>"Black Colossus" is one of the original short stories starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in Weird Tales magazine, June 1933. Howard earned $130 for the sale of this story.$130 in 1933 is $3140 today. And this is just after the Great Depression. How many literary magazines can you name which would pay this much for a story today?
These magazines paid him and Lovecraft shit.
weird tales is not a "literary magazine" its fucking pulp fiction which became irrelevant once normies could just watch lost in space on tv
>>23544321Howard was able to earn a living from pulp magazines. He earned more than people working regular jobs in his hometown.
was he bald? no one in the fedora days would have worn a hat inside cuz it was considered rude af
>>23544345>earn a living from pulp magazinesAnd that doesn't mean he had a fair pay. To your question: magazines and serial publication of similar types in Europe paid more to their authors and allowed them to live a comfortable and even lavish life. There's no point in comparing them to today's standard that are very low.
>>23544353well he was a hick from nowheresville, texas so he probably didn't know that
>>23544883Bro he was writing during the Great Depression.
>>23544953Kek I'm from the same Nowheresville, TX.
>>23544336He wasn't a typical pulp writer either. He loved poetry, but poetry didn't pay. So he incorporated some of this into prose. Few other fantasy writers are quite as musical or even write action as well either. He also wanted to write historical fiction, but liked too many periods in history. He wanted to write about it all, so he just created a fictional world where he could place Celts, Romans, Egyptians, and Mongols all in the same setting. He didn't set out to write fantasy in and of itself per se. Then you throw in the fascination with horror (especially of the mindfuck/Lovecraft ilk) and he created a new genre.
>>23544321Lovecraft got paid shit because he wrote what he wanted to read, not what the editors wanted. Howard got paid well because he wasn't opposed to writing for a paycheck.>>23544336This, if Howard hadn't killed himself, he likely would have followed the same path as Robert Bloch and transitioned into writing for emerging industries like radio and the silver screen.>>23544353He had a full head of hair. That is a from a set of photos he had taken for his girlfriend. He hated dressing up. Pic related is how he normally dressed.
>>23545880>This, if Howard hadn't killed himself, he likely would have followed the same path as Robert Bloch and transitioned into writing for emerging industries like radio and the silver screen.Picrel: His children.
>>23545889I could see him happily working beside both of those guys. Cowboys and muscle men were two of his favorite things.
>>23545159Ever been to Howard Days or the museum house? Is it worth a trip out that way?
>>23545934I haven't actually. Maybe I should. It's still out of the ways, but I'm in the lower end of the Hill Country.
>>23544321And yet boomer and millennial writers love to pretend they are the ones being abused nowadays.
>>23545934My oidest sister went to ACU for undergrad. I always used to pass through Cross Plains on my way out to Abilene to visit her. I should have stopped in.
