Please help identify a B&W Conan magazine issue

April 12, 2020 8:21 PM

Somewhere between 1985 and 1987 I bought an issue of a Conan comic where the main story was that he met a woman who thought he'd looked at her longingly after a fight in an arena, but he had to tell her that his look was just one of relief and that he wasn't even really looking at her.

This was a black and white Conan magazine. The final story in the issue was a King Kull episode that was drawn in what for me at the time seemed to be an absolutely insane and veiny drawing style. Which issue of which Conan magazine was this? Thank you!

posted by interrobang to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

I can't comment on the specific issue, but to my knowledge there were two B&W Conan comics around that time- The Savage Sword of Conan and Conan Saga. SSoC was the longer-running and better known of the two. There was a omnibus-type reprinting of the SSoC books by Dark Horse Comics in the mid-2000s that would be much easier than trying to find them by individual issues.
posted by EKStickland at 9:53 PM on April 12, 2020

Best answer: It would probably be Savage Sword, which starting running regular Kull back-ups with issue 119 (Dec 1985). Looking at credits, the Kull stories were often illustrated by Val Semeiks, who doesn't really match your description, and Geof Isherwood, who sort of does, as does Pablo Marcos.

I read story synopses for SSoC from 1985-87 and nothing popped up (Conan fights in a pit more often than I change my socks) but if you are comfortable with the ethically suspect world of comics piracy, I would suggest browsing the issues of SSoC for that time on this scans site.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:26 AM on April 13, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Found it! Issue 151. Thanks! This has been bugging me for years. Here's some of that veiny art. Turns out the artist is Mark Pacella.
posted by interrobang at 8:53 AM on April 13, 2020 [1 favorite]

Was about to go dig through the stack - glad you found it.

Might go dig through the stack anyway.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:51 PM on April 13, 2020 [1 favorite]