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The third issue of Arcane Arts went out earlier today.

I've gotten a couple of responses from readers who seem to like what I'm doing with the newsletter. Or at least they flatter me with hollow praise. I'm still figuring out exactly what I want to do with it, but it's becoming an informal way of sharing what I'm watching/reading/thinking about, with a little bit more of a personal touch than you might typically see on the blog.

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Here is a link to the latest issue. A lot of fun S&S related updates in this one.

A quick subscribe and you'll never miss the next.

I played Gorgar

I marveled at its glory... and writhed at my suck.

… and I sucked at it. 

This past weekend I took a short dude’s weekend trip to Southington. None of us knew anything about this rather nondescript town in central Connecticut, save that it was a convenient halfway point between my buddy Scott, who lives in New Jersey, and the other three of us dudes from MA/NH.

Scott did some online scouting. Southington had a venue where we could throw axes, an arcade, and ample beer. The decision was made.

As it turns out GameCraft Arcade is not just any arcade. It’s a two-story homage to old-school gaming. Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, Double Dragon, Wizard of Wor, Asteroids, Tron, 1941, Castlevania, Joust, Frogger, dozens more of that ilk. So many that I decided to give the place a thorough scouting-out before plunking down my hard-earned coin.

And there it was. On the second floor, tucked way in the back corner, a holy grail for S&S enthusiasts. 

Scantily-clad chicks. Skulls. Muscular warriors with swords and horned helmets. The snake pit. And the leering red demon himself.

Gorgar, in all its glory. The 1979 machine made famous by being the first-ever talking pinball machine. One I've written about before, here.

I stood back, admired the beautiful artwork. It begged to be played. And of course, I did.

Unfortunately not much to report there. I batted the ball around a few times. Tried my best to land it in The Snake Pit. Failed, and watched helplessly as it guttered over and over before I got much done on the scoreboard.

Despite my enthusiasm for these games as artifacts I suck at pinball. I now realize I like the idea of pinball much more than the game play itself. I adore the aesthetic—the tactile steel ball and the bright lights and clack of the flippers—but in truth I’d rather play Double Dragon or Galaga. Which I did, and got a lot more mileage out of my coin.

GameCraft also had other related pinball games, including Seawitch, Paragon, and Black Knight. Someone there appreciates the sacred genre it seems. Paragon and Seawitch are, like Gorgar, heavily inspired by the Frank Frazetta aesthetic.

Axe throwing was fun, and the venue supervisor who made sure we didn’t plant a heavy hatchet into our foot or our buddies’ back was a huge Lord of the Rings fan, with a sleeve of tattoos on one arm including a JRRT rune on her shoulder and the “One Ring to Rule Them All” inscription wrapped around her bicep. Much Tolkien nerdity ensued. I did not come home with a tattoo of my own though the thought crossed my mind and was liberally encouraged by the dudes. The Groggy Frog was a worthy (2? 3?) beer stop and we got a kick out of the waitress with the Poison half shirt who evaded my question about her favorite Poison song. 

Anyway, should you ever be driving down I-84 and see signs for Southington it’s a worth a visit. Tell the Girl with the Gandalf Tattoo I said hi.

Heavy metal, sword-and-sorcery, the Outsider ... and Iron Maiden's “Drifter”

Anecdotally, readers of S&S listen to heavy metal in higher proportion than country or rap music. There are reasons for this.

The sound of S&S is heavy, and of battle. James Taylor cannot be the soundtrack of “Black Colossus.” 

Another is the appropriation of sword-and-sorcery imagery by metal bands. Dangle Kings of Metal in front of a Robert E. Howard reader and you’ll get a grunt of recognition, if not appreciation, even though they might have never heard of Manowar. Some will go on to sample the music, discover that “Heart of Steel” is really fucking awesome song, and become a metalhead.

Ken Kelly and Manowar can be none more metal.

That’s partially what happened to me. Fantasy imagery—along with the influence of high school friends and what was going on in the broader popular culture circa 1987--led me to sample metal bands. The sound and fury hooked me. And the rest is history.

