This Conan Project FAQ

• What is the purpose of this site?
• What are you looking for in user contributions?
• Where can I purchase Conan publications (comic books, magazines, paperback books)?
• Would you like to buy my collection of ...?
• What is my collection worth?
• Where can I find information on specific authors, artists, and story characters?
• What is currently being published: comic books, magazines, or paperback?
• Where can I find a listing of the Conan stories?

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What is the purpose of this site?

The original purpose of this Conan Project was as a vehicle for me to learn more about the processes and procedures for creating, posting, and managing a website. It has been my experience that the best way for me to learn something new on the computer is to have a project to work on.

I made the mistake of submitting my URL to a search engine, the user feedback was surprizing and critical. I made the decesion to take this Conan Project seriously and began to work towards a graphical catalog and reference work.

I have been fortunate to have been able to hold on to a small collection of Conan comic books and magazines (Marvel), and was able to obtain a set of used paperbacks (Lancer and Ace Books) with the help of Edward Waterman. This body of work represented my orignal exposure to Conan, both in text and imagery, and was experienced during my high school and early adult years. To say that this body of work was influencial would be an understatement.

My intention is to share what I can, and provide an avenue for user contributions.

See also About This Site: History

What are you looking for in user contributions?

Cover and First Page of Story images for
Conan the Barbarian comic books,
The Savage Sword of Conan comic magazine,
and covers from the Lancer and Ace Books paperbacks. (The First Twelve Books)

See also About This Site: User Contributions

Where can I purchase Conan publications (comic books, magazines, paperback books)?

For past issues of Conan comics and magazines I can only suggest that you visit some comic specialty shops in an urban area closest to where you live. These businesses are listed in the Yellow Pages, usually under the category comic books.

Aternately you could try performing a search at Big Yellow for the urban area nearest you. While working on this faq I performed a search on the Atlanta, GA metro area and Big Yellow returned (74) listings. The same advice holds true for used paperback books.

It has also been my experience that used book stores can obtain material on request, sometimes specific items, but more often it's pretty much potluck. I once told the owner of a used book store that I was interested in works by Robert E. Howard, Conan in particular. When I was able to return to the store (about three months later) there were some Conan titles, but there were also some very interesting editions of Howard's work (unrelated to Conan). So you never know.

Another place to look for used publications is at yard sales, and to a lesser degree, flea markets.

See also Conan Links: Comic Resources for some good starting points.

Would you like to buy my collection of ...?

No, I am not in a position to purchase anyone's collection of anything.

The only suggestion that I can make is to post a message to The Conan Marketplace a WWWboard maintained by Stale Gismirvik.

What is my collection worth?

I have no way of determining the worth of any comic books or magazines. My only suggestion is to find a comic specialty store and make inqueries of the owner.

There are a number of pricing guides published by Robert M. Overstreet which can be found at your local bookstore, or ordered through the net at Amazon Books. I found the following titles at Amazon Books:

The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide
The Overstreet Comic Book Companion: Identification and Price Guide
The Overstreet Comic Book Grading Guide

Where can I find information on specific authors, artists, and characters?

First I would suggest performing a search, using the artist's or author's name as the search term, at any of the following search engines:
Yahoo
Hotbot
Excite

In all of these your best results can be obtained by using the Power Search options, which will give you access to more search parameters. Try all three search engines as they each search and index the web in different ways, and will yeild different results.

Another tip for using search engines, save the resulting hit list to your local hardrive, then call it up with your browser at your convience. This will allow you to search through the hit lists in a more managable way.

If your foray into the world of search engines does not produce the results that you seek, I would suggest that you post a message to The Hyborian Thoughts a WWWboard maintained by Stale Gismervik.

What is currently being published: comic books, magazines, or paperback?

I stopped purchasing (and collecting) Conan material in the mid-1970's, except for my recent purchases of The First Twelve books in paperback (source material for the website).

I do not know what Conan material is currently being offered.

I have heard mention of a re-publication of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories by Baen Books, and have heard that an effort is under way to republish the works in comic form (see the page maintained by Stale Gismirvik, Cross Plains Comics, for more information).

Where can I find a listing of the Conan stories?

I am not aware of any single bibliographic reference for all of the published efforts relating to Conan the Barbarian, but here are a number of suggestions that may help:

Begin by visitng the sites listed on my Conan Links page Conan Sites. Another good set of site links can be found on this page maintained by Stale Gismirvik. Stale also offers a comic book chronology and a good resource for Conan books.