Conan and the Cup of Destiny

In the summers of my childhood, there were few delights more refreshing than 7-Eleven's Slurpee – the store's carbonated frozen ice beverage. During the 1970s, when I was growing up, it was not at all uncommon for Slurpees to come in a plastic cup festooned with images of professional athletes or folkloric monsters or Wild West historical figures. In a few cases, I'd hold on to the cup, wash it out, and then re-use it. For example, I held on to a cup featuring skeletal cowboys for quite some time, simply my younger self thought it looked cool.

In 1977. 7-Eleven produced a series of Slurpee cups that featured Marvel Comics characters. This was apparently the second such series, the first having come out two years prior, but I don't recall ever seeing the original run. In '77, I wasn't much of a comics reader, but I did like Spider-Man, thanks in large part to the 1967 show that I watched in reruns at an impressionable age. Consequently, I was quite keen to get a Spider-Man Slurpee cup and visited 7-Eleven multiple times during the summer in the hope of acquiring one.

Despite my best efforts, I was never successful in this endeavor, having to content myself instead with cups featuring characters I'd never heard of before, like Namor and Nova – and Conan the Barbarian. At that time – I would have been nearly eight years old – I'd never encountered the name Conan outside the middle name of the creator of Sherlock Holmes. He was completely unknown to me and I recall being very puzzled by his inclusion in a series of cups that seemed otherwise to include only illustrations of superheroes, such as my beloved Spider-Man. Because Conan meant nothing to me at the time, I didn't keep the cup and moved on to other things.

This being the summer of 1977, foremost among those other things was George Lucas's space opera, Star Wars. Like every other little boy (and quite a few little girls), I was obsessed with Star Wars, snatching up as many tie-in products with it as I could. Among those tie-in products was a Marvel comics series, initially written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Howard Chaykin. The series began by adapting the 1977 film over the course of six issues and then moved on to wholly original material whose quality varied, but which I generally liked enough that I kept reading it for several years, right up until the release of The Empire Strikes Back in 1980.

Most issues included an advertisement for subscriptions to Marvel comics. Though I never subscribed to any comics – I relied on the spinner rack at the local drug store – I nevertheless would glance over these ads to see what other titles Marvel had on offer. That's where I saw Conan the Barbarian once again, sometimes with an image of the mighty thewed warrior himself. Who was this guy? As before, I was baffled by his presence among so many superheroes. Mind you, I was equally baffled by the presence of Howard the Duck as well, so what did I know?

Some time later – I can't quite recall when but certainly before I was first introduced to Dungeons & Dragons in late 1979 – I stumbled across the name Conan again. This time, it was at my local library, which I visited regularly. Middle River Public Library had been my gateway to so many fantasy and science fiction books and writers, forming the basis for so many of my fondest childhood memories. One day, I took notice a spinner rack filled with white paperback books all of which bore the name CONAN in large, colorful letters. I still had no idea who Conan was or why he seemed to keep popping up, but there was he was once more. I wasn't yet ready to answer this question, as these paperbacks seemed a bit too "adult" for my tastes, judging by their moody painted covers.

My initial judgment over this Conan fellow eventually seemed confirmed when a friend of mine, on a visit to the drugstore to pick up the latest issue of Star Wars, pointed out that there were comic books for sale behind the counter, "behind the counter" being childish code, for the place where they kept those magazines. Sure enough, my friend was correct. I caught glimpse of a comic entitled Savage Sword of Conan, whose cover art reminded me quite a bit of those white paperbacks I'd seen at the library. I was now certain I'd never figure out the mystery of Conan and his connection to Marvel comics.

That's where things stood for some time. It wasn't until sometime in 1981 or thereabouts, by which point I was an older and more worldly twelve years-old that I took up any serious interest in Conan. The AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide mentions the "Conan series" in Appendix N, along with its author, Robert E. Howard. Holmes also includes a mention of Howard and Moldvay's bibliography cites Howard alongside many other authors whose books I had already read and enjoyed. Furthermore, many of the older guys I knew who played D&D seem to love Howard and Conan. Maybe, I decided, it was time to finally figure out who Conan was and why he seemed to be everywhere I went. So, I went off to the library and grabbed one of those paperbacks off the spinner rack and checked it out. The rest, as they say, is history.

I mention all of this because today is the birthday of Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan and many other characters who are now among the most famous and enduring literary creations of all time. It's funny to consider that I first became acquainted with both of them thanks to comic books published more than three decades after Howard's death by a company that didn't even exist at the time of his demise. I think that's a testament to just how remarkable was REH's imagination that a shy, nerdy, and prudish kid growing up in suburban Baltimore would one day come to love the products of it. So many other writers, who lived longer and wrote more, have been forgotten by history, but Howard – and Conan – live on.

Happy birthday, Bob.