Fan Works and Mark Finn on El Borak

I might be quite sparse on TBTTF for a while, working on a big project (hint: it involves the alphabet), so for now, here are two cool little pieces of news to ruminate on.

First is the Robert E. Howard Forum's opening up of a new subsection for fan creations:

After many starts and stops, back and forth discussions, death knells and forlorn hopes, Fan Fiction has finally been approved for these forums.

Over the next few days a new forum will be added to the General Discussions family. This forum will be used for all fan material, including fiction, artwork, screenplays and poetry.

This means the existing poetry thread and the many amateur art threads will be relocated to this new home.

At present I am finalizing the rules for posting, but I wanted to give everyone a head's up.

Now let's see some of those creative juices....

You know what that means, chaps & chapettes?  Now we have pretty much official approval to engage in expansions to Howard's legend - in the hands of fans.  There are already a few fan creations dotted about the forums, so it'll be good to see this all in one place.  This just adds more incentive for me to get Born Out Of Shadowed Hills finished...

Another quick link to a question & answer session with Mark Finn with Damon Sasser of Robert E. Howard: Two Gun Raconteur:

Damon: I understand you are writing an original story for the first issue – can you share any details?

Mark: Well, I don’t want to give anything away, because it’s only 8 pages. But this was my charge: show the readers what makes El Borak such a bad-ass. I can tell you it’s about six and a half pages of El Borak doing what he does best: sword-fighting, shooting, riding, and in general taking care of business. In terms of the later Gordon stories, there’s only a handful to make Canon: the range of what El Borak does and can do is more implied than stated in those stories. So, I tried to do another twist on exactly the kinds of things El Borak would do in the course of his adventures. You know, it’s not El Borak making a bid for tribal warlord, or anything like that. I cleaved very closely to the REH stories. But, since it’s a comic book, too, I dropped in something that could be picked up for later, if necessary. I can tell you that this takes place about six months or so after “Hawks of the Hills.”

Now, just watch. When the book comes out, someone, probably someone we both know, will lambast me on the Conan forums: “El Borak would NEVER do those things, or talk like that!” (Laughs)

I'm sure you wouldn't have it any other way, Mark!