Conan The Barbarian - Tumblr Posts
"Shadows in the Moonlight" Conan the Barbarian art by Sanjulian (Manuel Perez Clemente)
RIP James Earl Jones.
So Much More than Just an Iconic Voice. One of the Greatest Actors who ever lived!
"then are pursued by a vicious creature with the head of a dugong and the body of a sea elephant,"
🤨
This script sounds absolutely wild (and is not convincing me that most of the interesting stuff from OG D&D wasn't from Dave Arneson...).
Also, very much feels like the whole 'modern people being isekai'd into a fantasy world' concept was pipped by Gordon R. Dickson's 1976 novel 'The Dragon and the George' (rather good, if you ever get the chance to read it) - which was adapted into the Rankin Bass animated film 'The Flight of Dragons' (which we can only surmise Gygax was also not a fan of... :p)
Also, going back to Conan for a moment, if we're completely honest Thulsa Doom is totally a cooler name for a villain than Thoth-Amon...
Gary Gygax panned Conan the Barbarian and The Sword & the Sorcerer, slightly preferring the latter (Dragon magazine #63, July 1982). He noted that Conan had very little of Howard's Conan in it*, but couldn't resist some petty nerd rage about hair color.
Fantasy films as a genre had earned a poor reputation in the late 1970s and early 80s, compared to some of the classics of sci-fi and pulp adventure being released at the same time. Gygax promised they were carefully taking their time making their Dungeons & Dragons movie planned for 1984 or 85, aiming for the high standards of Star Wars and Raiders.
That film never was made, but judging from the script that eventually resurfaced in Brian Blume's collection it could have been worse than the 2000 effort and its sequels. Jon Peterson wrote about that 1980s script in 2015, summarizing a story of ordinary people from our world being pulled into a fantasy realm -- an idea left over from Andre Norton's 1979 novel Quag Keep, which was recycled into the 1983-85 Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. There are tired themes of a Chosen One and a capital "C" Child destined to inherit great power, main characters who accomplish little by themselves and repeatedly need saving by more powerful NPCs, and almost all of the monsters are new creations, showing no attempt to represent familiar creatures and spells from the game. We would have to wait 40 years for a movie that dodged those pitfalls.
(*Slight edit here, as while I was one of many viewers baffled by Conan facing the wrong villain, who had the wrong appearance for that name, I enjoyed the movie more than GG did and thought the character and world felt enough like Conan for me.)
This was made for Dark Horse's Conan the Barbarian Cover contest in honor of the new series by Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan. Here is just the black and white line work. I still need to work on my color skilllz, but I was mostly happy with these "pencils."
Damn, the voice icon has gone to galaxy far far away from Earth.
Sleep well, sweet prince.
"Conan Man-Ape" by Frank Frazetta.
"Conan the Barbarian" by Frank Frazetta.
"Chained" ("Conan the Usurper") by Frank Frazetta.
I have no doubt after feeding his giant danger noodle delicious maidens, he gave him head pats and nose boops.
Now here it is, your Moment of Zen
JAMES EARL JONES
January 17, 1931-September 9, 2024
Sword woman, Look at this... 👀
Look at this... 👀 https://pin.it/5DTGm29
Warrior Women, 10-11-2023.