Thursday, July 2, 2009

Cimmerian sighting: I scored a copy of Savage Sword of Conan #1

I would guess it’s been well over a decade—perhaps 15 years or more—since I bought my last issue of The Savage Sword of Conan, the great old magazine that was my introduction to the writings of Robert E. Howard. But I’ve kept all my back issues safely tucked away in a magazine box and I still break them out from time to time. They remain great reads.

Given that I’m hardly a collector of the magazine it was with great surprise that I opened a birthday present from by brother last week to find SSOC # 1 inside. I’m not sure why he bought me the issue—perhaps because he knows I now write blog posts for The Cimmerian—but regardless, I was thrilled.

For those who don’t own a copy—or for those die-hard collectors who have it hermetically sealed and have never read its contents—I’m including a full review of SSOC #1, and my initial thoughts on opening this holy grail of Conan collectables.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian Web site.

18 comments:

  1. The Savage Sword was my introduction to Conan, too; Issue #32, August of 1978. Termites devastated my original collection. Not too long ago they re-issued the whole run, and now Dark Horse Books has started publishing the stories (without, alas, the great essays and collections of artwork that made the original magazine such an event)in omnibus volumes. They are up to Volume 3 now.

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  2. Hey Brer, I've debated picking up the Dark Horse reprints (having many holes in my collection of original SSOCs), but the exclusion of the essays and other articles has given me pause. I still may.

    Sorry to hear about the loss of your collection.

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  3. Actually (I hate to be the guy to say that) Volume 5 is available and 6 will be shortly forthcoming.

    I buy up the originals whenever I can find them, but still buy the darkhorse reprints for the sake of holes in the collection.

    I had the choice year or two ago of either buying 1# like you did Brian, or buying 7, 12, 15, 16 , 17, 18, 21 for the same price. I went with more for the sake of more articles, art etc.

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