WRITER EXCLUSIVE
Conan begins a new era in comics at Titan
“MY OLDER BROTHER GOT ME HOOKED on sword and sorcery in a big way when I was a kid – reading fantasy novels and playing Dungeons & Dragons,” recalls Jim “Zub” Zubkavich, a childhood fan of Robert E Howard’s Cimmerian. After scripting the Barbarian’s exploits for both Dark Horse and Marvel, he’s now taking charge of Titan Comics and Heroic Signatures’ new Conan series, teaming up with artist Roberto De La Torre.
“Conan has always loomed large for me,” he tells Red Alert. “The classic Frank Frazetta covers on those Conan paperbacks promised visceral adventures, and I couldn’t get enough of them. The fact that Conan was splashed all over comics too, with the classic Marvel monthly series and the darker and more violent Savage Sword Of Conan magazine made the Hyborian Age even more exciting to me.”
After Marvel’s most recent licence expired, he stayed in touch with Fredrik Malmberg, president of Heroic Signatures, who hold the rights to Conan and many of Robert E Howard’s other characters. “When Fred explained the ambitious plans they had for the character and the Hyborian Age as a whole, I jumped in with both feet,” says Zub. “And when the question of who could draw the series came up, my top choice was Roberto De La Torre.”
Zub believes that Conan is perfectly suited to the comics medium. “Conan has something primal at its core – an alchemical stew of intensity and violence about exploring the unknown and surviving anything the world can throw at you,” he says. “Fantasy is a very visual genre filled with incredible descriptions of vivid places and events, so comics are a natural fit to bring that splendour and action to life.”
Conan The Barbarian issue one opens with him returning to his homeland several years after the infamous Sack of Venarium (as referenced by Howard himse
