COLLECTED POEMS. When the Robert E. Howard Foundation was created, its main goal was to perpetuate the Legacy of REH. These four books go such a long way into furthering Howard scholarship and the understanding of  Howard the Writer as Howard the Man. And the Foundation has much more coming – Howard’s well is not bottomless, but it is damn deep! And the Foundation is letting us all have a drink!

I am greatly encouraged by not only the professional publishing going on, but how the trend of REH fan activity is paying off in the name of Robert E. Howard. It does my heart good to see the interest in Ol’ Two-Gun is not fading, as some had feared after the incredible Centennial Year we had for REH in 2006. If anything, the studying, discussion and enjoyment of Bob Howard’s work is intensifying. (Deep sigh #2…)

Here are some specifics, starting with the pro stuff. (And no doubt some other info will pop up soon, so consider this list a work in progress.)

REH is finally getting his own book in the Penguin Classics series: HEROES IN THE WIND is a 400 page tome that will indeed give REH some lit creds. Wandering Star and Book Palace Books have announced the upcoming publication of the long-awaited deluxe edition of  THE CONQUERING SWORD OF CONAN. Finally, those magnificent Greg Manchess paintings in full color! Prion Books in the UK has recently come out with a fully illustrated public domain book of CONAN stories. (www.prionbooks.com) The leather & guilded cover Gollancz version of  THE COMPLETE CHRONICLES OF CONAN is now available in bookstores as a monster-sized paperback with fake leather cover. Simon Sanahujas has recently published CONAN THE TEXAN, his photojournalistic account of his travels in Bob Howard’s Texas with photographer Gwen Dubourthoumieu. And Barbara Barrett brings us THE WORDBOOK, a word index for the huge COLLECTED POEMS OF REH volume, via the REHF Press.

Speaking of the REH Foundation, their publishing plans are still ongoing, and a quarterly NEWSLETTER is available for members. The Newsletter is not only filled with REH news, but with exclusive REH material also, and extra chapbook goodies periodically. Well worth the yearly membership fee – hint hint. (www.rehfoundation.org)

More “fan” activity (actually “Semi-pro” endeavors) is coming from Damon Sasser with the June release of REH: TWO-GUN RACONTEUR #13. This magazine is a wonderful mix of Howard writing, essays, articles and great artwork that should be in the collections of all Howard Fans. Check it out at www.rehtwogunraconteur.com. THE DARK MAN, the Howard literary journal, will publish V4N2, also in June. (www.beyond49.ca/TDM). Dennis McHaney has announced the revised edition of  THE MAN FROM CROSS PLAINS will debut at REH Days 2009 in Cross Plains, and be available through the Howard House Gift Shop. Said gift shop also has an exclusive poetry volume now available, A WORD FROM THE OUTER DARK. And don’t forget that Leo Grin still has copies of  his magnificent THE CIMMERIAN Howard journal available over at www.thecimmerian.com.

In conjunction with Robert E. Howard Days, there will be a special REH Day at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Jacksonville, Florida. Nice to see REH activity not limited to Central Texas on June 13!

And word has just come that the Cross Plains Review, Howard’s hometown newspaper, has begun serializing the Breckenridge Elkins stories in their weekly edition. (No website or e-mail, but you can subscribe via phone – 254/725-6111 or write for info). This will give quite a boost to Howard’s literary reputation and give him some just due in the town where all his wonderful work was created.

As you can see, there’s a hell of a lot going on in the name of Robert E. Howard, and if there’s more – please let me know. It’s great fun keeping up with “What’s Happening with REH”, but it’s sometimes a daunting task. And I haven’t even delved into games & movies and other media sensations! Robert E. Howard Days 2009 (click on the bar at the top of this page for complete updated info) is less than three weeks away, and we’re going to run a “What’s Happening” panel there – no doubt there’ll be more news to add then.

Hope to see some of youse mugs there, and let’s keep the torch lit.

