Gotta say, I enjoyed this a hell of a lot more than I expected, though I shouldn't have been this surprised...Roy Thomas has always been able to spin an entertaining yarn.

I have a friend who's one of the biggest Conan fans I know, so I picked up this and the follow-up volume for him for his birthday. And I figured, I read most of the run Thomas talks about, so why not grab a copy of both for myself while I'm at it.

Glad I did. Thomas documents the behind the scenes stories around the Marvel acquisition of the rights to Robert E. Howard's (now) most famous creation, as well as the ins and outs with the various artists, inkers, the back and forth with Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp (who sounds like he was a bit of a dick about the entire thing), and Stan Lee's influence and input.

And he also documents the stories behind the stories. Honestly, I didn't realize Thomas had such a solid ongoing plan for Conan right from the get-go. I was always impressed with his attention to getting Conan right, but this book just raised that admiration to a whole new level.

If only the book didn't have so many spelling and grammatical errors. ( )