Conan and Jirel: Robert E. Howard and C. L. Moore Part Two by Bobby Derie

Dec. '34 WT

Jirel’s first adventure was quickly followed up by a second; “Black God’s Shadow” appeared in the Dec 1934 Weird Tales. The cover, and vote for most popular story of the issue, however both went to Robert E. Howard for the Conan story “A Witch Shall Be Born.” Lovecraft considered it a “good second.” (LRS 41, ES 2.671, cf. LFB 248) Clark Ashton Smith, too, was tiring of her a little. (CAS 262) Praise for Moore, and comparisons with Howard and his creations, continued in the “Eyrie”:

Now about this latest bombshell to burst so suddenly and astoundingly in our horror-seeking midst: C. L. Moore. More power to you! You have introduced a refreshing, vitally alive, human character whose actions are presented to us in a very capable, wholly artistic way. With Smith, Williamson, Howard and Merritt, you now hold a much-deserved place of honor at the ladder's top rung.—Louis C. Smith, WT Dec 1934

Of all the different characters I have read in numerous magazines, there are none that appeal to me as do Northwest Smith and Conan.—Bert Felsburg, WT Dec 1934

Conan vile, C. L. Moore splendid.—Robert Bloch, WT Dec 1934

'Tis with unholy glee that I read your announcement about the new serial; to wit, The People of the Black Circle, by Robert E. Howard. I always thought that the Conan stories were all too short, so you can imagine what a treat in store that is. Perhaps, some day, my other bosom pal, Northwest Smith, will appear in a book-length novel too.
—D. de Woronin, WT Dec 1934

I (and I'm sure many others) want to hear a great deal more of Jirel. She's the kind of person I'd like to be myself. A sort of feminine version of Conan the Cimmerian. He, too, is one of my favorites.
—Mary A. Conklin, WT Dec 1934

The character of Jirel may become as famous to us as Conan. I vote her first place.—Claude H. Cameron, WT Jan 1935

The praise was not unanimous however; one reader in particular wrote in:

The Black God's Kiss was by far the poorest C. L. Moore story yet. The first three of C. L. Moore's tales were excellent, but the last two were rather pediculous.—Fred Anger, WT Dec 1934

William Frederick Anger was one of the correspondents of H. P. Lovecraft, who felt the need to reply in private:

Fan Mail: Bloch vs. Conan by Bobby Derie

Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian wandered into the pages of Weird Tales with “The Phoenix on the Sword” (Dec 1932), and was followed by “The Scarlet Citadel” (Jan 1933), “The Tower of the Elephant” (Mar), “Black Colossus” (Jun), “The Slithering Shadow” (Sep), “The Pool of the Black One” (Oct), "Rogues in the House" (Jan 1934), "Shadows in the Moonlight" (Apr), "Queen of the Black Coast" (May), "The Haunter of the Ring" (Jun), "The Devil in Iron" (Aug), and the serial "The People of the Black Circle" (Sep-Oct-Nov). Much of the response in “The Eyrie,” the letters-column of Weird Tales, was positive...but in the November 1934 issue there was a letter aimed at the popular series character:

A Crack At Conan

Conan is rapidly becoming a stereotyped hero, but I was greatly pleased with Francis Flagg, a real writer, with something to say. I am awfully tired of poor old Conan the Cluck, who for the past fifteen issues has every month slain a new wizard, tackled a new monster, come to a violent sudden end that was averted (incredibly enough!) in just the nick of time, and won a new girlfriend, each of whose penchant for nudism won her a place of honor, either on the cover or on the inner illustration. Such has been Conan’s history, and from the realms of the Kushites to the lands of Aquilonia, from the shores of the Shemites to the palaces of Dyme-Novell-Bolonia, I cry: “Enough of this brute and his iron-thewed sword-thrusts-may he be sent to Valhalla to cut out paper dolls.” I would like to see the above tirade in print—I feel sure that many of your other readers would support me—at least there is good material there for an arguement. [Sharpen your axes, you loyal supporters of the Conan tales, for soon we shall publish a short story by Mr. Bloch, the author of the above letter. It is entitled The Secret in the Tomb.—The Editor.]

