Conan Update: From Show to Film, the State of the IP

With the attempted rekindling of the Conan IP (see below), I wanted to take a look at both the background and its current status. We're at an odd phase culturally, with the ever increasing popularity of fantasy slamming into 'progressive' Orwellian restrictions (a bit like McCarthyism flipped on its head), making Conan front and center in the battle to escape the top-down narrowing of the field into a weird merger of teen novels with banal postmodern subversion.

To start with, I'll point out that much of Conan's popularity is based not just on the original stories by Robert E. Howard (1906-36), but on pastiche novels from various hands afterwards (including Robert Jordan and Karl Edward Wagner), comic adaptations, and the 1982 film with Arnold Schwarzenegger. With the exception of the film, these iterations were initially inspired by the edited iterations from L. Sprague de Camp (beginning in the 1960s and carrying on into the 70s). That aside, the bedrock remains the originals, such that anyone who wants to tackle the IP has to be firmly entrenched in it (we can see the negative results of ignoring source material in things like Rings of Power, The Wheel of Time, etc). In order to make a successful adaptation there needs to be a firm grounding in the chronology of events, something rather tricky with the Howard canon.

Timeline

Howard never formally organized or completed a chronology for the character (it's doubtful he ever intended something that well defined). While Conan's original stories are episodic, they do have throughlines that can be followed. Up through the 1980s the usual timeline used by imitators/adaptors was the Miller/Clark timeline (I won't get into the weeds of that), but this pseudo-canonical version was challenged by Conan scholars in the 1980s and by the early 2000s had transformed into the largely accepted Rippke chronology (which was used for the Dark Horse comic run at the time). Why does this matter? Because it's important to know when and where pivotal events occur to inform the Conan arc. The character has three main epochs: his early days establishing himself as mercenary and experiencing civilization for the first time; his time when he's established as a respected outsider; his rule as king (the latter is loosely the inspiration for George R. R. Martin's character Robert Baratheon, whose first name is a nod to REH himself). These eras impact how he behaves and how people react to him.

What we've been told about the upcoming comic series from Titan is that they are using their own timeline, but it's not vastly different from what's already out there (presumably a slightly adjusted Rippke); there may be legal reasons to change it, or it may simply be to allow more creative freedom in when and how Conan is represented. This new timeline will almost certainly be used for the upcoming film (should it appear, see below), since the rights holder is responsible for both. Below I've listed the Rippke chronology as a rough guideline, highlighting particularly popular stories in green and those published posthumously or turned into pastiches in italics.

Rippke Chronology*

"The Frost-Giant's Daughter" (unpublished in REH's lifetime)

"The God in the Bowl" (unpublished)

"The Tower of the Elephant"

"The Hall of the Dead" (unfinished; De Camp novelette based on it in 1967)
"Rogues in the House"

"The Hand of Nergal"

"Shadows in the Moonlight"

"Black Colossus"

"Queen of the Black Coast"

"The Snout in the Dark" (unfinished; De Camp/Lin Carter story based on it in 1969)

"The Slithering Shadow"/"Xuthal of the Dusk"

"A Witch Shall Be Born"

"The Devil in Iron"

"The People of the Black Circle"

"Shadows in Zamboula"/"The Man-Eaters of Zamboula"

"Drums of Tombalku" (unfinished; De Camp story based on it in 1966)

"The Vale of Lost Women" (unpublished)

"The Pool of the Black One"

"Beyond the Black River"

"The Black Stranger" (unpublished)

"Red Nails"

"Jewels of Gwahlur"/"Servants of Bit-Yakin"

"Wolves Beyond the Border" (unpublished and re-written by REH as a Western that was also not published; Del Rey version in 1953, De Camp version in 1967)

"The Phoenix on the Sword" (originally the King Kull story 'By This Axe I Rule', but re-written by REH for Conan when it didn't sell)

"The Scarlet Citadel"

The Hour of the Dragon**

*There are errors in the Conan Wiki suggesting a slightly different order listed for Rippke than Rippke himself (or the Wiki's own list), transitioning from "Shadows" to "Witch" etc within the specific articles themselves rather than the list page
**For a number of reasons the novel's plot borrows heavily from "Black Colossus", "The Phoenix on the Sword", and especially "The Scarlet Citadel"