Metal and sword-and-sorcery also share some deeper DNA …. a thematic attraction to the Outsider. Some examples fired off over a beer:

Judas Priest with “The Sentinel”

Whitesnake and “Here I Go Again.” Like a drifter I was born to walk alone.

Helloween: I Want Out

Metallica: Escape (Life’s for my own, to live my own way)

Etc.

Metal does not have a patent on the outsider concept; rock has always contained its seeds. See Dion’s “Runaway” and Rolling Stones “Tumbling Dice.” But the combination of imagery+heaviness+outsider makes metal music a substantial overlap in the venn diagram of S&S.

Iron Maiden’s “Drifter” is another fine example. As Paul DiAnno sings:

Gotta keep on roaming, gotta sing my song… ‘cause I’m a drifter, drifting on.

I hope you drift into a fine weekend on this Metal Friday.

Taking a stand against LLMs in the arts (it’s what Conan would do)

“In a system where men are protected by hired forces, and waited on by machines, how can any real self-confidence and self-reliance be induced, or long-sustained?”

--Robert E. Howard

Robert E. Howard, a champion of hard labor and an admirer of the physical, hated machine-work. He believed the fate of the men who worked on machinery was to become machines themselves: 

“Standardization is crushing the heart and soul, the blood and the guts, out of humanity and the eventual result will be either complete and unrelieved slavery or the destruction of civilization and return to barbarism. Once men sang the praises of ephemeral gods carved out of ivory and wood. Now they sing equally senseless praises to equally ephemeral and vain gods of Science and Commerce and Progress. Hell.”

--Letter from Robert E. Howard to H.P. Lovecraft, Oct. 1931

Howard was right; vain gods are here, and vain men and women are using them to create the soulless simulacra of art. “Creators” (I will not use the term authors or artists) surrender their craft, and their soul, to the machine. They prompt large language models to produce aggregated content and then put their name on it. 

I’ve decided I really do hate this shit. And to take a stand against it. 

Author Paul Kingsnorth recently declared a Writers Against AI Campaign. Consider this my digital signature on the manifesto.

AI in the arts* is an outrage because it diminishes that which makes us human through the insidious forces of aggregation, standardization, and the elimination of ingenuity and effort.

Art is the result of effort and skill, talent, and commitment to craft. It isn’t easy, and it shouldn’t be. Hard work is the point. Learning a craft is the point. These make you a better person. Which is what art does: It elevates the artist, and we participate in it, as people. We want to see people succeed, and enjoy the output of people, not machine simulacra. 

A sincere question for the AI enthusiasts.

Do you enjoy football, or boxing? The Olympic games? Do you admire people who transform their bodies on the bodybuilding stage, or who go to boot camp to pass through the fire and become better versions of themselves?

If so, why not surrender all of this to machines, too? After all, robots are faster, and stronger. Not subject to injuries, gridlocked contract negotiations, illness, aging.

When you celebrate AI art, you are celebrating a machine, not a person.

Most of us want to see people on the stage. We admire the human spirit, in all its frailty and limitation. We cheer when it rises above, agonize when it fails. And cheer again when we see someone pick themselves up from the dirt, out of the ashes of defeat, and try again. There is nobility in this.

Art is no different. 

Bringing true art into the world must remain hard work, because that is the point. You’re working for yourself, not letting the machine do it for you. Start using LLMs and you become dependent on them, and ultimately a slave.

Howard read everything he could. He experienced rejection. He rewrote drafts. He experimented in different genres and created new ones. He created fabulous worlds and titanically heroic characters while working in the most banal and arid landscape imaginable.

His poetry and fire came from within, his great passions and outrages and loves, hammered out on a steel typewriter.* And despite occasional bouts of self-loathing, he was damned proud of it. 

Howard would be outraged by our willing surrender to the machine. We know this because he said so, again and again.

“I look back with envy at the greater freedom known by my ancestors on the frontier. Hard work? Certainly they worked hard. But they were building something; making the most of opportunities; working for themselves, not merely cogs grinding in a soulless machine, as is the modern working man, whose life is a constant round of barren toil infinitely more monotonous and crushing than the toil on the frontier.”

