Sword & Sorcery: Literature or Junk?

I've been silent as of late, due to a high travel tempo for my career and now a case of the good old summer crud; however, as always, I have been reading and thinking about Conan, Robert Howard and the sword and sorcery genre in general. Lately, I have begun re-reading the L. Sprague de Camp/Lin Carter/Björn Nyberg pastiche. This has led to a spate of re-reading much of de Camp's non-fiction essays as they appear in The Spell of Conan and The Blade of Conan. This post won't be my opinion of de Camp, that is a complicated relationship that deserves its own post sometime in the future.

What I do want to talk about is the opinion of Sword & Sorcery in general. Sword & Sorcery, as a genre has been sneered at over the several decades since its unintentional inception by Bob Howard. The predominant opinion among the literati (my favorite term for those that consider themselves the prime, critical connoisseurs of all that should and could be considered Literature, with the capital "L") is that Sword & Sorcery is escapist literature at its best and unhealthy, pseudo-sexual, violent fantasy re-creation at its worst. L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter (and this is a generalization, not a direct quote) have both in various introductions and essays I have read, called Sword & Sorcery (or Sword-play and Sorcery--a de Camp preference) a guilty pleasure meant to help the reader escape to a simpler time.

I take umbrage with the term "guilty pleasure". A long time ago, in a galaxy far-far away, I was in an Introduction to Western Literature class. My professor gave us a lecture that the kernel of which was this: if you read junk, then your mind is full of junk; therefore, you should read the good stuff, so your brain will be full of the good stuff. She then assigned us to write a short essay, completed in class, in which we were to write a few short paragraphs about our favorite guilty pleasures; after all, as she told us, while we should predominantly read "the good stuff", like an athlete on a restrictive diet, it was good to cheat once in awhile, and read some "guilty pleasure" stuff -- perhaps during our Holiday break or during the summer, so that we didn't get the urge to pig-out on the "bad stuff". Take a taste, then get back to the regiment. It will make you more deeply appreciate "the good stuff" (all her opinion, quoted from memory as best as I can).

I wrote a paragraph, not very long as I remember. My thesis was simple. If I enjoy reading something, I have no reason to feel any guilt about it. If it brings me pleasure, and no laws are broken by my doing so, then who is she, or anyone else for that matter, to tell me what the good stuff is, or the bad stuff? I don't remember her exact reaction, but I don't think that she thought I was truly embracing the spirit of the lecture/exercise.

That is an opinion I will always stand-by. It holds true for all genre literature, comic books (another often attacked pleasure of mine) and movies. But it does not answer the question: is Sword & Sorcery Literature or Junk? How is it defended? Can it be defended? It's a good question and I don't feel I can adequately answer it in one short blog post. It's a topic in need of more research. I would ask the readers of this blog to help me answer it, and perhaps I will explore it more deeply in the future, after my summer crud is gone and I've had the time to investigate it at my local university library.

My short answer is I believe Sword & Sorcery is Literature and not Junk. My defense of this is a long-term project that I am itching to begin working upon.

However, food for thought: Science Fiction is often easily defensible as Literature (with the capital L) as it often serves as a commentary upon our recent society (or the society of its time); consider Stranger in a Strange Land, or even the various robot stories of Asimov (easily viewed as the fear a culture has of an ever increasing mechanized society). Please consider giving your opinions on these statements/questions either as a comment here, or if you prefer as an email (kilsern71 at gmail dot com):

• Recent history often plays a role in the author's thought process. Consider the recent history of Howard's time. World War I ended in 1918, to what extent did that influence Howard's barbarous created world? 
• Howard and Lovecraft exchanged letters over an extended time that argued the virtues of civilization versus barbarism, what are some examples of how Conan best stands for Howard's opinion that barbarism was mans natural state? 
• A revival of sword and sorcery began in the 60's and 70's, the current political state of the U.S. at that time could be viewed as one in which many people believed that it was failing. How does Sword & Sorcery best exemplify this?

Howard Criticism: The Dark Man, Part I Roy Thomas Interview

I have a small, but always growing, section of essays and critical works about Robert E. Howard. For sometime now, I've had intentions of checking out The Dark Man: The Journal of Robert E. Howard Studies. I finally made good on that intention and ordered a sample copy. I picked up Volume 5, No. 2 August 2010. I chose this issue knowing that there was a Roy Thomas interview, which was the main attraction for me.

The issue itself is just shy of 50 pages and features two articles: the aforementioned interview with Roy Thomas and an article that briefly looks at one of my favorite nostalgic items, fanzines; particularly, Fantasy Crossroads. Both features were entertaining and worth the price.