To help the Cross Plains Public Library raise some much-needed funds, Callahan Furniture has donated a beautiful front-porch swing, like the one pictured here, to be raffled off.  You can find full information at their website, along with PayPal links so you can buy as many raffle tickets as you’d like.  The tickets are $1.00 each, or $5.00 for 6, or $40.00 for 50.  If you want another amount, you can specify quantity when you are on the PayPal page.  It’s a worthy cause, and that swing is a knockout, isn’t it?  The drawing will be held during the Barbarian Festival, Saturday, June 13th (Howard Days weekend).  Buy a bunch of ‘em! (By the way, you don’t have to be present to win the raffle, and Callahan Furniture will arrange shipping anywhere in the contiguous U.S. at no charge.)

Also, speaking of donations — Project Pride is in need of donated items for the Silent Auction, always a favorite feature of the Howard Days banquet on Friday night.  In particular, interesting and unusual items are needed, as these are the sorts of things that stimulate competitive bidding.  Most of the folks who attend Howard Days are, of course, Howard fans and generally have all of the more-readily-obtainable paperbacks, so there’s little need for those.  But old fanzines, REHupas, ARCs, toys, posters or prints, and other such collectibles are always in demand.  It would also be most helpful if you would provide suggested minimum bids for these items (but try to make them realistic!).

While March is coming in like Amra the Lion here in NW Indiana, I’m finding that thinking about REH Days in June is making me warm all over!

The 2009 version of Robert E. Howard Days will take place on June 12th and 13th in Cross Plains, Texas, and I’m here to say, “Y’all come!”

As in years past, Howard Days is a joint venture sponsored by Project Pride, the Robert E. Howard United Press Association, and the Robert E. Howard Foundation. This year we’re trying something just a little different by theming Howard Days to The Poetry of Robert E. Howard.

By way of celebrating the 2009 publication of  The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard from the REHF Press, we thought focusing on the wonderful poems of REH was a theme certainly worth doing, and long overdue at that. We’ve invited Larry D. Thomas, the 2008 Poet Laureate of  Texas, to be our Guest of Honor, and Donald Sidney-Fryer, an outstanding poet and authority on the Weird Tales poets, to be our Special Guest. Four of the five panels we have planned will focus on Ol’ Two-Gun’s poetry, and in addition to Mr. Thomas and Mr. Sidney-Fryer, we’ll have on hand a number of REH Poetry experts (like Frank Coffman and Barbara Barrett) to enlighten and entertain us. Plus we’ll all be able to participate in reading Howard’s poetry at the 2nd Annual Robert E. Howard Poetry Throwdown!

Fear not, the usual Howard Days activities are still in place: the Robert E. Howard House is open for all, there’ll be walking tours of the town of Cross Plains, bus tours of the surrounding areas, panels, swap meet, Postal Cancellation, Celebration Banquet & Silent Auction, the REH Foundation (formerly the Cimmerian) Awards, Poetry Throwdown, Barbarian Festival uptown, and the Saturday Sunset Barbeque at Caddo Peak Ranch. The best part of the weekend, as always, is the fine REH fellowship that happens, where fans meet and talk the days and night away, all right next to the very room where Robert E. Howard wrote over three million words!

Details of the schedule that follows are forthcoming, but I wanted to give you a good idea of what we have planned. Of course this will be subject to some change, but it will only be for the better!

We hope to see a passle of y’all in Texas this June. The fine folks at Project Pride, who are the real reason Howard Days exists, do request a nominal $10.00 per person registration fee for the Friday night banquet. This also helps give them a basic head count and a head start in planning the weekend’s activities. You could give them a real head start by sending your registration fee early to: Project Pride, POB 534, Cross Plains, Texas 76443.

I’ll be re-doing the detailed REH Days page here on the REHupa site within a week or so, but I hope this is enough to get all of you started on your planning a great Robert E. Howard weekend. See you in June!

9 am – 4 pm: Robert E. Howard House Museum open. Closed for Lunch 12-1

9 am – 4 pm: REH Postal Cancellation at Cross Plains Post Office

9 am – 11 am: Walking Tour of Cross Plains

9:30 am – 12 Noon: Bus Tour of Cross Plains area

10 am – 5 pm: Cross Plains Public Library open

Noon: Lunch hosted by Project Pride. Donations Welcome.

