Going Wayback with Howard

[linefacedscrivener]

REH: Two-Gun Raconteur (Post 2)

Then in either late 2009 or early 2010, the website was reskinned:




Here is the link: web.archive.org/web/20100322201035/http://www.rehtwogunraconteur.com/

Rather than just being an announcement about the zine, new articles, really good articles, were starting to be posted directly on the website.

[linefacedscrivener]

REH: Two-Gun Raconteur (Post 3) 

And then it seems on Howard's birthday in 2017, Damon C. Sasser called it quits:



Here is the link: web.archive.org/web/20170413180214/http://www.rehtwogunraconteur.com/

After that, all that was captured for a time was the same as above and eventually an error message. Today if you go to that main URL you end up at GraduateWay providing articles that my students can use to turn in as a term paper. Sad.

[Deleted]

Thanks Linefacedscrivener, great idea for a thread.

Never seen the Conan.com message board before, I'm gonna enjoy have a good ol' butcher's at this one.


 

[linefacedscrivener]

If you are familiar with the world of book publishing and Robert E. Howard, you will know that the book pictured above was his first book publication and is the Holy Grail of Howard collecting. Herbert Jenkins of London, England, published Howard's first book in 1937, and it was a collection of Breckenridge Elkins stories, Howard's humorous westerns, that Howard managed to string together into an episodic novel. 

The thing is, the publisher is believed to have only published about 20 copies of the book. So, you can imagine, finding them is near on impossible. Only about a dozen are known to exist, making it highly collected among Robert E. Howard collectors. 

Here is a story from the old REH: Two-Gun Raconteur website, using the Wayback Machine, about how Howard scholar Patrice Louinet landed his own copy:

web.archive.org/web/20130121120843/http://rehtwogunraconteur.com/?p=4072

The only thing better would have been to find a copy with a dust jacket. Only a few copies are known to still have their dust jacket.

I have never been a collector of books in the sense of having to own the actual, first edition copies in mint condition. I am a collector only in the sense of being a reader. I just like to read, so I am willing to buy a facsimile of a book, which you can actually do for this book. Long time Howard aficionado Dennis McHaney put together a beautiful replica of A Gent From Bear Creek, (with dust jacket!) and you can purchase your own copy here:

www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/robert-e-howard/a-gent-from-bear-creek/hardcover/product-1zmq7kg8.html?page=1&pageSize=4

It may not be the real thing, but it sure looks nice on the bookshelf. 

[linefacedscrivener]

I wonder if I shouldn't also post this over on my "Howard at the Movies" thread? 

I had started up "Howard at the Movies" a few years ago in my zine for REHupa, as I like old movies and thought it would be a fun series to write. Rusty Burke applauded me, then asked if I had ever seen his "Robert Ervin Howard Goes to the Movies" document. I had not, so he graciously sent me a copy. It was a very helpful document and it showed that when I made my own list of films to review, I missed a few, based on some sources I had not considered. I thanked him profusely. Not too long ago, rooting around on the Wayback Machine, on the old REHupa website, what should I stumble upon but that very same document. 

His document has the quotes from Howard and their sources, the movies, the actors and actresses, and some other additional material that makes for an excellent resource. So, courtesy of the Wayback Machine and the scholarly work of Rusty Burke, you can now see what once was so easily accessible on the web.

You can link to it here:

web.archive.org/web/20140703193853/http://www.rehupa.com/?page_id=172

[linefacedscrivener]

Howard Days 2021 was a great get together and I really enjoyed myself. When I first arrived, I heard there was something new in the house, but I was not told what it was. I spent some time looking around and thought I had found it, a postcard from Lovecraft, but that turned out not to be it. The reason I thought that was because it was at the center of the dining room table where a cut glass fruit bowl used to be and it was nowhere in sight.

Anyway, I found out it was the pie hutch, a cabinet for storing pies and it was in the dining room. However, later I heard another new item was the famous hat. Apparently someone, I never caught the name, saw the brown fedora that used to be in Bob's room on the bed and thought that was wrong because it was brown, so he purchased one like the hat in the famous picture above. Kind of neat.

Anyone know who that was?

So, the reason for the posting on this thread is because Patrice Louinet had written a nice post regarding the hat on REH: Two-Gun Raconteur.



