Howard Days 2013, Part 1

I've been attending Howard Days for approximately a decade now.  I think this was the most enjoyable one of all.  The weather couldn't have been better.  It was unseasonably cool, so much so that I never worked up a sweat.  Joe Lansdale was the surprise guest, and he really added to the experience.  I got to meet a reader of this blog I'd not met before (Hi, John!), renewed some friendships, and had a fantastic time.

I'll break this post up into parts for a couple of reasons.  First, I don't think I can get everything written tonight.  Second, I've got a lot of pictures, so I'm going to break things up to keep the post from getting too long.

The official events started on Friday, but there's always an informal kickoff dinner at a steak restaurant in Brownwood.  This was the first year I'd managed to make that part of the weekend.  Robert E. Howard is buried in Brownwood alongside his parents.  I'd not visited the grave before; I've always stayed at my parents' house for Howard Days and they live an hour in the opposite direction.  So I made sure I had time before dinner to swing by the grave site and pay my respects.

Then off to dinner.  The food was good, and there were over two dozen people there, scattered over at least 5 tables.  I was at the largest, and as in any gathering of Howard fans, the conversation was far ranging.  Among the topics discussed were movies, the differences between male and female Howard fans (Ain't opening that can of worms here; ya had to be there.), comics, auto repair, and the food.  We also got to see two recently uncovered photos of Howard that haven't been published yet, although there's some uncertainty about whether one is really him.  After dinner, people split up.  Some went to back to Cross Plains to the Pavilion while others went to the cemetery.  I went back to the cemetery with that group.  That's most (but not all of them) in the picture. They are (l. to r.) Lee Breakiron, Jeff Shanks, Deuce Richardson, John Bullard, Tim Arney, Al Harron, Barbara Barrett, Bill "Indy" Cavalier. 

Greenleaf Cemetery is one of the old style, elegant cemeteries you don't see much of anymore.  There are a lot of tombstones, small statues, and obelisks, but not too many of the flat markers meant for lawn mowers to run over.  It was a peaceful place.

After visiting the Howards' gravesite, we stopped at Tevis Clyde Smith's grave.  It was getting late by the time everyone left.  While I would have liked to have gone back to the Pavilion and socialized, I went on home and got some sleep.

Don Clark (l) leading the tour

The next morning, I made it down to the Howard House just as the tour was starting.  The tour varies every year so that it's not the same thing all the time.  This year, local historian Don Clark (who always does an outstanding job) took us to the nearby communities of Cross Cut and Burket, where the Howards lived before moving permanently to Cross Plains.  There's not much left of either town, although in the early part of the century they were both boom towns.  We saw the gazebo in Burket where Hester and her young son would read together.  The house is gone, the gazebo being all that remains.

Harron, Truman, Shanks, Finn

We drove back to Cross Plains, and I visited the House, bought some items in the gift shop, and head downtown to the library for the first of the panels.  The morning panel consisted of Al Harron, GOH Tim Truman, Jeff Shanks, and Mark Finn discussing the history of REH in the comics.  It was extremely educational.  I didn't know that Conan's first comic appearance was in the 1950s in a Mexican comic.  Conan was blond and was a supporting character.  The main character was Belit.  The comic was titled La Reina de la Costa Negra (the Queen of the Black Coast).  The comic ran for a number of years in two formats.  Not much is known about it.  When the panel was done, I headed off to lunch (fresh grilled chili dogs) at the Pavilion.

Mexican REH comics

Closeup of Mexican comics

Mark Finn defending his position at dinner.

I'll discuss the other panels and the rest of the events in the next post.  For now I'll leave you with some pictures. 