Noon to 4 pm: Pavilion available for REH items Swap Meet

1 pm: PANEL: Poetry Theme. Panelists and Location to be announced.

3 pm: PANEL: Poetry Theme. Panelists and Location to be announced.

 5:30 – 6:30: Silent Auction items available for viewing & bidding at Banquet site

6:30: Robert E. Howard Celebration Banquet and Silent Auction at the Cross Plains Community Center featuring Guest of Honor Larry D. Thomas, 2008 Texas Poet Laureate

9:00: The Robert E. Howard Foundation Awards at the Howard House Pavilion, followed by The 2^nd Annual ROBERT E. HOWARD POETRY THROWDOWN (open to all)

9 am – 4 pm: Robert E. Howard House Museum open. Closed for Lunch 12-1

9 am – 4 pm: BARBARIAN FESTIVAL in the large lot North of the Dollar Store on Main St.

9 am – 11 am: Walking Tour of Cross Plains

9:30 am – 12 Noon: Bus Tour of Cross Plains area

10 am – 3 pm: Cross Plains Public Library open

10 am: PANEL: Poetry Theme. Panelists and Location to be announced.

Noon to 4 pm: Pavilion available for REH items Swap Meet

Lunch & Festival Activities at your leisure during the day

1 pm PANEL: Readings & Book Signings: Larry D. Thomas & Donald Sidney-Fryer at the Cross Plains Library

3 pm PANEL: What’s Happening with REH: Leslie Buhler from Paradox Entertainment, Rusty Burke, Paul Herman, Bill Cavalier

5 pm: Sunset BBQ at the Caddo Peak Ranch

NOTES: A visit to the Howard gravesite at the Greenleaf Cemetery in Brownwood is not a planned activity, but directions are available at the Howard House.

The REH Days Documentary done by Goodspeed Productions in 2008 may be ready for showing at the 2009 Howard Days. Information will be forthcoming.

For those of you Howard Fans lucky enough to be close by, or for those of you who had the foresight to plan ahead, you can find the Robert E. Howard Birthday Bash happening this Saturday in Cross Plains.

As REH was born in the teeth of the winter, January 22nd (Howard’s real birthday) will find a lot of us shivering in our snow-covered boots waiting for the 100 degree weather of Howard Days in June. But for the lucky ones, you can find the Birthday Bash this year on Saturday the 24th at the Cross Plains Library from 1 to 3.

Paul Herman will be there with some nice souvenirs, some poetry readings will happen, and the Howard House will be open for Bash attendees. Please support both the Library and the House & Project Pride with purchasing items they have available, and donations to both institutions are most welcomed as well. You all know the drill! And have some chicken-fried steak at Jean’s Feed Barn for me!

And, as is befitting a birthday party: there will be cake!

Y’all come, and have fun! Happy Birthday Ol’ Two-Gun!

As the snow piles up and the temperatures dip below zero here in Northwest Indiana, I find my thoughts turning to warmer times and places in the not so distant future. Mainly, I’m talkin’ ’bout

Robert E. Howard Days in Cross Plains, Texas: June 12-13, 2009

Yes, kiddies, it’s that time once again to start making your plans to join Howard fans from all over the world and converge smack dab in the middle of Texas for a couple of days of Robert E. Howard Fellowship. Plans and schedules and panels and events are underway here at Howard Headquarters, and I wanted to make this brief posting as a reminder for y’all to come to Texas in June.

This year Howard Days will be themed towards the Poetry of Robert E. Howard, and to that end we’ve invited Larry Thomas, Texas Poet Laureate 2008, to be our Guest of Honor. We’ll have other Poetry afficianados on hand as well, and this year the REH Poetry Throwdown will have honest-to-Crom PRIZES!

We’re in the process of lining up events and panels for this year’s gathering, but rest assured the tried and true activities remain in place: the Bus and Walking Tours, the Friday Night Banquet and Silent Auction, the Saturday night Barbeque at Caddo Ranch, and most important of all; the Robert E. Howard Museum will be open both days for tours, with the adjoining Alla Ray Morris Pavilion available for all who show up.

