thormagni
Explorer
So... Today is the day that the entertainment section in the paper has Vincent's story in it. Unfortunately, I don't think we were able to deliver many papers this morning. I know that I can't find mine out there and I only live 10 blocks from the office.
So, I just want to assure everyone that it was really good and that you would probably like it, if you got the chance to read it.
Here you go though. I pulled it off of our Web site. It doesn't have the super-cool photo of Vince with his sword, but it will have to do until the world thaws out again.
Bookkeeping to Barbaric
By John Clark
jclark@therepublic.com
Vincent Darlage, a Columbus accounting teacher, spends four to five hours each day tracing the footsteps and studying the adventures of the brawniest of pulp fiction’s heroes, Conan the Barbarian.
Darlage, working with Mongoose Publishing in England, has created four Conan books already and recently has signed to write five more.
The books, written for a new Conan role-playing game, are so chock-full of Conan’s history that the property’s owners are assigning Darlage’s books as assigned reading for other authors.
Darlage is writing his Conan books as a side to his work as an accounting teacher at Indiana Business College and father to his sons Victor and Perry.
Conan was created in the 1930s in the pages of “Weird Tales” magazine by Robert E. Howard. The warrior since has been interpreted into comic books, two movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and a slew of novels and short stories by Howard and other authors.
Darlage became interested in Conan after an uncle loaned him two compilations of Howard’s original Conan stories. Darlage then moved into the Conan comic book series and back into the full line of Conan books.
“They had an intensity and a vitality that I just really identified with and a level of violence that superseded what the comics could do,” Darlage said.
“What interested me was the way he got older and the way he changed. Your Superman, your Spider-man, Batman, they are timeless. They never change. They are the same character, issue after issue and year after year.
“Conan changed. Although the stories weren’t written in chronological order, if you placed them in (order) you could see how raw and barbaric he is in the early stories to the king he becomes later and how different he is. The stories in between show that growth.”
Howard committed suicide in 1936 after creating fantasy legends such as Conan, King Kull and Solomon Kane.
“His stories had this sense of doom about them that no matter what you do, the end is coming,” Darlage said. “But you do it anyway. There is a heroism in his tragedy. There is a sense that no matter what Conan does, the Hyperborean civilization will be swept away. And you know it does because it doesn’t exist today.”
Howard’s prehistoric world of Hyperborea was based loosely on real-world countries and cultures. For example, Cimmeria, the home of Conan, is much like ancient Celtic civilizations.
Darlage turned his fan love for Conan into a set of award-winning Web sites, which drew the attention of Mongoose. His first book, the hardback “Road of Kings,” is a travelogue or gazetteer of the countries of Hyperborea, mixing facts culled from the Conan source material with role-playing game write-ups of the characters. Later books include discussions of the Pictish tribes, and several in-depth country profiles.
“I have always been interested in Conan,” Darlage said. “Whenever I did my Dungeons and Dragons adventures I was reading Conan, and that was always my basis. I always wanted D&D to be more like Conan. Now, not only am I playing it that way but I get to write it the way I think it should be, which I kind of like. Instead of living with someone else’s opinion, I get to live with my opinion.”
Mongoose’s Conan editor, Richard Neale, said Darlage has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Conan world. Whenever Mongoose needs a fact or figure, Darlage has it ready at his fingertips.
“Vince’s encyclopedic knowledge has been a godsend, it really has,” Neale said. “There are an awful lot of Conan books to get through to make sure you are aware of how Hyperborea worked … Vincent does know his stuff, bar none. I don’t know anybody that could come close to Vincent in that knowledge.”
The Mongoose books are full of evocative Conan artwork, which means many half-naked barbarian women and bloody battle scenes.
“I think if Howard was still around he would love what we have done with it in terms of the artwork we have done and in terms of the general direction we have taken Conan in, with Mongoose Publishing, I think we have really captured the essence of Hyperborea, of Howard’s Hyperborea,” Neale said. “Vincent, to be honest, has been the key man, the keystone in doing that for us. Because without him, I don’t think I would have been able to bring a product that looks that good.”
Darlage knows the hundreds of comic books, movies, Howard stories and subsequent writers’ work inside and out.
“I imagine it is not much different from your sports fans, who can quote statistics from years gone by of any particular sports hero they happen to have,” Darlage said. “I don’t watch sports, or have anything to do with it, so that little part of my male mentality that does that has fixated on Conan.”