Report on Howard Days 2011, Day Two

The second day of Howard Days was pretty laid back for me.  I arrived at the Pavilion about 9:00 or so.  One of the anniversaries being celebrated this year is the 50th year since Glenn Lord's zine The Howard Collector first appeared.  At the banquet the previous night, one of the announcements was of a new issue.  The issue went on sale at the Pavilion Saturday morning.  I, of course, bought one.  It contains the the original version of "Black Canaan" as Howard wrote it, an untitled poem that wasn't included in the collected poetry, an untitled Breckenridge Elkins fragment, and a drawing by Howard.  If I heard correctly, there are only 200 copies.  I don't have information about purchasing, so if someone reading does have that information, I would appreciate it if you could put it in a comment.

Report on Howard Days 2011, Day One

The side of the Cross Plains library

Robert E. Howard Days 2011 was a great success, at least in my opinion.  The weather was hot, but not humid, and the breeze helped keep things cool.  Some people might say we had wind, but since the sky didn't turn brown from dust like it has for the last few months where I live, I'll say we only had a breeze in Cross Plains.

Festivities started on Thursday night, but I wasn't able to arrive until Friday morning.  I'll report on what I participated in.  Al Harron, at The Blog That Time Forgot, has posted daily summaries, starting with this one for Thursday.  Al and I participated in some of the same activities but also a number of different ones, so check out his posts as well.  Others will be posting their reports, and I'll try to provide links throughout the week as I become aware of them.

I'll put in more photos than I usually do, at least for the first day.  My camera battery died on the second day, so all I have are a few photos I took with my phone.  I'll put the best of those in.

I got to the Pavilion shortly before 9:00 a.m.  Several familiar faces were already there.  I grabbed a donut and coffee and began saying hello after swinging by the bin with the issues of The Cimmerian for sale.   I picked up a few and began mingling.  One of the people I had the pleasure of meeting was Miguel Martins.  Rusty Burke was leading a trailer tour again this year.  Until last year, this was known as The Walking Tour, but a trailer with chairs on it has taken its place.  And a good thing, too.  Even though it was still relatively cool at this time in the morning (low 80s Fahrenheit), it would have been hotter than that before the tour was over.

House where Novalyne Price lived

Just before the tour started Al Harron, arrived.  I met Al last year and made it a point of saying hello before we left.  The tour was packed.  All the chairs on the trailer were taken and four people were piled into the bed of the pickup towing us.  We went by the cemetery (the Howards are all buried in Brownwood) and behind downtown, crossed the highway, and went by the house where Novalyne Price lived while she worked as a teacher at Cross Plains High School from 1934-1936.  That's her room on the right with the air conditioner sticking out of the window.  If you haven't read her memoir about her relationship with Bob,  One Who Walked Alone: Robert E. Howard the Final Years, you should.  It formed the basis of the movie The Whole Wide World, starring Vincent D'Onofrio and an at the time nearly unknown actress named Renee Zellweger. 

Blogging Kull: The Altar and the Scorpion

Kull:  Exile of Atlantis
Del Rey
trade paper, 317 p., $17

This is another of the brief tale, although unlike the previous one, "The Striking of the Gong," Kull isn't featured in this one but merely mentioned. This is a minor story in the Kull canon, and upon close examination it's easy to see why. 

Howard opens the story with an unnamed youth bowing before an altar of a scorpion and imploring the scorpion to save him and the girl he loves, also never given a name, from the evil priest Guron.  Guron isn't a priest of the Scorpion God but rather the  Black Shadow.  Guron and his priests are sacking the city, something else that doesn't have a name.  Guron plans to sacrifice the pair on an altar to the Black Shadow.  From what Howard tells us, the cult of the Black Shadow practices human sacrifice. 

The Adventures Fantastic Interview: Mark Finn, Part 1

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?

Blogging Kull: The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune

This was the second Kull story published in Howard's lifetime, and the last one to feature Kull as the viewpoint character.  He would make one more published appearance, in "Kings of the Night", but that tale is primarily a Bran Mak Morn story with Kull in a secondary role.  After that, no more Kull stories would be published in Howard's lifetime.

This is an extremely short piece, more brooding than action.  In fact, Kull never draws his sword at all.  Only Brule engages in any slaughter. 

