In 1976, Jonathan Bacon
acquired a photocopy of #10
(again by Joma) dated October 27, 1965 from Bill Blackbeard at the San Francisco
Academy of Art and reproduced it in full for his contribution to the APA fanzine
REHupa #21. Bacon mentions the story of De Camp
contacting Joma for the first
La Reina de la Costa Negra
time in print and notes that it
#2 (EMA 1958)
was believed that there were
around forty issues printed. That same year, Glenn
Lord, the executor of the Howard estate, mentioned
the series in his Howard bio-bibliography The Last
Celt, noting that at least forty-five issues were published by Joma in 1965-66.
In 1978, the larger comic
book community became
aware of the series for the
first time when Fred
Blosser wrote an article
for Savage Sword of
Conan #26 describing a
copy of La Reina de la
Costa Negra #15 he had
acquired from Roy
Thomas. After seeing
Blosser’s article, Menville
wrote Marvel again. This
time Thomas was very interested in his information
and made him aware of
Bacon’s discovery. This
Fred Blosser's article in Savage
Sword #26
led to Menville writing his own article (in Savage
Sword #44) about his research into the series and
more of the pieces began to fall into place. Menville
also noted that issue 16 was a partial adaptation of
the original "Queen of the Black Coast" story.
So by the late 1970s,
several researchers had
begun to compare notes
and put together the story
behind these interesting
comics. It appeared at
that point that La Reina
de la Costa Negra had
begun as a weekly series
published for a few issues
by E.M.A in 1958. Then
after a gap of seven
years the title had resumed in 1965, this time
by Joma, with the break
La Reina de la Costa Negra #31
(Joma 1966)
in publication occurring
somewhere between #4
and #10. This remained the extent of the knowledge
about these curious comics for the next two
decades.
Over the years a few more issues were discovered, but it was not until the advent of the internet
and eBay that enough issues began to surface to fill
in the gaps in the story. It turns out that the Joma
series in 1965-66 was not a continuation of the
E.M.A. run in 1958, but a completely different series
with separate numbering. Then it was discovered
that "La Reina de la Costa Negra" had first appeared even earlier in 1952 as a feature in an an-
The Queen of the Black Coast by Marvel and Dark Horse
Marvel Conan #58
Page 4
Marvel Conan #100
Dark Horse Conan #1
Dark Horse Conan #2