Robert Bloch

The writer was Robert Bloch, a teenaged fan who was, by coincidence, just about to make his professional debut in Weird Tales. Bloch had begun corresponding with H. P. Lovecraft in 1933 (LRB 9), and as was quite natural for Lovecraft, he shared his thoughts on Robert E. Howard:

Robert E. Howard is a most unusual character—the son of a physician in the wild & woolly, rip-roaring West Texas country, which is actually much more like the sanguinary West of chap fiction than we commonly realise. Howard is 27, & is probably the greatest living authority on the history & traditions of the Southwest, & the lives of America’s noted outlaws. He is a burly, athletic chap fonder of fighting than of literature, & possessed of the curious belief that primitive barbarism is a more desirable sort of social organisation than civilisation. His letters have a greater literary value than his tales. (LRB 23)

You are also right in assuming that Robert E. Howard has never been to Britain. So far as I know, he has never been east of New Orleans—but his imagination is limitless, & he closely identified himself with his Celtic & Norse ancestors. As for his incessant swordplay—which Clark Ashton Smith calls “monotonous manslaughter”—that is undoubtedly an outgrowth of the same frontier psychology which makes him so fond of barbaric life. It is a part of his personality, & I don’t suppose it could be eradicated without upsetting the whole emotional arrangement which makes him a literary creator. He has a very vivid sense of incredible antiquity, & finely suggests the existence of unhallowed elder worlds & forgotten reaches of time. (LRB 28)

Although Lovecraft credited Smith with describing the Conan tales as “monotonous manslaughter,” the phrase is not apparent in Smith’s published letters and may have arisen from Lovecraft himself. Bloch was generally appreciative of Howard’s fiction, a letter to “The Eyrie” published in the April 1934 issue praised “The Valley of the Worm,” though he derided Conan, writing:

A Lost Correspondence: Robert E. Howard and Stuart M. Boland by Bobby Derie

In the the Summer 1945 issue of a fanzine called The Acolyte was published a short memoir called “Interlude with Lovecraft” by Stuart Morton Boland, which began:

In the Spring of 1935 I was making a library survey tour of the European continent. At the quaint little hill town of Orvieto, in Italy, I came upon an amazing mural high on the walls of the local Duomo or Cathedral. The painting represented mighty figures of ebon-hued men (not angels or demons) with great wings, flying through etheric space carrying beauteous pinionless mortals--men and women who were rapturously accompanying them in their voyage through eternity.

I photographed the scene and sent a print to Robert E. Howard, telling him it reminded me of one of his Conan stories. With the print I included a colored reproduction of a rare illuminated manuscript of the 10th Century which I had seen in the Royal Archives at Budapest. Howard, for some reason, sent this facsimile to Lovecraft, asking if he thought his Necronomicon would look anything like the reproduction of the parchment.

Three months later, when I reached my home by the Presidio in San Francisco, I found awaiting me two letters from Howard and an extensive missive from Lovecraft. [...] In my reply to HPL, I stated that I thought his opinion was well-founded, and furthermore that the references of both men to odd ancient gods were ideas they must have borrowed from Mayan, Toltec, and Aztec mythology. (Boland 15)

This presents an interesting example of the consideration of historical evidence, because aside from statements from Boland, there is no direct evidence that Boland and Robert E. Howard ever corresponded. Boland wrote to Glenn Lord in the late 1950s:

An Escape from The Depression: The Fantasy Fan, Marvel Tales & The Pulps by Todd B. Vick

The Great Depression was the longest lasting economic downturn in the history of mankind. It not only had a deep effect here in the U.S. but the rest of the world felt its squeeze as well. Despite its woes, those who lived through The Great Depression still had to get on with their lives and try and find a way to survive. By 1933 when the Great Depression had reached its nadir, some 15 million people in the U.S. alone were without work, almost half the banks in the U.S. had closed their doors, and Americans (as well as the rest of the world) were in dire straits. However, in the midst of this nadir, the entertainment industry was booming. People were trying to forget their troubles by turning their attention to films, sports (in large part boxing), books, magazines and other distracting things.

     In 1933 some of the greatest classic films were released: King Kong, Duck Soup, I’m No Angel, Queen Christina, Little Women, and others. The first drive-in movie theater was built in Camden, NJ that year, and MGM worked on gaining the rights to a film titled The Wizard of Oz. In June of 1933, Primo Carnera defeated Jack Sharkey in the sixth round (with a KO) to win the World Heavyweight Championship. That same year, Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster created the iconic character “Superman.” Underneath all these hugely popular events a seventeen year old teenager was hard at work developing the first fanzine for the weird fiction genre in hopes that it would attract some of the most popular writers in the Weird Fiction and Science Fiction pulp magazine industry.

