Comic Books (Dark Worlds Quarterly): Sword & Sorcery comics were well-established by 1978. Conan the Barbarian, Savage Sword of Conan, The Warlord dominated at Marvel and DC. What wasn’t well-known was the new RPG gaming magazines. The Dragon started as another magazine but launched in its Dragony form June 1976. That magazine offered funny cartoons about playing AD&D as well as later comic stories like Larry Elmore’s Snarfquest.

Star Wars (Nerdrotic): OH SHE’S PISSED!!! Kathleen Kennedy Sets the Record “Straight” On Her Lucasfilm Future.

Old Radio (Comics Radio):  The Whistler: “Murder has a Signature” 1/15/45

Comic Books (Kairos): Everybody has a theory of how the American comic book industry died. “It was the early 90s investor boom,” some say. “The glut of variant covers and similar sales gimmicks created a bubble, and when it burst it took out the direct market.”

James Bond (Jeremy Duns): So ran TIME’s review of the 2008 James Bond film Quantum of Solace. It was one of several that felt that the film was imitative of or influenced by the Jason Bourne films starring Matt Damon. The films are loosely based on the novels of the same name by Robert Ludlum, primarily The Bourne Identity.

Edgar Rice Burroughs (Edgar Rice Burroughs): In the novel Dark Tides of Mars, author Chris L Adams transported readers back in time to Barsoom’s glory days, before the oceans evaporated and its proud peoples were forced to construct an atmosphere factory to keep themselves alive on a dying world. Now, learn why Barsoom was fated to face such an ecological apocalypse in this thrilling sequel, Gauntlets of Mars: A Novel of Barsoom, the newest volume in the Wild Adventures of Edgar Rice Burroughs series!

D&D (Dungeons & Dragons Fan): Originally published in 2022, Dungeons of Drakkenheim is a complete DnD 5e campaign designed by popular YouTubers “The Dungeon Dudes” and published by Ghostfire Games after a record breaking Kickstarter. The material was so popular that it was later ported over to D&D Beyond in November 2023, making it one of the earliest third-party books to be featured on Wizards of the Coast’s digital platform.

T.V. (Wertzone): Akiva Goldsman (Fringe, Star Trek) is developing a new TV project based on three classic Irwin Allen TV shows. New iterations of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants are being worked on.

James Bond (Nerdrotic): RIP James Bond – Amazon Will Destroy 007

Comic Books (Conan.com): Few names are as synonymous with Conan comics as Roy Thomas.  As the writer who first brought Robert E. Howard’s legendary barbarian to Marvel Comics in 1970, Thomas defined how generations would experience Conan’s adventures through sequential art. Now, after decades of shaping the character’s legacy, Thomas returns to the title he helped make legendary: Savage Sword of Conan.

Clark Ashton Smith (Sprague de Camp Fan): The Averoigne Chronicles is the culmination of many years of work by a number of publishers and editors, much happening behind the scenes. This makes for an interesting story and may deepen our appreciation of a book that is already remarkable on its own terms.

Fiction (Swordslore): “Reckoning” is the ninth story in Neither Beg Nor Yield and is part of a series featuring the character Nasach, a Fer Bolg who is a former slave turned wandering fighter. This story is not an adaptation of a singular story from Irish saga literature but pulls in elements from mythology and folklore to create an original adventure tale set in early Ireland.

Comic Books (Fandom Pulse): When readers think mainstream comics, they usually consider Marvel and DC Comics superheroes, and a lot of those who like to criticize the American superhero industry claim manga is reigning supreme in sales, but it turns out both are wrong according to new reports for BookScan detailing graphic novels that sold over 100,000 units in 2024—where YA Graphic Novels are in fact all that is selling.

Fiction (Historical Novel Society): Collected in Swords from the Desert are seven exciting stories set during the crusades and in 17^th-century India and the Middle East, featuring the adventures of Arab, Mongol and Hindu warriors. “The Guest of Karadak” and “The Road toKandahar” follow 58-year-old Arab physician Daril Ibn Athir, in his youth a swordsmen of the Nejd tribe.

Western Cinema (Fifties Westerns): Kino Lorber has announced their fourth Audie Murphy Blu-Ray set, and it’s something to be really stoked about — gathering three more of Murphy’s 50s Westerns for Universal International. Coming this summer, they say. The Kid From Texas (1950)

Horror (The Obelisk): One of the odder choices on Wagner’s list is Leo Perutz’s The Master of the Day of Judgement (1921). Listed among Wagner’s favorite “Thirteen Best Non-Supernatural Horror Novels,” The Master of the Day of Judgment is typically categorized as a mystery novel. Perutz, a well-respected mathematician by trade, often wrote deft, psychologically complex novels set in the past.

