In last week’s celebration of National Word Nerd Day, Renée chose cimmerian as her new and shiny new word of the day. An adjective, it means “gloomy or shrouded in the deepest darkness.” Putting the word into a sentence, she said, “Troy Manley found himself falling into the cimmerian depths of an ancient cavern.”
That was last Friday. Wrapping up our post, we went on with our day. But for me, Hal -- the guy writing this post -- the word lingered in my memory. Never having used it myself, I knew I’d heard it before.
“Everyone who knows pop culture has heard it before,” Renée said. “Conan? Conan the Cimmerian?”
I knew of Conan, but only from comic books and the movies. (Ah-nuld!) Renee was much more of a fan. She’d read the comics, she’d seen the movies, but she’d been reading the Robert E. Howard Conan paperbacks since before she was a teenager. After she went through everything written by Howard, she devoured the stories by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter. Then Tor Books put out a new series by other authors. Steve Perry, Robert Jordan, John Maddox Roberts – and many, many others – all wrote new adventures for the famous barbarian.
(The May 1934 issue of Weird Tales is especially prized by collectors because of its title story. Painting by Margaret Brundage.)
So, maybe we could, too. Renée knows everything about the guy and I… well, I would find out if the character of Conan was in the public domain because, let’s be honest, our Amazon royalties could use a boost. But – and stay with me here; I’m coloring outside the lines – what if the next Anne Glynn mail-order bride novel was pitched like this: After a mysterious ritual in the depths of an ancient cavern goes awry, a brooding, battle-hardened warrior finds himself ripped from his Cimmerian homeland and deposited onto the dusty streets of 1868 Missouri. Prepared to fight monsters, he’s completely unarmed against the social expectations of the American West. Through a series of misunderstandings and an unfortunate clerical error, he finds himself wed to a sharp-tongued pioneer woman who has no interest in a husband who speaks to "Crom" more than he speaks to her. He must learn to trade his broadsword for a plowshare -- or find a way back to the Hyborian age -- before Conan Properties International notices he’s missing.
The pitch is a little rough, but it might find an audience. The storyline would get smoothed out and improved once I brought Renée into the conversation. Before I had that talk, though, I needed to know if we could use the muscly brute as our protagonist.
I discovered that we absolutely can, but there’s a chance we’ll regret it if we do.
Robert E. Howard passed away in 1936, so his published original work appears to be solidly in the public domain. Available for any and all to use as they like. His “Queen of the Black Coast” story in the May, 1934 issue of Weird Tales, for example, entered the public domain in 1962 when its copyright lapsed. (Someone saved their $2.00 copyright fee for other business.)
That’s the case in the USA, though; in Mexico and the Ivory Coast, the story is still protected for another decade or so. Would that be an issue for Conan: Mail-Order Barbarian? (The title’s still in flex. Don’t judge.)
There’s a bigger concern, too. Earlier, when I mentioned Conan Properties International? Turns out the corporate brain trust that owns the Conan trademark isn’t rumored to have much of a sense of humor. Lawsuits aren’t a foreign concept to CPI. They sued Conan’s Pizza in Austin, Texas, because – I think we both know why. How long do you think it would take them to chase after the authors of Conan: Mail-Order Muscle?
Yeah, that’s what I think, too.
#RobertEHoward #ConanTheBarbarian #WeirdTales #RobertJordan #PublicDomain #CopyrightLaw #ConansPizza
That was last Friday. Wrapping up our post, we went on with our day. But for me, Hal -- the guy writing this post -- the word lingered in my memory. Never having used it myself, I knew I’d heard it before.
“Everyone who knows pop culture has heard it before,” Renée said. “Conan? Conan the Cimmerian?”
I knew of Conan, but only from comic books and the movies. (Ah-nuld!) Renee was much more of a fan. She’d read the comics, she’d seen the movies, but she’d been reading the Robert E. Howard Conan paperbacks since before she was a teenager. After she went through everything written by Howard, she devoured the stories by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter. Then Tor Books put out a new series by other authors. Steve Perry, Robert Jordan, John Maddox Roberts – and many, many others – all wrote new adventures for the famous barbarian.
(The May 1934 issue of Weird Tales is especially prized by collectors because of its title story. Painting by Margaret Brundage.)
So, maybe we could, too. Renée knows everything about the guy and I… well, I would find out if the character of Conan was in the public domain because, let’s be honest, our Amazon royalties could use a boost. But – and stay with me here; I’m coloring outside the lines – what if the next Anne Glynn mail-order bride novel was pitched like this: After a mysterious ritual in the depths of an ancient cavern goes awry, a brooding, battle-hardened warrior finds himself ripped from his Cimmerian homeland and deposited onto the dusty streets of 1868 Missouri. Prepared to fight monsters, he’s completely unarmed against the social expectations of the American West. Through a series of misunderstandings and an unfortunate clerical error, he finds himself wed to a sharp-tongued pioneer woman who has no interest in a husband who speaks to "Crom" more than he speaks to her. He must learn to trade his broadsword for a plowshare -- or find a way back to the Hyborian age -- before Conan Properties International notices he’s missing.
The pitch is a little rough, but it might find an audience. The storyline would get smoothed out and improved once I brought Renée into the conversation. Before I had that talk, though, I needed to know if we could use the muscly brute as our protagonist.
I discovered that we absolutely can, but there’s a chance we’ll regret it if we do.
Robert E. Howard passed away in 1936, so his published original work appears to be solidly in the public domain. Available for any and all to use as they like. His “Queen of the Black Coast” story in the May, 1934 issue of Weird Tales, for example, entered the public domain in 1962 when its copyright lapsed. (Someone saved their $2.00 copyright fee for other business.)
That’s the case in the USA, though; in Mexico and the Ivory Coast, the story is still protected for another decade or so. Would that be an issue for Conan: Mail-Order Barbarian? (The title’s still in flex. Don’t judge.)
There’s a bigger concern, too. Earlier, when I mentioned Conan Properties International? Turns out the corporate brain trust that owns the Conan trademark isn’t rumored to have much of a sense of humor. Lawsuits aren’t a foreign concept to CPI. They sued Conan’s Pizza in Austin, Texas, because – I think we both know why. How long do you think it would take them to chase after the authors of Conan: Mail-Order Muscle?
Yeah, that’s what I think, too.
#RobertEHoward #ConanTheBarbarian #WeirdTales #RobertJordan #PublicDomain #CopyrightLaw #ConansPizza
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