Conan (1967) The Thing in the Crypt

This is the first in a series of posts about the original 196os-1970s Conan paperbacks. I haven’t worried about Howard versus pastichers or any of that. (REH is the master. The rest I read with reservations.) I just want to enjoy them as I used to do as a kid of thirteen. And along with that was the Marvel Comics which I bought as well. Admittedly a nostalgia trip for me, but many of us experienced Conan filtered through L. Sprague de Camp/Roy Thomas/Lancer Books and Donald A. Wolheim as editor at ACE Books. All these men, along with the publishers at Marvel had an influence on our first Sword & Sorcery experience. If you are much older than I, you may have first read of the Cimmerian in the old Gnome Books, and had less people between you. If you are much, much older than me, you might have read the stories in the original Weird Tales, where only Farnsworth Wright had any influence on REH. (That being the power to encourage or reject stories, and not much else.)

As Karl Edward Wagner said in his Bantam editions of Conan, the spirit of Howard’s Conan dulled a little through this editing process. I can now read those original Pulp versions but I will always have a fondness for the purple edged paperbacks with the Frazetta covers (or sadly not, in some cases). Conan (1967) was not the first book from Lancer, but this is not a history of Lancer Books. It is what I call “The Original Conan Series” in order.

The cover is a classic Frank Frazetta, one of my absolute favorites. The scene is Conan attacking Thak the apeman in “The Rogues in the House”. When I think of the color red, I think of this image.

This book contains stories that were of the young Conan. Howard didn’t write the series in order by the age of his character. It was up to editors to place everything into shape, following a chronology devised by P. Schuyler Miller and Dr. John D. Clark. The schedule was approved by REH in a letter. This letter opens the book after an biographic introduction by L. Sprague de Camp.

Anyone who doubts J. R. R. Tolkien’s explosive success in 1965 had any influence on the editors at Lancer should look at the next feature. A portion of a long pseudo-history was included.”The Hyborian Age Part 1″ feels like a bit of Tolkienian world building. For more on Tolkien’s influence, go here.  I personally find it fascinating now but I can remember I skipped it to get to the stories back in the 1970s. Part 1 originally appeared in The Phantagraph, a fanzine by Donald A. Wollheim back in 1936. That’s not all DAW did. He was also responsible for that paperback Tolkien phenom in 1965. His influence starts while REH was still alive.

Our opening tale isn’t one by REH but a pastiche familiar to us all, a tale by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter. It is original to this book. I say familiar because it was partly used as the opener for Conan the Barbarian in 1982. (I won’t get on how disappointed I was when that skeleton didn’t get up, AGAIN.)  “The Thing in the Crypt” begins in a Jack London mode that is quite appropriate for Howard, who was a fan. Young Conan has escaped slavery and is being hunted by wolves. He kills some with his slave chain then loses some through the thin river ice. He seeks shelter in a cave that proves to be the entrance of an ancient tomb. He lights a fire with stray branches and debris. There he finds a giant warrior’s corpse sitting on a throne. Across the lich’s lap is a sword. Conan takes the sword then whoops the war cry of his tribe. (I had forgotten about this detail.) The corpse rises to the challenge and the fight is on. The young Cimmerian cuts off a skeleton hand that later attacks him. The battle ends when he pushes the lich into his fire. My only question today is: what happened to the Atlantean sword? Surely some clever thief in Arenjun separated the green lad from the North from his prize.

Roy Thomas adapted this story twice! The first one was “The Shadow on the Tomb” in Conan the Barbarian #31, October 1973. In this version there is no corpse but when you take the sword your shadow attacks you. I suspect Roy got the idea from this portion of one paragraph:

Numb with superstitious terror, Conan retreated step by step. The firelight painted the mummy’s black, monstrous shadow on the wall behind it. The shadow rippled over the rough stone…

The artwork in this one is an early John Buscema/Ernie Chan collaboration. Parts are quite rough compared to the excellent stuff they did later. Roy Thomas adds material to the front and back of the tale. As an adaptation, it kinda stinks.

Which is probably why Thomas tried again in Conan the Barbarian #92, November 1978. This time we have Sal Buscema and Ernie Chan drawing a very faithful adaptation. Roy doesn’t leave anything out. The art is gorgeous too. Sal Buscema doesn’t get enough credit sometimes.

Conclusion

Around the time of the second adaptation, I got into Dungeons & Dragons. When my party encountered the Lich I immediately thought of this Carter/deCamp tale. Turns out though that Gary Gygax was inspired by another writer, Gardner F. Fox and the first Kothar tale “The Sword of the Sorcerer” (1969). This is two years after “The Thing in the Crypt” but when you look at both stories, you can see where Gygax was coming from. I still wonder if the Conan tale wasn’t in there, too. The other obvious connection for me was the animated skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts (1963). Lin Carter would have been a Ray Harryhausen fan. (Who isn’t?)

The other note of interest relates to “The Thing in the Crypt” is a Thongor story, “The Creature in the Crypt”, a pastiche by Robert M. Price. According to Adrian Cole’s introduction to Young Thongor (2012), the story is based on the same outline Carter used to write “The Thing in the Crypt” so not surprising, it reads a lot the same. I’m not sure why Price wanted to shadow such an iconic story but he holds the Carter copyrights so who are we to complain? For more on the original Thongor stories, go here.

Next time…“The Tower of the Elephant”…