REHeapa Winter Solstice 2016 By Lee A. Breakiron A WORLDWIDE PHENOMENON Few fiction authors are as a widely published internationally as Robert E. Howard (e.g., in Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Yugoslavian). As former REHupan Vern Clark states: Robert E. Howard has long been one of America’s stalwarts of Fantasy Fiction overseas, with extensive translations of his fiction & poetry, and an ever mushrooming distribution via foreign graphic story markets dating back to the original REH paperback boom of the late 1960’s. This steadily increasing presence has followed the growing stylistic and market influence of American fantasy abroad dating from the initial translations of H.P. Lovecraft’s Arkham House collections in Spain, France, and Germany. The growth of the HPL cult abroad has boded well for other American exports of the Weird Tales school, and with the exception of the Lovecraft Mythos, the fantasy fiction of REH has proved the most popular, becoming an international literary phenomenon with translations and critical publications in Spain, Germany, France, Greece, Poland, Japan, and elsewhere. [1] All this shows how appealing REH’s exciting fantasy is across cultures, despite inevitable losses in stylistic impact through translations. Even so, there is sometimes enough enthusiasm among readers to generate fandom activities and publications. We have already covered those in France. [2] Now let’s take a look at some other countries. GERMANY, AUSTRIA, AND SWITZERLAND The first Howard stories published in German were in the fanzines Pioneer #25 and Lands of Wonder ‒ Pioneer #26 (Austratopia, Vienna) in 1968 and Pioneer of Wonder #28 (Follow, Passau, Germany) in 1969. Abridged translations of the Lancer series of Conan paperbacks were published by Wilhelm Heyne of Munich between 1970 and 1972 with covers by Herbert Bruch. Heyne published unabridged versions of these from 1982 to 1992 with photographic covers taken from the 1982 Conan the Barbarian movie. Heyne also printed translations of Almuric in 1973, The Vultures of Whapeton in 1982, The Pride of Bear Creek in 1986, The Treasure of Tranicos and The Flame Knife in 1992, and The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian in 2003, as well as the 444-page paperback Das Conan Universum (1992), which included (in 1 REHeapa Winter Solstice 2016 German) REH’s “The Hyborian Age”; articles on Howard, the Hyborian Age, comics, and films; and a bibliography, all by editor Erhard Ringer; articles reprinted from the American fanzine Amra by L. Sprague de Camp, P. Schuyler Miller, Lin Carter, and John Boardman; and an article by Hermann Urbanek (see The Robert E. Howard Bibliography of Secondary Sources, Part XXII below for specific contents). Most of REH’s other fantasy was published in German by Erich Pabel of Rastatt between 1975 and 1982 in a series of 17 Terra Fantasy paperbacks with introductions by Hubert Strassl, who wrote under the name Hugh Walker. There were generally two printings, with the second one identified by “2” in the front cover’s lower left corner. Terra Fantasy #37: Horde aus dem Morgenland (Aug., 1977) had the first appearance of the “Sword Woman” epigraph separate from the story. Some of this fantasy was reprinted by Walipress of Hamburg and Bastei of Bergisch Gladbach between 1978 and 1989. Pabel also published several of Howard’s horror stories in Das Haus des Grauens (1977). See HowardWorks.com for specific contents of these and other REH publications in German. The most active fantasy fandom group in Germany has been the Follow Fantasy Club (= Fellowship of the Lords of the Lands of Wonder), in 1978 renamed the Erster Deutscher Fantasy Club, in Passau. Follow published the fanzines Follow and Lands of Wonder, the latter becoming the prozine Magira, named after the Sword & Sorcery fantasy world created by its editor Hubert Strassl. Strassl did the most of any German to translate and popularize Howard in Germany through introductions to German REH publications and his editorials and inclusion of Howard’s stories, poems, and letters in Lands of Wonder Cover by Chris Achilleos 2 REHeapa Winter Solstice 2016 (i.e. issues #s 1-3 in 1967 and the 1983 reprint of #s 1-4), Magira (i.e. issues #s 11, 18, 21-36, and 38 between 1972 and 1992), and in the Club’s paperback series Fantasia (i.e. volumes #s 6, 11/12, 17, 18, 19, 27, 28/29, 30/31, 36/37, 93, and 100 from 1980 to 1996); see HowardWorks.com for which has what. Magira #38 (spring, 1992) contained the first appearance of REH’s poem “The Dance with Death.” Lands and Magira sell anywhere from $10 to $70 each, mainly on the sites ABEbooks.de and eBay.de. Magira #33 (fall, 1980) reprinted an article, from Follow #84, giving the account of a visit to Howard’s hometown of Cross Plains, Texas, in 1979 by a few Austrians (it’s never clear how many), including the article’s author, Jonny Winter. Below is my translation. You have to admire Winter’s good humor about their provincial hosts. Note the confusion the townspeople had between Austrians and Australians, which I believe accounts for the fact that, during a 1986 visit there with their fellow REHupans, Thomas Kovacs and Steve Ghilardi, though Swiss, were continually asked, “Where’s the fella from Australia?” [3] This is the guy they were talking about. Cover by Nikolai Lutohin 3 REHeapa Winter Solstice 2016 TO FIND THE ONE AND ONLY CONAN By Jonny Winter Cross Plains is located in the heart of Texas, a few dozen miles from Abilene. It is, at just under 1200 residents, a rather small town. The name could come from the fact that Cross Plains, Texas, in the vast Plains, lies at the crossing of two secondary roads. Apart from gravel roads they are the only the streets of the village. The pride of the populace is a traffic light at this same intersection, which given the low traffic is not used but will be, and is the only one for miles around, providing the flair of a metropolis. One of the two streets in the local area is Main Street. Since in all of Cross Plains, according to American custom, there is no sign saying VISIT THE HOME OF THE FAMOUS ROBERT E. HOWARD or THE PLACE WHERE CONAN WAS BORN, I decided to make inquiries at the drugstore. I was greeted kindly and gave my spiel ‒ name, origin, and intention. The druggist tumbled over himself in his helpfulness and drummed up his woman and children, as well as two or three customers, to help the Australians who asked about Robert E. Howard. When I gently corrected them about Austria, which is in Europe, the riot was even bigger: They had never seen real exotics. Although all knew where Howard's house was, they agreed that to find it was too complicated, and therefore took me across the street to the editorial office of the Cross Plains Review. I was sure they would draw me a sketch. Later I figured out that it was probably just a bad trick to get rid of me while giving the sensation of the year to the newspaper people. Or else they take European mountaineers ‒ Austro- Yetis ‒ to be too stupid for the simple explanation: go two hundred yards down Main Street, at the traffic light go a hundred yards to the right, and then left to the white house. The editor and the printer of the Cross Plains Review look something like newspaper editors with printers usually look in Westerns: left and right, a window etched with the newspaper name, in between a glass door and inside a wooden gate that separates the audience from the staff‒in my case the sole editor of the newspaper, who therefore was also the chief, and in the full consciousness of his media power sat at a high desk, wearing a green eyeshade and sleeve protectors, while in the background the second employee, an old negro, was cleaning a printing press that was older yet. A considerable part of the Cross Plains population crowded in front of me, behind me, and especially next to me in the newspaper office. The Lord Chief Editor scurried from behind his lectern, a cold glint in his eyes, as if you had prodded him with sharp images of Nessie. He was quick to describe the way to Howard’s house, which lasted a quarter of an hour because he strove diligently in between to draw information out of me, of the kind that would be suitable for printing‒understandable if you know the Cross Plains Review. The two-to-three times-weekly newspaper is restricted exclusively to local news, such as that Mrs. Anthony B. Threstlemaker III yesterday had her appendix removed and under the circumstances you should refrain from visits yet, or that Miss Elvira Gonzales, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Pablo Y. Gonzales, would tomorrow be betrothed to Mr. Aaron T. Feinstein Jr., son of Mr. and Mrs. Aaron T. Feinstein, owner of Feinstein’s Delicatessen‒ interrupted by the latest cereal prices and special offers from the supermarket. Any further news was restricted to the national newspapers, such as the Dallas Daily Mudslinger. 4 REHeapa Winter Solstice 2016 In between, I was given the opportunity to ask a few questions and learned, for example, that Howard was not buried in Cross Plains, but in Brownwood. (We did not visit the grave because we continued in a different direction). Also, I heard that the only man in the place that had known Howard well had for two or three years charged fans up to $5 for more or less truthful stories about REH.