A year ago, I ran into Jim Zub right after Comic-Con ended. He was tired but excited, as the first issue of Conan the Barbarian for Titan Comics had just gone into its second printing even before its release. Though he’d written Conan before, there was something different about this run and fans somehow knew ahead of time. Heroic Signatures, the owners of Robert E. Howard’s creations, had even bet on reviving the black and white Savage Sword of Conan magazine.
It’s a year later, and Zub (as he’s familiarly known) is still riding high. In September, Titan Comics will release the first issue of Battle for the Black Stone, an epic crossover connecting several of Howard’s characters across time and space. It spins out of Zub’s first year on the main book, and will carry over into that and The Savage Sword of Conan. A week after our conversation, he was able to announce that he’d signed a multi-year contract to continue writing Conan. Does that make this the Zuborian Age?
We sat down at the Hilton Bayfront to talk about the book and his success on it. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Derek McCaw: I think in one of the early issues you said you were pitching a 12 issue arc for Conan and then you were done. You’re not done.
Jim Zub: We were always hopeful it was going to run long. But we couldn’t assume. You know the comic market is so tumultuous. We knew we had 12 issues to win back the readership. Our job was to remind people why Conan was such a best-seller and why it was enjoyable and such an entertaining ride at its peak, in terms of comics. We wanted to recapture that feeling for the old school fans but make it that a new reader could dive in and enjoy it just as much.
And so the mandate was within 12 issues we’re going to know if this has legs or not. But you need to build in – those 12 could tell a complete story in case we’ve got to shutter it. And they’d try something else.
But the hope was always that it was going to be big, that it was going to go long, that I’ve got a big plan. And I do. By the end of the month, we launched way beyond everyone’s expectations.
Derek McCaw: I remember. Didn’t it launch just after Comic-Con last year?
Jim Zub: Well, we had advance copies here, and then it hit stores a week later. Yeah. So by issue 3 we were doing that very very unusual thing where issue 3 sold more than issue 2, and issue 4 sold more than issue 3. It just kept climbing for the first arc and a half. We didn’t find a level. And we knew we had really amazing word of mouth. The retailers were getting more subscribers each month instead of winnowing.
Derek McCaw: I don’t know what it was doing at Marvel.
Jim Zub: I don’t know either. But obviously they didn’t renew. I had a lot of fun working on Conan at Marvel. I don’t want to ever give people the idea that I’ve got some chip on my shoulder about it. I’m sorry, if I have any chip on my shoulder it’s because we got swept up in the pandemic and people had more important things than comic books on their mind. We kind of got wiped out because of that.
On the other hand, I learned a lot, and wouldn’t have the confidence to do it now without that building period, without learning more about the property and marinating in it.
Derek McCaw: Do you feel there’s a difference in your approach not just because you’ve learned more, but because of being at Titan?
Jim Zub: I’m working directly for Heroic (Signatures), where before they were the licensor and we were sending material to them. So there’s one less editorial level which is not, you know, again, like I said, Marvel was great to work with, but it’s also, it’s a mature readers book as opposed to, you know, your standard Marvel PG book. There’s a difference in terms of intensity with what we can do with the violence.
Derek McCaw: You’re not at risk of a crossover with Wolverine.
Jim Zub: Well, you know, I understood why they were doing those things, in order to use the resources they had to raise the visibility of the character, but I enjoyed working on the main monthly Conan book because it’s in the Hyborian Age and that’s it. That’s what I love about the character; that’s what I love about the source material. That’s always where my heart was anyway, you know? Just getting to dig into that Howardian sword and sorcery. That’s my jam, right? Obviously that’s our priority here at Titan and Heroic. That’s what the whole thing is.
Derek McCaw: You do you have your own story that is taking pieces from all over the place. What surprised me in your second arc is that you’re doing exactly what Howard did, which is jump all around in Conan’s timeline. About 6 months ago, I did what no man should do, and that’s read about half of his Conan stories all at once on a plane trip.
Jim Zub: Oh, that’s awesome. That’s the deep dive right there.
Derek McCaw: I recognize every linguistic turn you’re taking from him.
Jim Zub: I definitely marinated in it a lot more. If you look at the narration in the Marvel issues, it reads more like… there’s some little lyricism and turns of phrase, but it’s not as bone deep. I also dug deep, deep into the Howard canon to the point that I had a notepad beside me as I was reading the stories, and I would write down words that I would not naturally have thought of, to remind myself to use it as a kind of glossary. Not that I had to use all of them, but just to think this way. That is the language of the Hyborian Age. That is the language of the guy who germinated this thing and that has value in terms of the atmosphere that it summons, right?
You have to keep in mind that I had this diamond, and I dropped it. And I caught it right before it hit the ground. Somehow I get to do this again. That’s impossible. I’m not letting this thing go. I worked so hard for this relaunch. I felt like I had a lot to prove. I didn’t want to let myself down. I didn’t want to let Heroic down because put their chips on me again and said “we believe that Jim can do this.”
If I fail, I can only blame the pandemic one time. I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to put the best damned thing I can on paper. Not that I was trying to do less than my best before, but you feel this intense pressure in a good way.
Derek McCaw: It’s weird that all these characters in the Howard stable should feel well-known, especially Conan, and yet it feels like he’s not.