Here is the link to the full article: web.archive.org/web/20130121154344/http://rehtwogunraconteur.com/?p=2567

[linefacedscrivener]

Having come back from Howard Days 2021, I was thinking about earlier Howard Days that I could have gone to, but missed because I was too busy raising kids and in June I was always somewhere camping for two weeks. Looking around on the REH: Two-Gun Raconteur website via the Wayback Machine, I found this interesting post by Rob Roehm regarding Howard Days 2011 - ten years earlier. The get together looked a lot smaller than the one that just happened, but it sure looked like they had fun.

To see the entire post and all the pictures, link here: web.archive.org/web/20111114050449/http://rehtwogunraconteur.com/?p=10779

[linefacedscrivener]

If you are at all familiar with the Robert E. Howard Wandering Star, Del Rey, or REH Foundation Press publications, you are probably familiar with the artists Jim and Ruth Keegan. In 2010, they started up a website with the great banner above. 

You can link to the website here: twogunblog.blogspot.com/

If you go to that website, however, many of the pictures that were once on the blog are now gone. For example, this is what you will see:



Source: twogunblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/adventures-of-two-gun-bob-torbett.html

This is because in 2017, they ceased posting. It appears they had moved on to other projects. However, if you go through the Wayback Machine with the same URL, you will see this:


Source: web.archive.org/web/20111228000225/http://twogunblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/adventures-of-two-gun-bob-torbett.html

What is really great about the blog, through the Wayback Machine, is that you get the comic they created called "The Adventures of Two-Gun Bob." Pretty cool!


Source: www.jimruth.com/tgb_dh36.jpg

[linefacedscrivener]

These strips that they did are a lot of fun. They originally appeared in The Dark Horse Conan Comics. I wish they would gather them all together and publish a book. That would be cool.

Here is the Wayback Link to read the article that accompanies the comic: web.archive.org/web/20110708071202/http://twogunblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/adventures-of-two-gun-bob-bunker-hill.html

[terryallenuk]

Last time I was in contact with Jim about this , 3 years ago , they still had 46 strips to do. Sadly no one from Marvel contacted them about doing them and I know they've had problems , a flood IIRC , and have had to concentrate on paying gigs so unlikely how things are it's something we'll see soon.

[linefacedscrivener]

Aug 20, 2021 13:27:49 GMT -5 terryallenuk said:

Last time I was in contact with Jim about this , 3 years ago , they still had 46 strips to do. Sadly no one from Marvel contacted them about doing them and I know they've had problems , a flood IIRC , and have had to concentrate on paying gigs so unlikely how things are it's something we'll see soon.

Thanks for the update. I didn't realize they still had more planned. That makes it really a shame. I could see the end result being a graphic novel biography (has that ever been done before?). I think it would sell well. Maybe the Robert E. Howard Foundation Press would be the right venue for the project. I'm just thankful for the Wayback Machine as their blog hardly has any linked pictures showing. 

[linefacedscrivener]

Going Wayforward

For this post I am not using the Wayback Machine, but hopefully the prediction of the Wayforward will come true. 

It would seem I am not the only one interested in seeing the Jim & Ruth Keegan The Adventures of Two-Gun Bob comics collected under one volume. Stale Gismervik over on The World of Robert E. Howard, recently posted an interview with Jim & Ruth Keegan about that very topic. In addition to an interesting interview, they made several more of their comics available for viewing. The most important, and amazing, statement was that they have produced approximately 260 of these strips, have 40 more to go, and in the end, they envision a collected volume of all 300 to be put out on Kickstarter. I've only done a couple of Kickstarter donations, but this is one I would definitely do.

Here is the link to the interview:  reh.world/jim-ruth-keegan/

[linefacedscrivener]

I have not collected the Dark Horse comics, nor have I read many of them. I somewhat lost the fascination with comics a long time ago (getting old). I just love the printed word better.

Anyway, there are a few things that have sparked my interest in comics and the Jim & Ruth Keegan Two-Gun Bob comics is one of them. I happened to stumble across two websites that everyone else is probably familiar with and I am just a latecomer, but if you want to read the Two-Gun Bob comics, take a look at the following websites (all of the Two-Gun comics come at the end of the comic book):

This Conan comic from Dark Horse featured the Two-Gun Bob series: onemillioncomics.com/conan-2003-issue-1/

And almost all of the ones here, that are from Dark Horse comics (e.g. Conan the Cimmerian), have the Two-Gun Bob comics in them as well: readallcomics.com/?story=Conan&s=&type=comic