Howard chose to open this tale with a quote from Poe, and it's quite appropriate.  Kull is burned out when the story opens, in what Howard describes as "the time of great weariness", and what would be called today a midlife crisis.  (I'm looking forward to my midlife crisis and getting a Harley and a hottie, but I will probably ease into it slowly with the one that requires the least maintenance.  That would be the Harley.)  Instead of grabbing a wench and a fast horse and hitting the road, Kull merely broods about the meaninglessness of life and how nothing satisfies him now.  While Howard wasn't fond of religion and the church, I have to wonder if he had been reading the book of Ecclesiastes when he wrote this.  Howard describes Kull's daily routine as "an endless, meaningless panorama", much like the author of Ecclesiastes describes life as "vanity of vanities, all is vanity." 

When no one is around, a servant girl suggests to Kull that he visit the wizard Tuzun Thune.  Whereas Conan would have probably ravished the girl, Kull merely follows her suggestion.  Tuzun Thune tells Kull to gaze into his mirrors and become wise. 

The first mirror shows the past, and the savage battle for survival against flying dragons and other beasts.  It's a world of endless struggle, with Death the only certainty.  The second mirror shows the future, in which Atlantis and Lemuria are beneath the waves, and only their mountaintops remain, islands in the vastness of the ocean.  Valusia and the other Seven Kingdoms are gone and forgotten, all their splendor and treasures dust.  Tuzun Thune says this is the way of the world, one tribe supplanting the previous.  It's all very depressing.

Then Tuzun Thune has Kull look in a third mirror.  Kull sees only his reflection and wonders who the man is who gaze matches his own.  He once knew him   Kull begins to wonder who is the man and who is the reflection.

Kull visits Tuzun Thune every day, staring at his reflection in a mirror.  He becomes more and more fascinated by the world in the mirror and wants to know what he would find if he passed through to the other side.  He is in the process of doing so when when Brule shatters the mirror.  Kull comes to his senses to find the lifeless body of Tuzun Thune on the floor before him, Tuzun Thune's blood dripping from Brule's sword.  Brule informs Kull that he is the victim of a plot by one of the other nobles, a plot only discovered that very day.  The servant girl who told Kull to visit Tuzun Thune is in on it.  She's on the floor covering in fear for her life while this exchange between Kull and Brule is taking place.  Amazingly Kull says she was merely a pawn and lets her go unpunished.  After the girl tells Kull about Tuzun Thune, Howard describes her this way:  " the smile of her scarlet mouth was cunning behind Kull's back, and the gleam of her narrow eyes was crafty."  That doesn't sound like someone who was a pawn to me.  We know she and Tuzun Thune were both members of the Elder Race, who once ruled Valusia.  Conan would never have dismissed her this way, although he probably would have let her live.

In a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith sometime in February 1929, Howard lists all his sales to date.  He records that he got $20 for "The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune" and that it was "more of the Shadow Kingdom, occult and mystical, vague and badly written; this is the deepest story I ever tried to write and I got out of my depth."  [Collected Letters Vol. 1, REH Foundation Press, 2007, p. 311]

This is a deep story, but I don't agree with Howard's assessment.  It's not badly written at all.  Some of the paragraphs are quite powerful in their descriptions and mood.  Howard was in his early twenties at this time.  It's wouldn't be unusual to feel that sense of weariness he describes.  Here's a young man who is trapped in a small town where no one understands him.  He had to wonder at times if his desire to write was worth it.  I spent part of my adolescence in a small town about fifty miles from Cross Plains, and I can tell you that what Howard describes is a very real sensation.  Anyone who doesn't conform to the lowest common denominator expectations of society in those towns will sooner or later experience the fatigue (the weariness) that comes from trying to be your own person when all you meet is opposition and exclusion.  Instead of being out of his depth, Howard seems to me to have poured out his feelings and his experience in this story. 

I think he nails it perfectly, and that's why for all its brevity, this is a major story in Howard's oeuvre.