So, I just want to assure everyone that it was really good and that you would probably like it, if you got the chance to read it.
Here you go though. I pulled it off of our Web site. It doesn't have the super-cool photo of Vince with his sword, but it will have to do until the world thaws out again.
Bookkeeping to Barbaric
By John Clark
jclark@therepublic.com
Vincent Darlage, a Columbus accounting teacher, spends four to five hours each day tracing the footsteps and studying the adventures of the brawniest of pulp fiction’s heroes, Conan the Barbarian.
Darlage, working with Mongoose Publishing in England, has created four Conan books already and recently has signed to write five more.
The books, written for a new Conan role-playing game, are so chock-full of Conan’s history that the property’s owners are assigning Darlage’s books as assigned reading for other authors.
Darlage is writing his Conan books as a side to his work as an accounting teacher at Indiana Business College and father to his sons Victor and Perry.
Conan was created in the 1930s in the pages of “Weird Tales” magazine by Robert E. Howard. The warrior since has been interpreted into comic books, two movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and a slew of novels and short stories by Howard and other authors.
Darlage became interested in Conan after an uncle loaned him two compilations of Howard’s original Conan stories. Darlage then moved into the Conan comic book series and back into the full line of Conan books.
“They had an intensity and a vitality that I just really identified with and a level of violence that superseded what the comics could do,” Darlage said.
“What interested me was the way he got older and the way he changed. Your Superman, your Spider-man, Batman, they are timeless. They never change. They are the same character, issue after issue and year after year.
“Conan changed. Although the stories weren’t written in chronological order, if you placed them in (order) you could see how raw and barbaric he is in the early stories to the king he becomes later and how different he is. The stories in between show that growth.”
Howard committed suicide in 1936 after creating fantasy legends such as Conan, King Kull and Solomon Kane.
“His stories had this sense of doom about them that no matter what you do, the end is coming,” Darlage said. “But you do it anyway. There is a heroism in his tragedy. There is a sense that no matter what Conan does, the Hyperborean civilization will be swept away. And you know it does because it doesn’t exist today.”
Howard’s prehistoric world of Hyperborea was based loosely on real-world countries and cultures. For example, Cimmeria, the home of Conan, is much like ancient Celtic civilizations.
Darlage turned his fan love for Conan into a set of award-winning Web sites, which drew the attention of Mongoose. His first book, the hardback “Road of Kings,” is a travelogue or gazetteer of the countries of Hyperborea, mixing facts culled from the Conan source material with role-playing game write-ups of the characters. Later books include discussions of the Pictish tribes, and several in-depth country profiles.
“I have always been interested in Conan,” Darlage said. “Whenever I did my Dungeons and Dragons adventures I was reading Conan, and that was always my basis. I always wanted D&D to be more like Conan. Now, not only am I playing it that way but I get to write it the way I think it should be, which I kind of like. Instead of living with someone else’s opinion, I get to live with my opinion.”
Mongoose’s Conan editor, Richard Neale, said Darlage has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Conan world. Whenever Mongoose needs a fact or figure, Darlage has it ready at his fingertips.
“Vince’s encyclopedic knowledge has been a godsend, it really has,” Neale said. “There are an awful lot of Conan books to get through to make sure you are aware of how Hyperborea worked … Vincent does know his stuff, bar none. I don’t know anybody that could come close to Vincent in that knowledge.”
The Mongoose books are full of evocative Conan artwork, which means many half-naked barbarian women and bloody battle scenes.
“I think if Howard was still around he would love what we have done with it in terms of the artwork we have done and in terms of the general direction we have taken Conan in, with Mongoose Publishing, I think we have really captured the essence of Hyperborea, of Howard’s Hyperborea,” Neale said. “Vincent, to be honest, has been the key man, the keystone in doing that for us. Because without him, I don’t think I would have been able to bring a product that looks that good.”
Darlage knows the hundreds of comic books, movies, Howard stories and subsequent writers’ work inside and out.
“I imagine it is not much different from your sports fans, who can quote statistics from years gone by of any particular sports hero they happen to have,” Darlage said. “I don’t watch sports, or have anything to do with it, so that little part of my male mentality that does that has fixated on Conan.”
