As potent as I find Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, there's little doubt I would not know about them at all if Lancer Books had not decided to take the Gnome hardback series from the 1950's and present them to the world all over again in affordable paperback beginning in 1966. Paperbacks were after all the equivalent in many ways of the pulps from which Howard's brawny barbarian had emerged decades before. And further one can fairly speculate that without the hiring of the late and great Frank Frazetta to paint covers for many of those paperbacks, their impact on the racks of the day might well have been less potent.
Boris Vallejo went on to do more paintings for the Ace series, replacing all of the Duillo covers. I like Vallejo's work in general, but I for my part really like the original Lancers better.
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Conan The Adventurer is the very first Conan book I ever read. It was gifted to me back around 1979 or '80 by a late and former friend and I've still got it. It was a paperback with the same illustration that you show, though I don't recall if it was by Lancer or another publisher. It's packed away somewhere, meaning I can't check, but I'd imagine it's a Lancer book. It was the only Conan book I'd ever read until I acquired my Centenary Edition last year.
ReplyDeleteAce used the same exceedingly famous Frazetta painting on their version of the collection. Actually the Ace reprints are pretty identical save for replacing the Duillo paintings.
DeleteI was lucky enough to purchase the Lancer paperbacks as they came out -- had a couple of great local newsstands that carried all manner of books and comics. Interesting, though, that the Marvel Conans always seemed to be in short supply. Don't know if it was a result of popularity or poor distribution. When I bought issue #1 it was the last one on the rack and fairly well thumbed-through. Nice cover images! This is shaping up to be another one of your series of thorough and entertaining posts!
ReplyDeleteI hope this month lives up to your expectations. I was a bit late on the Lancers myself.
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