The Dark Man was started in 1990 by Rusty Burke (a name I am familiar with from several other Howard related sources). With the help of Necronomicon Press, Mr. Burke released the first issue. The particular issue in discussion here served as the 20th anniversary.

The cover art is by Bo Hampton and is from a portfolio of sample art he sent to Dark Horse Comics when they were looking for artists for their Solomon Kane comics.

This posting turned out longer than I anticipated, so will be done in two parts. In the first part, I will look at the Roy Thomas interview.

"The Man Who Helped Conan: An Interview with Roy Thomas", by Jeffery Kahan. The interview itself was a phone interview and tape recorded. I will cherry pick a few highlights that I enjoyed (JK = Jeffery Kahan, RT = Roy Thomas, comments in Bold are mine):

JK: Where did [the interest in Conan as a comic book character] spring from?

RT: It was really thrust upon me by the Marvel readership...we started getting a lot of letters...suggesting various things Marvel ought to buy the rights to...Marvel didn't generally license characters in those days...

Thomas goes on to say that Marvel mostly made up their own characters. This was before franchising was common. Conan, and all licensed properties, could have been ignored and Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith could have easily just made up their own barbarian character. If that had happened, things could have gone very differently for Conan.

RT: So we ended up having permission...to go after a Sword and Sorcery character...We figured Conan was probably out of our reach...[Stan Lee] preferred names like Kull and this other name I told him about, Thongor, which was Lin Carter's character...So we first went after Thongor. Lin Carter liked the idea of his characters being made into comics...but his agent did not like the $150 an issue that [Martin] Goodman had authorized me to offer for it.


Wow, Lin Carter really should have had a different agent. Just think, if his agent had accepted the offer, we could right now be Thongor-maniacs instead of Conan-maniacs! On a side note, Thongor did appear in Marvel comics, in Creatures on the Loose #22 (1973).


JK: Your collaboration with Barry Windsor-Smith remains a bit of a mystery. In his official online biography, he states that he drew the pictures and then added some dialogue in the borders and that you then added filler.

I love that word "filler" as stated by Mr. Kahan. It infers that Thomas didn't do much of anything and that Windsor-Smith did it all.

RT: I'm not saying that Barry is totally wrong. He tends to exaggerate--as we all tend to do, I suppose--his part of things, I assume quite sincerely, but he is still wrong.


 Thomas goes on to politely refute Windsor-Smith, and does so without "calling him out"; however, some of my favorite Conan comics are the Thomas/Windsor-Smith collaborations. I like most of the Thomas issues with artists other than BWS, but those with him remain my favorites and are, in my opinion, superior to most other Conan collaborations. I wonder just how much was due to BWS and not RT?  Thomas also points out, and I'm paraphrasing here, that memory is a tricky thing; therefore, Windsor-Smith might actually believe that he was the driving force behind Marvel's Conan the Barbarian. Mr. Thomas is exactly right. Memory is tricky and often events are different than how we remember them. With that in mind, how accurate is the memory of Roy Thomas?


Mr. Kahan asks him about a the various What If? appearances of Conan (vs. Captain America, vs. Wolverine, etc.). Thomas states that he was under constant pressure, mostly from Stan Lee, to bring in other characters from the Marvel Universe. At one point:


RT: [because] the book was doing poorly...we basically were told by Stan [Lee] that we were going to have  to bring Thor in....It made more sense than a lot of characters...Barry and I toyed with the idea of Thor having a little more primitive version of his costume. The thing is, right about that time, the sales suddenly took a bounce...[and] Stan stopped the push to get us to use Thor.

The Conan fan in me is glad that Thomas worked hard to isolate my favorite barbarian from the rest of the Marvel U, What If? appearances aside (which I enjoy), it's hard to marvel at Conan's strength when he is going toe-to-toe with the Hulk. I think bringing in Thor would have killed the comic (it was done, years later in an issue of What If?). To bring in Thor would have essentially changed the comic Conan the Barbarian  to Thor and the Barbarian. It may or may not, have put a serious dent in the popularity of Conan as a franchise; however, the Marvel Fan-Boy within really wants to know if Barry Windsor-Smith did any preliminary sketches of Thor wearing "a little more primitive version of his costume" possibly doing battle alongside Conan? If so, I'd love to see/own them.


Skipping ahead, Roy Thomas starts speaking of other actors considered for the role of Conan in 1982's Conan the Barbarian: Charles Bronson, Sylvester Stallone and Michael York. 


I end with that, and a request. Could someone with art skills better than my own submit a rendition of A) Charles Bronson as Conan, B) Stallone as same and the one I really want, C) Michael York as my favorite barbarian. Please?

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