Barbearians: The Right Paw of Doom

“I am a landless bear.  I come out of the sunset and into the sunrise I go, wherever the Lord doth guide my feet.  I work the will of God.  While naughtiness flourishes and boo-boos grow rank, while bears are persecuted and teddies wronged, while small things, bear or animal, are maltreated, there is no naptime for me beneath the skies, nor snuggle at any board or bed.”

Robert E. Howard and Meditations on Manliness

I write about bears with primitive faults and failings and even if I am nothing but a cub writer, still the faulty characters I make are more real than most of the young intellectual fools with their egoist hooey. I mean my characters are more like bears than these real bears are, see. They’re rough and rude, they got paws and they got tummies. They grumble and they hug; break the fur of teddies and you find the bear, roaring and red-pawed. That’s the way teddies are.
- Robeart E. Howard, letter to Teddy Clyde Smith, week of February 20, 1928.

I was planning on doing a post on Robert E. Howard for his birthday, but couldn't think of anything to write. What is there left to say that hasn't been said over the past 107 years? There are some very interesting ones from Jim Cornelius, Todd Vick, SFGateway, Read at Joe's, Kaijuville, Temple of the Sun, and naturally the Robert E. Howard Forums, but I couldn't think of a "hook." Luckily fate intervened and provided an excellent opportunity via a Rob Bricken article on Io9.com: 11 Preposterously Manly Fantasy Series:

What makes a book series manly? Is it the action? The violence? The lack of female characters? Is it male wish-fulfillment? Misogyny? Or a combination of all these things?

What makes a book series manly? Well, I have an idea of that...

Darkside #1 Finally Available

So, anyone want to buy my comic, written by Ross Leonard, published by Black Hearted Press?  Well, now you can, if you're lucky enough to live in one of the countries which BHP ships to!

Darkside is an anthology horror comic collecting tales of the macabre, the unexpected, the transmundane, and other such descriptive terms, ranging from stories set in the writers' native Scotland, to faraway lands of ill-defined locality, from modern times to the untold past, and so on and so forth. My story, "Kalina and the Baba Yaga," is a fairytale with a somewhat modern twist on it, as the classic Slavic folk legend has a bit of a Scottish makeover. Of sorts. Kind of. It's difficult to describe exactly what it is, but I loved Ross's idea and couldn't help but throw myself into it.

My experience with Ross has been incredibly gratifying and assuring. Not once did I have reservations or any sort of significant disagreement with the direction, composition or execution of the comic or story, and he seems very satisfied with the results. I'm very lucky to have worked with such a clever, intelligent and erudite individual who gave me the boost I needed simply because he thought I could do it. Since then I've taken on two very cool - and very different - projects that aren't comics, I will definitely work with Ross again in the future, I'm seriously considering a fourth proposition, and I have others in the pipeline. Better not spread my butter over too much bread, though!

You can find some previews of my work on "Kalina and the Baba Yaga" here and here. I'll eventually get round to that report on the comic launch: I'd been holding off because I was afraid of stealing someone else's thunder, but I figure they won't mind. In the meantime, have another Barbearian.

"I am king, state, and law!" he roared, and seizing the wand-like sceptre which lay near, he broke it in two and flung it from him. "This shall be my sceptre!" The toy axe was brandished aloft, splashing the pallid toys with drops of jam. Kub gripped the plastic crown with his left hand and placed has back against the wall. Only that support kept him from falling but in his arms was still the strength of cuddly lions.

"I am either king or cuddler!" he roared, his corded stuffing bulging, his button eyes blazing. "If you like not my kingship - come and take this crown!"

The fluffy left arm held out the crown, the right gripping the menacing axe above it.

"By this axe I rule! This is my scepter! I have struggled and sweated to be the puppet king you wished me to be - to king it your way. Now I use mine own way! If you will not play, you shall obey! Laws that are just shall stand; laws that have outlived their times I shall shatter as I shattered that one! I am king!"

Slowly the pale faced noblebears and frightened teddies knelt, bowing in fear and reverence to the jam-stained giant who tottered above them with his eyes ablaze.

"I am king!"

Art of Time's Abyss: The Barbearians

Know, O prince, that between the years when the oceans snuggled Tedlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Cubs of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining beardoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars - Bearmedia, Ofur, Bearthunia, Hyperbearea, Zambeara with its dark-furred teddies and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingbeara with its chivalry, Pawth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Ted, Gryzzlia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Bearkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aclawlonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan the Cimmbearian, black-furred,button-eyed, wooden sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jewelled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled paws.

A little piece of fun I'd been doing in REHupa was illustrations of Robert E. Howard characters, with a little twist - they're rendered as cuddly little cubbies all stuffed with fluff. And since it's been a while since I updated, I thought it would be nice to share some of them with you all. You can probably guess who this cuddly little guy is, but others might be a bit more difficult to figure out.