Forgotten Realms (Wertzone): Netflix and Wizards of the Coast have joined forces to put a Dungeons & Dragons TV project into development, tentatively called The Forgotten Realms. The show will be set in the D&D game’s most popular world, the recent setting for hit video game Baldur’s Gate III and the well-received movie Honor Among Thieves.

Awards (REH Foundation): Here is the ballot with the final nominees for the 2025 Robert E. Howard Awards. To the final nominees and all of the other nominees who didn’t make the final list, congratulations!

Horror (Nation Cymru): An acclaimed Welsh novelist and short-story writer, Peredur Glyn, whose story collection Pumed Gainc y Mabinogi was shortlisted for Welsh Book of the Year in 2023, has followed up his existing work in the horror genre by translating some of the short stories of cult horror writer H. P. Lovecraft into Welsh.

Fiction (Wormwoodiana): John Buchan, best known for his spy thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps, rarely gets mentioned alongside Charles Williams. Besides Glen Cavaliero comparing the “time-fantasy” novel The Greater Trumps to Buchan’s rare science fiction novel A Gap in the Curtain in Charles Williams: Poet of Theology.

Horror (Tellers of Weird Tales): Two figures cast their long shadows over the Cosmic Horror Issue of Weird Tales. They are of course Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft. But it seems to me that there is more of Friedrich Nietzsche and Charles Fort than Poe or Lovecraft in Weird Tales #367. From Nietzsche comes the theme and imagery of staring into voids and abysses.

History (Frontier Partisans): George Drouillard was a Tier One Frontier Partisan. Half-French and half-Shawnee, he signed on with the Corps of Discovery as a hunter and sign language interpreter, and gave notable service to Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in their expedition across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast.

Fiction (Silver Key): James Silke, best known in S&S circles as the author of the Death Dealer series, recently passed away. He was 93 and lived a full and varied life as a photographer, writer, art director and more. I’d been slowly working my way through the Death Dealer series and am posting here links to my prior reviews.

History (Historian’s Craft): One of the biggest empires of the ancient world never existed. So how did the idea that it ever did even come about?

History (Meat Eater Podcast): Topics discussed: Order MeatEater’s American History: The Mountain Men (1806-1840); Colter and astounding feats; the importance of canoes; politics and power struggles;t aking a meticulous journal; between the British in the north and no more beavers in the south; how you become a mountain man; market hunters today as a bad deal for wildlife; the greasiest, most louse-ridden group; and more.

Radio (CBS Radio Mystery Theater): Innocent co-eds at a college get their souls sold to the demon by their professor. Black magic is afoot as the professor barters their souls to extend his wife’s life.

Review (Rough Edges): Honestly, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. A while back, I read Howard Andrew Jones’ novel LORD OF A SHATTERED LAND, the first book in his Hanuvar Chronicles, and thought it was one of the best novels I’d read in years. I bought the sequel, THE CITY OF MARBLE AND BLOOD, as soon as it came out. And there it sat, unread, for some reason that I can’t fathom.

H. P. Lovecraft (Sprague de Camp Fan): I was, through the osmosis of Robert E. Howard fandom, somewhat familiar with Robert H. Barlow before I read this book. I knew he was named H. P. Lovecraft’s literary executor by HPL himself and that August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, more or less, usurped that authority from him. As the co-creators of Arkham House (producing some of the finest books ever) I still looked on them favorably.

Events (Howard Days):  As the Spring season has GOT to be out there somewhere, it’s time to turn our thoughts to the warmth of Howard Days! In less than four months we’ll all be basking in the sun in Cross Plains, Texas, enjoying fun and fellowship as we celebrate the Legacy of Robert E. Howard! If you haven’t already, make plans now to join us at the Robert E. Howard Museum on June 13th & 14th for The Best Two Days in Howard Fandom!

Writing (Rough Edges): Last year TCU Press published STORYTELLER: HELPFUL HINTS AND TALL TALES FROM THE WRITING LIFE. It’s part memoir, part how-to book, and it’s full of entertaining stories about Stowers’ life and his varied careers as a sports reporter, columnist, feature writer, ghostwriter for sports and entertainment figures, and of course, his award-winning years as an author of true crime books.

Books (Silver Key): Paper books are better than digital: Five reasons why. In many ways life is better today than it ever has been. In other ways, not so much. Parse this statement in whatever way you choose. One area in which I think we’ve declined is our addiction to devices. We check our phones in Pavlovian, notification driven mindlessness. When we’re not incessantly reaching for our Androids or iphones we’re staring at other screens—televisions, laptops, and digital readers.