Jim Zub: He’s arguably one of the most recognized fantasy characters in the world, but that’s probably because of Arnold Schwarzenegger and the movie, right? It casts a long shadow. On the other hand there’s a benefit to that kind of pop culture integration, that everyone knows who it is. You’ve at least got that name brand recognition to turn people your way. And then turn them on to the possibilities of the source material and how damned good it is. How entertaining and engaging it can be.
But I didn’t want to do what’s been done in the past, which is start with him really young and just continue chronologically. I wanted to do that Weird Tales jumping around and play with thematic arcs rather than just linear time.
Derek McCaw: In the most recent arc, he is literally jumping around in time. And I knew last year that there were bigger plans for the Howard characters. I met the head of Heroic at the Hilton and he showed me that graphic of all the characters, which appeared in the first issue and in the trade. So I don’t know why I was suddenly surprised to have Brule and Kull.
Jim Zub: Right. When Roy Thomas was doing the Conan comic in the 70s, his solution was to take a Howard story, file the serial numbers off, whether it was a Western or a horror story, whatever, and they all became Hyborian Age stories. That’s where you get someone like Red Sonya of Rogatino becoming Red Sonja with a “J” and all that kind of stuff. I wanted to keep all those stories in their proper time and place but they could still influence us in echoing ways. And I didn’t want us to do adaptations.
If you’re a Howard fan, you know “Tower of the Elephant.” I can’t surprise you with any plot turn in “Tower of the Elephant” and still make you feel like that story. But I can echo it. You probably know “Queen of the Black Coast” so we can use it. Those all happened. They’re all canon. They’re all pillars of the character’s life. What can we do in and around them to make these stories feel just as vibrant, just as exciting, with the added benefit of still surprising you? I can do a cliffhanger and you literally don’t know what’s coming next.
Derek McCaw: With a character like Conan, where even thanks to the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie we know where he ends up, what is the challenge for you in putting in that element of danger, making us believe that maybe he’s not going to make it?
Jim Zub: That’s the real thing. In any kind of serialized fiction, there’s a certain amount of tropes that you have to accept, you know, that people are going to survive or whatever. Like, is Batman going to die? No, and if he does, he’s going to come back, right?
But on the other hand, from month to month and story to story, can we make it exciting, unusual, unexpected, that you don’t know what’s coming next? You don’t know how we’re going to get out of this one or what we’re going to do in that longer sort of thing. Does he become a king by his own hands? Yes, because that’s the history of the character. But there’s all kinds of crazy stuff between now and then.
I can’t turn those cards yet, but we’re really going to surprise you. In the upcoming years, I’m going to pull levers that people are going to be shocked that we would go there. Not in terms of ruining the character, but changing so that you can’t know for certain.
Derek McCaw: I love that you said years.
Jim Zub: Yeah, I’ve got a long-term plan. A year ago I wouldn’t have said that because I didn’t know if those 12 would hit. And now, thankfully, we’re in a really wonderful spot. I’ve got Heroic’s full faith, and Titan’s got a winner on their hands. We are now world-building, king-building; this is long term.
And that way retailers can trust every month that the book’s going to come out; it’s going to be of quality. It’s worth the cover price. Stick around. We’ve got entertainment. It’s going to be a really cool ride.
Derek McCaw: Let’s flash back to the film for a moment. It took a lot of liberties and formed an image that even Jason Momoa couldn’t break. What about Conan do you wish the average person knew that is just not there in popular perception?
Jim Zub: (John) Milius did a wonderful entertaining film. It is a thorough, wall-to-wall entertainment of a movie. And the soundtrack is unimpeachably epic and Wagnerian and glorious. And that delivers on every front.
He mixed a whole pile of stories; it feels more like the slave Kull and all this is sort of mixed together. And they’re playing up on Arnold as what he could do as an actor in that time. You know, he doesn’t talk a lot. His body is sort of the instrument of his storytelling. And they’re using that to the best of its ability.
But Conan the character is smarter and has great guile. The reason he becomes a leader of men is his charisma and his ability to judge. That he is a strategist and he is able to instinctively understand people and that’s why they put their trust in him. And he goes from being a singular character to a leader of men to a king.
It’s a little hard to see that quality in the film. And he is younger, so it’s not as easy. you know, if you had more films, you could show a more subtle sort of tilt. But there’s that weird moment where you have to say, okay, obviously he looks the part. He’s physically imposing and everything else, but on the other hand, you don’t quite get that kind of bit.
Derek McCaw: And I don’t think Schwarzenegger could have pulled that off at the time.
Jim Zub: Right, and I think Milius quickly realized that, that they weren’t going to be able to pull that lever. So we won’t. And that’s also where you have to get the narrator and other things like that. Again, you’ve got to use the pieces that you have to make them a complete work of entertainment.
The great thing now is that you’ve got a vision that can hew closer to that source material and still summons a lot of that kind of bombast.
Derek McCaw: So far so good.
Jim Zub: Thanks, man. I’m incredibly proud of it.
If you can’t tell by now, Zub and his creative collaborators have made me into a Conan fan after years of just dabbling. This stuff is GREAT, and I can’t believe how much Conan merch I got at Comic-Con.
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