In a comic book series you can jump around in the timeline (just as the original stories did in the pulps), but in a film (or TV-series) the onus is to start early and progress forward. What I'd like to see in a show or film is someone adapt "The Tower of the Elephant" as the character's introduction, particularly as its one of the few stories in the source material to feature genuine pathos and the otherworldly elements Howard borrowed from his friend H. P. Lovecraft. According to writer Jim Zub, besides the OG stories, his primary inspiration for the new comic book series are the Savage Sword of Conan by Roy Thomas in the 70s and the Kurt Busiek run at Dark Horse in the early 2000s (both representing the beginning of the IP at each company). The 12-page free teaser for the series is already out and while there's nothing new for someone familiar with the IP, it's a good introduction to the art style and what the character is all about.

Adaptation Issues

One of the problems for Conan is that very few supporting characters survive after their introductory story (most die). While this is a positive in pulp fiction, it doesn't mesh well with modern storytelling. The most formulaic Conan stories devolve into monster/lady-of-the-week (not problematic in pulp or comics, but it is in a TV show or series of films). It's notable that the best of the original stories have more going on in them, so what can you do?

One option is expanding an existing story with surviving characters and carry them forward (like Valeria in "Red Nails"). Newly created characters can be inserted, although it becomes more difficult to make them work when you are sticking to the existing canon (since they will be forced to vanish repeatedly). There's also the option to merge several characters, as Roy Thomas did in creating Red Sonja (cf), but I think that's much less likely given how the current rights operator sees the IP.

What about our modern audience? One of the supposed concerns over the last 6-7 years is the fragile, progressive younger audiences--how can we appeal to them? We know this concern is fake and simply a byproduct of the strings attached to BlackRock investment (who are quite open in pushing social engineering), but since most people are unaware of that, let's take the rhetoric seriously. As we've seen from the numbers, pandering does not work (Gen Z doesn't care and are happily reading manga and watching anime en masse which, if anything, echoes comics of the 1970s). So the answer is, artistically, almost nothing. There are a few things within Howard's work that would need adjusting (these stories were written in the 1930s and designed to appeal to that audience), but those changes are minimal. One element that's not at issue with the IP is diversity, as Conan's stories are stuffed with diverse people (Conan cares about your behaviour, not your ethnicity).

The Future

The Conan IP has been on a long journey ever since Millenium's failed Jason Momoa vehicle in 2011. The faults of that film were not its star, but the terrible writing. Years afterwards, Amazon acquired the rights and approved two seasons under future House of the Dragon team Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik, but this was axed when Jennifer Salke took over, seeing the IP as 'too problematic'. Netflix acquired the series and put it under original Daredevil team Steven S. DeKnight and Kris Henigman. After three years what's rumoured is the duo had a falling out with Netflix (unrelated to Conan) and Rob David, the man responsible for Netflix's disastrous He-Man cartoon, was brought onboard. This made it impossible to make a proper Conan adaptation since David wanted the IP to be made for 'a modern audience' while the rights holder wanted an actual adaptation. The show was thus taken away from Netflix, so what now?

The new plan is for a film. While I think a show is a better fit (as it matches both the original pulp format as well as the successful comic adaptations), this is the next best thing. Despite the problems on screen, Conan properties is not floundering, as it's 2018 MMO (Conan Exiles) is doing well; we've had a new Conan book from S. M. Stirling (Conan: Blood of the Serpent) which hit shelves in December (the first Conan novel since the movie adaptation in 2011 and the first pastiche since Harry Turtledove's Conan of Venarium from 2003); the original stories by REH remain constantly in print; and a new comic series at Titan via Jim Zub is launching this summer (away from the withered and dying Marvel). I'm not a fan of MMO's and would rather see a proper video game RPG, but personal preferences aside, these are all good signs (unlike some other abused and dying IPs). This doesn't guarantee we'll get a good or successful film (Courtney Soloman had the best of intentions with his Dungeons & Dragons film, after all), but what it does mean is the IP still resonates and there's an audience for it. I do wonder about distribution for such a film, as that's currently holding up Millenium's Red Sonja, but given that interest in Conan has never gone away, time is on his side.

This article was written by Peter Levi