Texan author Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) was a prolific writer of pulp fiction stories. In his own lifetime, his most popular stories were his Westerns. However, in the decades following his death, one of his characters in particular has come to overshadow all his other creations: Conan the Barbarian. First appearing in the pages of the iconic pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1932, Conan has gone on to become not only Howard's most popular and enduring creation, but one of the most influential characters in the Fantasy genre, period.
There are two primary reasons why Conan has remained Howard's most popular character. The first is the influence of the 1982 Conan the Barbarian movie, directed by John Milius, co-written by Milius and Oliver Stone, and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, which helped propel both Conan as a character and Schwarzenegger as an actor to new heights of popularity.
The second reason is that Conan has been a staple of comic books even before the movie, allowing Conan and the world of the Hyborian Age to remain in the popular consciousness.
A brief history of Conan in comics
The comic book rights to Conan have changed hands several times over the decades, but for the bulk of that time, Conan comics have been published by Marvel. The first Marvel-era Conan comic was published in 1970 and ran until 1993. Marvel regained the rights to the character in 2019, which saw the barbarian hero cross over into the mainline Marvel universe in the Savage Avengers storyline.
At the time, Marvel had to contend with the strict censorship policies of the Comics Code Authority, so the original Marvel run of Conan comics was necessarily kinder and gentler than the source material, though the storylines themselves were on the whole pretty faithful to the original Howard stories. Running concurrently at Marvel to the full-color Conan the Barbarian comic series was the black-and-white Savage Sword of Conan, which was able to retain much of the violence and mature subject matter of the original Conan stories even in the face of the Comics Code Authority by virtue of being published as a magazine, rather than a comic book, meaning that the regulations did not apply.
The Marvel years also introduced the iconic Sword-and-Sorcery heroine Red Sonja. Despite sharing Conan's world and often participating in his adventures, Red Sonja isn't actually an original Robert E. Howard character. Based on the similarly named character Red Sonya (note the different spelling) of Rogatinto from Howard's story "The Shadow of the Vulture" — set in the real world against the backdrop of the 1529 siege of Vienna — Red Sonja was created by writer Roy Thomas and artist Barry Windsor-Smith for Marvel's Conan run. The rights to the character are currently held by Dynamite Entertainment. Red Sonja has become one of their most prominent and popular characters.
The rights to the Conan IP passed to Dark Horse in 2003, for a 240-issue run that lasted until 2019. Like the earlier Marvel run, Dark Horse's series combined original adventures with adaptations of Howard's stories. Dark Horse's Conan series also wove all of these stories into a single unified narrative, following Conan's adventures through his departure from his homeland of Cimmeria down to his reign as King of Aquilonia.
50 years and still going strong
The rights to the Conan IP changed hands once again in 2002, with Titan Comics beginning new versions of both the Conan the Barbarian comic and the Savage Sword of Conan Magazine. As of this writing, both these series from Titan are currently ongoing and available both physically and digitally from comic book retailers.
Titan's Conan the Barbarian series gets off to a strong start, with a storyline depicting Conan and his Pictish ally Brissa contending with an unstoppable undead army. Titan's first Conan storyline features writing by Jim Zub and art by Rob de la Torre and José Villarrubia.
Notably, Conan is expected to enter the Public Domain in 2028, though it is unclear how this will affect the IP rights to the character. The character is already in the Public Domain in Europe and there have been several European comic book adaptations over the years. What is clear, however, is that Conan's decades-long legacy as an icon of comics will ensure he continues to inspire and entertain generations of readers with tales of high adventure.