So stay tuned to this blog, and information will also be posted over at the REH Foundation website, along with the Cimmerian and REH: Two-Gun Raconteur sites. If you’re antsy for information right now regarding hotels and other accomodations and information, click on the REH Days 2008 tab at the top of this page.

So look for more detailed information both here in the blog and the updated REH Days 2009 page within a week, and we’ll help make your Howard Days experience a memorable one.

As for me, I feel warmer already just thinking about Texas in June. Hope to see a lot of you there!

I’m going to continue to stick to my guns here regarding the 21st Century as being the very best time ever to be a fan of Robert E. Howard. The soon-to-be-done year of 2008 was yet another productive one in furthering the Legacy of REH. Here’s a bit of an opinionated re-hash of how the year went for Ol’ Two-Gun, and no doubt I’ll be missing something, so let me know and I’ll revise.

First, in light of the forum I am presently using, the two main REH internet blogs continued on, here and over at The Cimmerian. Lots of meat and interesting posts, and I’m giving shout-outs to the main posters, Morgan Holmes and Steve Tompkins. Both just educated and entertained the hell out of me. The paper versions of both REHupa and The Cimmerian steamed ahead; Leo’s been going great guns for five years now, and REHupa’s just started their 37th year of continuous production.

Damon Sasser continued his postings over at the REH:Two-Gun Raconteur site, and a couple of times scooped all of us. Bill Thom maintains the info-packed site over at HowardWorks, the Conan.com forums continue to have lots of posts, and even rehinnercircle remained strong until just this month. The Robert E. Howard Foundation website recently got a kick-ass new look, thanks to Leo Grin and Rob Roehm. And Frank Coffman is reviving his electronic journal apa REHEAPA as well.

Howard Publishing carried on in fine form. With the addition of the ninth volume, The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard to Del Rey’s ever-growing REH library, REH is now easily found in major bookstores. This has always been a major sticking point with me, and to look in any brick and mortar bookstore now, anyone can see at least a half a row of majestic Robert E. Howard BOOKS. Fan-freakin’-tastic!  (One book scheduled for 2009 is The Desert Adventures – all right!) And found next to the Del Reys are the real paperback-sized Cosmos Publishing editions, in a five book series of Howard stories selected from the ten book Wildside series of PD Howard from Weird Tales. Howard books for eight bucks! Woo hoo! And, the Wildside series still shows up in some bookstores, as do the Bison editions.

The other major Howard publishing is coming from the REH Foundation Press: Vol. Three of The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard is now out, completing this massive project. Howard scholarship is at new heights, thanks in large part to making his letters available. If you want to know Howard, read his letters. Look for the Complete Poetry in 2009. Subterranean Press stepped up to carry on in the tradition of Wandering Star by offering deluxe editions of Howard books. Legal stuff prevented them from doing the third CONAN volume, so they did a bang-up job with KULL. Paul Herman updated THE NEVERENDING HUNT in what will be a neverending project, Crom willing!

Semi-pro publishing slowed up a bit in 2008. The Cimmerian kept up its bi-monthly schedule and continued to be the premiere REH journal around. But unfortunately, the wonderful REH:Two-Gun Raconteur only appeared once (due in part to Hurricane Ike smashing Damon Sasser’s house!) Jim Van Hise got back on track with Swords & Fantasy, but it’s got to be difficult doing labors of love in these trying economic times. Sigh. The Dark Man was sadly again too dark, and one can only hope we’ll see this fine scholarly Howard journal again.

