Mark Finn should be no stranger to hard-core Robert E. Howard fans. He is the author of the Howard biography Blood and Thunder as well as numerous articles and essays about the man from Cross Plains. In addition to his writings about Robert E. Howard, Mark is also a fiction author with a number of short stories to his credit. He took time out of his schedule recently to sit down with Adventures Fantastic to answer a few questions. Here, in the first of two parts to this interview, Mark discusses why he writes, why he felt the need to write a biography of Robert E. Howard, his admiration of jazz trombonist Jack Teagarden, and what other projects he has in the works.
AF: Why do you write?
MF: Why do I write? That's a good question. When I was a lot younger, I wanted to be an entertainer of some sort. I went through a period where I remember in the 70s television would always have these variety shows, so I got to see ventriloquists and magicians, and guys who could do impressions, Rich Little. I used to watch the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts with Foster Brooks. I didn't understand why it was so funny, but my parents just thought it was the best thing ever.
AF: I remember those.
MF: Oh, they were so funny. And Foster was great. I mean really underappreciated kind of guy. So I went through phases where I studied ventriloquism, and I studied magic. I still play with magic on a strictly amateur basis right now. But as I got older I wanted to do special effects makeup for the movies and found kind of accidentally that I was good at writing. And I kept wanting to do other things. I wanted to draw. I've always wanted to tell stories. I've always wanted to entertain people and tell stories. However that needed to happen. I found that of all the things I wanted to do, the thing that came easiest to me was writing. If I spent a lot of time and went to school and learned art and got a degree in commercial art or graphic art and sat down and made an effort at getting into comics, I probably would be pretty good. But I was always naturally better at writing than I was anything else, so by the time I was fifteen, I met somebody, incidentally, who was gifted in art the way I was in writing, so that's what made me go, "Oh, I get it. All right." And he and I have been friends, and he, John Lucas, has pursued the art career, and I've pursued the writing career. For me it boils down to entertaining people, storytelling. I think that's our primary means of communicating with one another, whether it's a joke or "Honey, you won't believe the day I've had." It's all stories. I like that form.
AF: What got you interested in Robert E. Howard?
