Released this week is the Playstation console game 'Dragon's Crown'. Everything from it's style of game play (classic 2D arcade style) to the obviously Frank Frazetta inspired character designs show that the works of Robert E. Howard - and in particular, the 1970s Marvel comic books that brought them to a wide audience, still cast a fairly long shadow across popular culture. If nothing else, the constant attempts at a Robert E. Howard film franchise (original Schwarzenegger series, Red Sonja spinoff, Conan reboot under the name 'Kull', 2011 Conan reboot, Solomon Kane, and yet another Schwarzenegger reboot in the works) alone shows that Robert E. Howard (who was actually mostly known as a writer of westerns during his short lifetime), have the power to endure.
Recently I've been reviewing the comic adaptations of Robert E. Howard's works - the latest being this review of Kull the Conqueror #3, which is part of the Dark Horse's reprints of the classic Marvel Howard adaptations.
It is great that this work is being re-released so that anyone who missed it the first time around can re-experience it. The artwork in particular holds up quite well today - and in some cases even exceeds some contemporary work in the field, and the storylines, while admittedly simplistic by today's standards, are a great tonic for a medium where fantasy has come too often to mean fables and fairy tales rather than sword-swinging action.
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