Craziness seemed to take over some of Howard publishing this year. A self-proclaimed Howard scholar named Francis DiPietro brought out a POD Howard biography called The Supreme Moment. This was a hodge-podge collection of words cobbled together from various already-written Howard biographies and on-line musings about Ol’ Two-Gun, typed out slap-dash - along with a complete reprint of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Silver Eel (huh?) – with wild-ass Howard-was-a-homo theories thrown in for good measure. America – land of free speech – love it or don’t read it! Yikes! Mr. DiPietro also tried his hand at Howard publishing, bringing out two collections of Howard stories that he just rewrote a wee bit to string them together. If you blinked you missed ‘em, because Paradox Entertainment thankfully put the ki-bosh on that nonsense! Dodo Press, some goofy UK POD place, decided to cash in on the Howard boom for a bit, providing 50+ REH “books”, available through Amazon, consisting of two or three Howard stories slapped between covers of the most ridiculous art ever stolen, for the ridiculous price of $10! That shit “mysteriously” vanished as well. Mercenary bastards!

The book that had most of the hard-core up in arms this year actually had pure Robert E. Howard Conan stories in it. It was the introduction to this book that had a number of us ready to tar & feather ol’ Arnie Fenner, he of the 1970’s Howard fanzine boom infamy. “and their memory was a bitter tree”- Queen of the Black Coast and Others is an oddly-titled collection of eight Conan stories (public domain of course) placed in a book with some of the Frank Frazetta paintings and a new cover by Brom. Ok, while we really didn’t need a new Conan book – the stories are all out there – why did Fenner have to sound like such a putz in his introduction, demeaning the very writer of the book he’s trying to sell you? Plus, the reproduction on the Frazetta paintings was horrible, and this from a guy who does those nice Spectrum art books. We’re all still scratching our heads and grousing about this one…

On the other publishing front, Dark Horse Comics is continuing full-tilt on their Howard library of titles. They halted their Conan comic at issue #50(?) then started it up again at #1 as Conan the Cimmerian. 2008 proved to be a good year for REH volume in the comics, as DH also brought out SOLOMON KANE and KULL in an ongoing limited series. Horror writer Joe Lansdale wrote a sequel (huh?) to Howard’s magnificent Pigeons from Hell and brought that out in comic form, forgetting to tell me that it wasn’t an adaptation of Howard’s story, but that it was his take on how the story should be updated. WHATever…!!!!!! I was going to say that’s what I get for reading comic books (and I should mention that all of these comics are very boringly written…), but I’ll tell you the real reason I buy the Dark Horse REH comics:

THE ADVENTURES OF TWO-GUN BOB by Jim & Ruth Keegan. With the exception of the actual stories written by Robert E. Howard, The Adventures of Two-Gun Bob is the most important bit of REH in Pop Culture ever printed. Jim And Ruth have their marvelous continuing comic strip printed in every edition of a Howard-based comic from Dark Horse, and there is nothing else available in print that reaches more people and preaches the gospel of REH better, and nothing that humanizes him better to hundreds of thousands of people who might not take the opportunity to learn about REH. It is absolutely brilliant.

Movies based on Robert E. Howard characters are becoming a reality. The Solomon Kane movie is in post-production, but I just read recently it might get pushed back to Labor Day for a release. The Conan movie is also underway with a complete script, and Fred Malmberg of Paradox Entertainment has said a director may be named in January, with production set to begin in June. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. Funcom’s AGE OF CONAN MMOG computer/X-Box/etc. game continues, but I know zero about it. It professes to portray Robert E. Howard’s Hyborian Age in great detail, but I’ve always found the greatest Howard details are the ones in my ever-greying noggin. There are also a pile of REH audio CD’s available on Ebay of which I know nothing – again, I’ve got my own versions rattling around upstairs here.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the up close and personal Robert E. Howard events that took place in 2008. We had a Birthday Bash at his House back in January, and Robert E. Howard Days in Cross Plains in June was another resounding success. As they’ll both be repeated in ‘09, y’all come! The fine folks of Cross Plains honored Joan McCowen earlier this month, the fine lady who was instrumental in getting Howard Days (and lot of what we’re doing here) going back in 1986. We can never thank her enough.

But, as this is MY blog, I CAN thank all of you for helping to keep the lamp lit for the one and only Robert E. Howard, a feller in Texas who wrote some pretty damn good stories a few years ago, and left them for you and me to read and talk about and have some fine fellowship over. Shall we?

Happy 2009, y’all.