--Letter from Robert E. Howard to H.P. Lovecraft, Jan. 1934

Art is uniquely human and must be kept that way. We go to Robert E. Howard Days, and visit his home, and attend panels, to honor the man. Are going to go to OpenAI Days, or Anthropic Days? To honor CEOs who fully admit that these machines have a nonzero chance of destroying humanity? Whose companies deliberately stole authors’ copyrighted works, ingested them illegally and without permission, and now sells them back to customers for monthly subscription fees? And whose products now choke the internet with artificial slop?

I reject this future. 

What would Conan do? He’d smash the metal motherfuckers to junk.

Choose your side.

I know where I stand. I am a Writer Against AI.

*I believe LLMs have valid applications, just not in the arts. Shove your “luddite” claims up your ass.

**Yes, a machine, but one that sits dumb and inert. Each letter must be pressed into paper by force of will, generated by a human brain.

Desert Plains, Judas Priest

It's July, 7 o'clock in the evening. The New England night is warm. I'm sitting in my car, windows rolled down. The moon and stars are glittering above … and I’ve got an evening ahead of Judas Priest style heavy metal.

The Priest* is playing Uncle Eddie's Oceanside Tavern in Salisbury. A dive bar teetering on shithole, but one I happen to love.

I drive out of the garage, press play on my curated Judas Priest playlist, and hear this:

This song takes me to some desert plain, the stars wheeling overhead on a trip to nowhere and everywhere all at once. Nowhere to go and no responsibilities ...  and everything ahead. I've got a life to live.

But tonight is the next best thing. Route 110, a straight line to the New England coast, toward the salt tang and deep roar of the Atlantic ocean. Sour black leather and cold beer and dude companionship, with good-looking chicks and a dumpy bar as the backdrop. 

Heavy metal until midnight. 

I've done this. Have you? I hope so. There's still time.

"Desert Plains" is the ultimate driving song. You heard this guitar tone in the mid-80s but you don't hear it anymore. This is it in its full glory. "Heading Out to the Highway" is comparable but it lacks the slow, stoned, ethereal vibe of "Desert Plains." Listening to it puts me on an Arizona highway, one of those flat, level, straight to the horizon stretches where you press down on the gas pedal and roar past 80 ... 90 ... and just keep going.

With Judas Priest as the soundtrack.

* The Priest is a New England based tribute band to Judas Priest.

Unboxing Savagery

It had been more than 30 years since I last bought an issue of the original Savage Sword of Conan*, and almost as long since I read one cover-to-cover.

But just a few days ago I unboxed all my back issues and laid them out in their glory on my bar top. And began to thumb through the old pages. 

Why now, after all this time?

I don’t quite know, but here’s a few possible explanations.

I’m tired of screens and digital art.

I’m an old newspaper guy and love the smell of newsprint and ink.

The covers are glorious.

But I also felt the draw of something deeper … an urge to reconnect with my past, which is what these comic books represent. They are a little bit of who I am. We are at least partially our things, or perhaps our things are an outward reflection of who we are. 

I am a little bit Conan. 

There is something awe inspiring about this picture. Beholding all at once the output of so many talented artists bringing to life an old pulp character now passed into myth, moves me.

The greatest creation of Robert E. Howard will endure forever.

Question: How many adventures can Conan go on? 

Answer: Yes.

I have a lot of old issues of Savage Sword of Conan from its classic run, 1974-1995. I had forgotten how many, and surprised myself in this great unboxing. I own more than I thought, just north of 100 issues. Should you want to know the exact numbers:

1, 5, 6, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 67, 69, 75, 76, 78, 80, 81, 82, 84, 92, 94, 95, 97, 100, 103, 104, 105, 106, 109, 110, 112, 113, 115, 117, 118, 121, 125, 126, 127, 129, 133, 135, 137, 144, 148, 149, 150, 151, 153, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 177, 178, 184

And I have more than just SSOC.

