Conan The Barbarian #1 comes to Titan Comics and Heroic Signatures at the end of July, from Jim Zub, Roberto De La Torre and Dean White.
Conan The Barbarian #1 comes to Titan Comics and Heroic Signatures at the end of July, from Jim Zub, Roberto De La Torre and Dean White introducing his new Pictish companion Brissa. But what comes next? Why issue two of course. Details and covers below…
CONAN THE BARBARIAN #2 (ONGOING)
Writer: Jim Zub
Artists: Roberto De La Torre, Dean White
Publishers: Heroic Signatures & Titan Comics
FC, 32pp, $3.99, August 23, 2023
CONAN and his new ally, BRISSA – a deadly Pictish scout, fight back-to-back against a savage horde… only to discover that each success creates a new obstacle to victory over the “ARMY OF THE LOST.”
COVER A: ALAN QUAH
COVER B: ROBERTO DE LA TORRE
COVER C: GERARDO ZAFFINO
COVER D: E.M GIST RETRO THEME
COVER E: DAN PARENT
COVER F: FOIL ROBERTO DE LA TORRE VIRGIN ($13.99)
It was one year ago this weekend at Lake Como Comic Art Festival that Bleeding Cool ran the news breaking out of the show that Marvel Comics would no longer have the Conan The Barbarian license for comics, as the license was reverting back to its original owners, Cabinet Entertainment. For American publishers at least. Who, as Heroic Signatures, are now publishing Conan for the American market with British publisher Titan Comics.
Marvel published Conan comic books in the seventies, eighties, and nineties based on the Robert E Howard stories, and licensed from his estate. Dark Horse Comics published them in the noughties and teens, with Marvel taking the license from 2019 onwards, while also including Conan with the rest of the Marvel Universe in the series Savage Avengers.
Now, Conan The Barbarian is in the public domain in much of Europe, as Robert E Howard died in 1936, and here work enters the public domain 70 years after the death of the author. The US, however, has a 95-year rule for anything published after 1922, which still covers Howard’s work. But there has been some dispute over the various versions of the work, the copyright extensions necessary before 1978 and more that have muddied the waters over the years and have seen a number of court cases play out.
Conan comics are created and published in Europe without license under public domain rules, and Ablaze has republished them in the US, back into English, but only under the name The Cimmerian, not infringing trademark use. The trademark for the name Conan and the names of Robert E. Howard’s other principal characters, is maintained by Conan Properties International and licensed to Cabinet Entertainment. Both companies are controlled by CEO Fredrik Malmberg, previously co-founder of Swedish role-playing game publishing house Target Games and CEO of Paradox Entertainment, and now CEO of Heroic Signatures. They also own rights to Bran Mak Morn, Kull, Solomon Kane, Mutant, Mutant Chronicles, Warzone, Kult, and Chronopia.
