The Mystery of the Mexican Conan Comics
by Jeffrey Shanks
T
he latest iteration of the ongoing monthly Conan
series from Dark Horse (written by Brian Wood)
has received a great deal of praise from critics and
readers alike for its fresh take on the iconic 80-year
old barbarian. However, the series has had mixed
reviews from the hardcore Robert E. Howard fans to
say the least, and has been the subject of much
hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth on various
REH-related online communities. Wood's current
adaptation of "Queen of the Black Coast" is certainly
a different approach to the classic story than what
most longtime Conan comics readers are used to.
The classic adaptation by Roy Thomas and John
Buscema was a legendary run in the 1970's, spanning over 40 issues in the main Marvel title and for
many the image of Buscema's Bêlit with her fur
mono-kini is iconic. But what few people realize is that nearly a quarter of a century
before Marvel's "Queen of the Black
Coast" and six decades before the
current Dark Horse version, the
classic story of Conan and his shepirate lover had already made their
comic book debut in an obscure,
unauthorized Mexican publication.
The series "La Reina de la Costa
Negra" appeared in several formats in
the 1950s and 60s. While Howard's
original story was adapted in a few issues, the writers of this version took
considerable liberties with the characters
and added dozens of issues of pastiche stories. The
most unconventional features of these stories included the fact that Bêlit—not Conan—is the lead
protagonist and Conan is depicted with blond hair
rather than black. The Black Corsairs of Howard's
story were also changed to Vikings and first mate
N'yaga had his name changed to
Yanga. For many years there was
very little known about these curious Mexican bootlegs and today
they have achieved something
like urban myth status among
Howard collectors.
Supposedly, they first appeared on the radar of US fandom in 1966 when L.
Sprague de Camp, then
editing the Conan stories for
the Lancer paperbacks, learned that the Mexican
company Ediciones Joma was publishing a Conan
comic book. De Camp contacted the company with
the intention of trying to inquire about them, but they
never replied and stopped publication (perhaps
fearing a lawsuit) (Bacon 3). De Camp seems
to have let the matter drop and the
knowledge of this series was not circulated within American fandom.
Then in 1968 collector Douglas
Menville found a copy of La Reina
de la Costa Negra #2 in a bookstore
(dated October 8, 1958 and published by Ediciones Mexicanas Asocidas or E.M.A.). In 1970, when Marvel
began publishing its Conan series,
Menville contacted them to let them
know about this earlier Conan comic
from Mexico, but his letter was never
printed or acknowledged. Then more issues began to appear: Roy Thomas acquired photocopies of #3 and #4 (dated October 15 and 22,
1958) and Menville f ?V?B6???b3bV&?6?V@?'?????BFFVBFV6V?&W"b??cR??V?f???P?S2??vR0???