You don’t hear a whole lot of enthusiasm for Conan Saga. It’s the red-head stepchild of Conan magazines, mentioned if at all as a vehicle for low-priced reprints.

There is a fair bit of truth to this. That’s what Conan Saga mainly did. But it wasn’t just SSOC reprints. The first nine issues are mostly reprints of Conan the Barbarian, black and white versions of the color originals—so original in a sense. Conan Saga also sprinkled in stories from Savage Tales and unexpected rares like “The Sword and the Sorcerers!” a non-Conan story from a comic I’d never heard of, Chamber of Darkness (1970), written by the great Roy Thomas and illustrated by Barry Windsor-Smith. Here’s the synopsis:

A writer who is selling barbarian stories of Starr the Slayer that come to him in dreams plans to kill off Starr in the next story because the dreams are putting too much of a strain upon his health. On his way to the office, Starr assaults him out of an alley with accusations of assassin upon his lips. The writer is unbelieving, even to the point that Starr raises his sword and strikes him down. Starr wakes in his own world and relates a dream to his faithful minstrel wherein he struck down a grave threat to his life.

Cool. I’m going to give this one a read.

Only when it hit double-digits did Conan Saga largely give way to mainly SSOC reprints.

I believe the first nine covers by Barry Windsor-Smith are all first run originals. They make for beautiful keepsakes.

For me Conan Saga was a Godsend. I’ve said many times that SSOC was my gateway to sword-and-sorcery, and I was not lying—save that I forgot to mention the role of Conan Saga.

I guarantee you can track these down at a fraction of the price of SSOC.

I’ve also got other cool odds and ends, of the same savage ilk. Kull and the Barbarians #2. Savage Sword Super Annual. And a really cool full color Marvel Super Special #9, starring The Savage Sword of Conan in full color.

I love the text pieces on The Hyborian Legion and the Conan comics chronology. 

Unboxing these issues opened a window into my past. If you notice the long (near) unbroken run—roughly issues 148-178—it begins in May 1988 and ends in August 1990. I was born in 1973, so that means roughly age 14-17 I was regularly hitting my local book store and buying new issues as they came out, rarely missing a month.

… until senior year of high school and college. My disposable income shifted toward heavy metal, beer, and chicks and I stopped buying new issues.

The venerable magazine wrapped its incredible 21 year run with the July 1995 issue, just a few months after I graduated. I find it comforting that SSOC was there for me, all the way through college, as I left home to wench and swill ale on a grand adventure of which Conan himself would approve.

Savage.

*My brother bought me a couple of back issues a few years ago, including SSOC #1 which I recently broke out in honor of Robert E. Howard’s birthday. I have also purchased the first half dozen of the new Titan run.

New email newsletter: Arcane Arts: Dispatches From The Silver Key

That email newsletter widget on the side of the blog, over there ==> ?

I'm finally putting it to use.

The first issue of Arcane Arts: Dispatches From the Silver Key has hit inboxes.

Important note to would-be subscribers: CHECK YOUR SPAM FOLDER

If you used this form to sign up, you might not have received the first issue.

I know this because the platform, Kit, tells me which subscribers are confirmed vs. unconfirmed. I've got 12-15 folks who signed up, but haven't clicked "confirm" on the auto-email that kicks out to confirm you've keyed in the right email address.

If this sounds like you, or you did not receive the first issue, check your spam folder. If you signed up months ago and/your spam folder is empty, try subscribing again. You just need to confirm once and you're on the list.

Issue #1

I published the first issue via email but also to the web, you can read it here:

 https://brian-murphy.kit.com/posts/what-s-brewing-with-arcane-arts-dispatches-from-the-silver-key-6

I'm still pondering what with I want to do with Arcane Arts, but suffice to say it will be something interesting and wizardly. I kick around some ideas in this first issue but welcome your suggestions here as well. 

It's not meant to replace anything I'm doing on The Silver Key (hence, dispatches from). I see it primarily as a way to keep in touch with folks who might otherwise forget to return to this dusty corner of cyberspace. It makes the blog a bit more sticky.

Trapped in the web... of Arcane Arts.