     

Charles D. Hornig, from New Jersey, was a huge fan of weird fiction and science fiction. He was a regular subscriber to Wonder Stories and Amazing Stories. There’s no written history/information on why or where Hornig got the idea of beginning a fanzine. Even so, Hornig contacted the editor of “The Science Fic-Digest”—Conrad H. Ruppert—in an attempt to find out how such an effort could get off the ground. Ruppert guided Hornig in his endeavors, and in September of 1933, volume 1, no. 1 of The Fantasy Fan was first printed. It is believed that Hornig, a somewhat long time reader of Wonder Stories, sent a copy to its publisher Hugo Gernsback (who has been called the Father of Science Fiction). Through a series of circumstances, Gernsback had recently fired his editor, David Lasser, and after seeing Hornig’s first issue of The Fantasy Fan, hired Hornig. This is apparently confirmed in The Fantasy Fan Oct. 1933, Volume 1, no. 2 issue. “Managing Editor: Wonder Stories” is typed in that issue under Hornig’s name on the title page.  This would certainly explain how Hornig was able to get such high profile authors during The Fantasy Fan’s existence between Sept. 1933 to Feb. 1935.

     The first writers to jump on board Hornig’s fanzine were Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft, and August Derleth. Other writers would join the fanzine in its first year: Julius Schwarts (who would eventually make his name in the comic book industry), Forrest Ackerman (magazine editor and an agent for Sci-fi writers such as Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, L. Ron Hubbard, etc.), R.H. Barlow (author, poet, and previous executor of H.P. Lovecraft’s literary estate) and Robert E. Howard. In its second year, Robert Bloch made a contribution. The circulation of The Fantasy Fan is unknown. My guess is that it was fairly exclusive. Additionally, according to Wikipedia, here are some of the new stories from weird fiction authors that appeared in The Fantasy Fan,

First publication of several works by noteworthy authors occurred in The Fantasy Fan, including works by Lovecraft, Smith, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth, and Robert Bloch. Perhaps one of the magazine's greatest achievements, though, was the serialization of the revised version of Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Literature (October 1933-February 1935); the serialization proceeded until it had reached the middle of Chapter VIII and the magazine folded. The Fantasy Fan also saw the first publication of Lovecraft's stories: "The Other Gods" (November 1933) and "From Beyond" (June 1934) as well as reprints (from amateur papers) of "Polaris" (February 1934) and "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" (October 1934); it also published the poems "The Book" (October 1934), "Pursuit" (October 1934), "The Key" (January 1935), and "Homecoming" (January 1935) from Lovecraft's sonnet cycle Fungi from Yuggoth. Lovecraft was represented in no less than seventeen of the eighteen issues published. The October 1934 issue was dedicated to Lovecraft.

     

Marvel Tales w/Slipcase
The Fantasy Fan

Fortunately, a little over 5 years ago (in 2010), Lance Thingmaker put together an extremely nice hardback facsimile of The Fantasy Fan. The collection was limited to 100 copies and sold rather quickly on Ebay. In its heyday, The Fantasy Fan was a way for fans and writers to connect. Also, for those people who were reading the pulps and various science fiction and fantasy magazines, this was just another way for them to find a little escape from the hardships of the Great Depression.

     In the same year that The Fantasy Fan ceased publication, another fanzine called Marvel Tales began publication.  Marvel Tales was edited by William L. Crawford. He was the first to use the name Marvel Tales which would be subsequently used again several times after Crawford’s zine ended. William Crawford was a publisher and editor who also wrote science fiction stories. Crawford lived in Everett, PA and had been an ardent science and weird fiction fan. He was also responsible for the inception of another non-paying weird fiction zine titled Unusual Stories. His Marvel Tales zine had a very short run, all of 5 issues. However, he was able to garner a few top-notch fantasy and science fiction authors of the day to contribute: H.P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, Robert E. Howard, and Frank Belknap Long.

     Marvel Tales has a more mysterious history and demise than The Fantasy Fan. After the fifth issue, the magazine announced with great enthusiasm that its next issue would be on newsstands. After this last mention, no other issues were printed. It disappeared. This was probably due to its non-professional (non-paying) status and the high costs of publishing such a zine in the 1930s. It also never gained a strong enough readership to keep it alive. There is scant material written about Crawford’s Marvel Tales. Even so, in 2012, Lance Thingmaker, after the success of his facsimile for The Fantasy Fan, created a facsimile for Marvel Tales. Thingmaker did a 300 print run with the first 100 books tagged, numbered, and placed in nice slipcases.

     

In the 1930s, if fans of the pulps were fortunate enough to hear about these two fanzines, they would have access to original stories written by some of the more popular pulp writers. Moreover, the paper quality of these fanzines was a notch better than those of the pulps. Like films and sporting events, these fanzines and especially the pulp magazines were a nice inexpensive escape from the troubles that stemmed from the Great Depression. 1939 fanzines more or less fell by the wayside to World War II, dime novels, and the comic book industry. However, weird fiction and science fiction fanzines made a strong comeback in the early 1970s, but eventually faded again toward the mid to late 80s. Fortunately, the stories have survived through the years and are enjoying a steady growth today with a surge of new fans.