Book: The Savage Sword of Conan
Issue No.: 28
Published: February 7, 1978
Title: “The Blood of the Gods”
Cover Price: $1
The Comics Code Authority was kind of the MPAA of comic books for many years. But they didn’t rate books PG or R or whatever, they just gave comics a pass or fail — either the book was approved by the CCA and had a little stamp indicating this, or it wasn’t. The criteria for CCA approval was pretty strict, and the vast majority of comics published by Marvel and DC during the 1970s were CCA-approved. And they kind of had to be, due to the politics of comic book distribution at the time.
But the Comics Code Authority didn’t have any jurisdiction over “magazines” (larger page size and page count than comic books, usually printed in black-and-white instead of color). So somebody at Marvel figured out that they could publish whatever kind of comic stories they wanted as long as they put them in “magazines.” And that’s how we ended up with Marvel magazines like Savage Sword of Conan. Interestingly, this issue has the Marvel “Stan Lee Presents” on the first page, but no Marvel logo on the cover. And the fine print on the first page says it’s published by “Magazine Management Co., Inc.” instead of Marvel Comics. But I feel safe assuming Magazine Management Company was some kind of subsidiary of (or pseudonym for) Marvel.
Is the the content of this story really too scandalous for a regular comic book? I dunno. There’s some very mild cursing (a “damn!” and maybe a “hell” or two). There’s a good bit of violence — blood (not very graphic since it’s rendered in black-and-white), stabbings, and descriptions of broken bones. And the body count is high — Conan kills a whole bunch of dudes in this story.
This is a big book, with the main story clocking in at 60 pages, almost three times as long as the average 22-page comic book story of the period. I only knew Conan from the ’80s Schwarzenegger movies until a few years ago when I listened to a Librivox audio book of The People of the Black Circle. I found that I really like the original Conan stories — I need to find some time to read (or listen) to more of them. Interestingly, “The Blood of the Gods” is adapted from a Robert E. Howard story, but it’s not a Robert E. Howard Conan story — the original apparently stars Howard’s El Borak character, a Texan gunfighter who adventured in Asia. Based on my limited Conan knowledge, I’d say writer Roy Thomas does a good job capturing the spirit of the classic Conan stories with this adaptation. And the black-and-white artwork by John Buscema and Alfredo Alcala is excellent.
Next time — More sword-and-sorcery action with Red Sonja!