18 Reasons to Follow Conan across the Sands of Zamora

Real men wear loincloths, and so do real women! Experience Conan the Barbarian in all its violent, sensual, and unintentionally comedic glory.

Monica Friedman Jun 8, 2015

Monica Friedman

Staff Writer

Monica Friedman has a Dewey Decimal tattoo, a master's degree in creative writing, and 270° of floor to ceiling bookshelves in her home office. She left a lucrative career crafting web content for search engine optimization to throw her life away on starving artistry and has never been happier. Her passions include childhood literacy, dark chocolate, and macro photography, and she has been known to lecture strangers about race/class/gender/sexuality until her audience's eyes glaze over and they wander away. Monica lives with 1 husband, 2 stepkids, and a terrible cat in the dry heat of Tucson, Arizona. You can read short reviews of every book she's read since December 2006 at Dragon's Library and check out her original words and pictures on QWERTYvsDvorak.com. Twitter: @QWERTYvsDvorak

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Conan the Cimmerian, savage and seemingly invincible (except when necessary for a plot twist), is a man who lives by a code of honor. It is not a code that you or I could live by, or possibly even comprehend, but it works for Conan. Not convinced? Here’s eighteen more reason why you should follow Conan from the lawless sprawl of Khartoosh in the middle of the Kothian wastes to the cold and rainy borderline of Aquilona, and beyond, as illustrated by Volume 18 of The Savage Sword of Conan:

Conan’s reputation precedes him. You’ve totally have heard of Conan, haven’t you?
Conan actually gets that sort of thing all the time.

Conan kills gods. Regularly. Falling afoul of a god and slaughtering it righteously are common, everyday activities for Conan. To your eyes these gods might look like giant spiders or dinosaurs or whatever, but you’ve never fought a god, have you?

In the next panel they suggest the logical solution: worship Conan. Conan inelegantly declines.

In the next panel they suggest the logical solution: worship Conan. Conan declines.

He might be a god. He’s frequently referred to as one, and once he gets paid to impersonate one, and he definitely, briefly, is given the actual power of one.

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Look on Conan’s works, ye Mighty, and despair!

He does not fear death. He actually pursues death. It seems unlikely that he will ever actually catch up with death (see points 2 and 3) but that doesn’t stop him from staring into its hideous face and maybe trying to murder death.

That ring you have? The one that summons a demon who straight up murders anyone who ever possesses it? Conan REALLY REALLY wants that death ring. Conan can be the bravest and most foolish man you’ve ever met at the same time. Conan is versatile in that way.

He can please you and three of your friends if you give him time. Don’t make Conan choose. Conan does not want to choose. If you make him choose, he will choose all of you.

Conan sucks at making up his mind.

Conan only fails to please a woman if a small child magically gives him erectile dysfunction for comedic effect.

This has never happened to Conan before. He swears. Seriously, though, this panel really does represent Conan being impotent. It's not his fault. It's that meddling kid.

Conan swears this has never happened to Conan before.

Conan can solve this problem. By spanking the magical child. For comedic effect.

Conan would never fight with a girl, but corporal punishment is a different story. Do not mess with Conan's masculinity.

Conan would never hit a girl, but corporal punishment is a different story. Do not mess with Conan’s masculinity.

Out of respect for these boner-killing abilities, Conan will not sex up the kid’s mom, even though Mom offers. Actually, this kid might be the only thing in the world Conan fears.

Awkward…

Conan uses his white male privilege to speak out against rape culture. Conan is totally against rape. Conan will literally kill you to prevent you from raping women.

Real mean don't force themselves on women. Real mean only need force to keep women off of them.

Real mean don’t force themselves on women. Real mean only use force against women in order to keep the hordes of women off of them.

It is completely incidental that women Conan saves from rape will be so overwhelmed with gratitude that they immediately sex him up in lieu of a thank you note.

There is only one way to thank Conan.

Random underwear princesses. Conan stumbles upon them all the time. Finding a random underwear princess is another normal occurrence in Conan’s life. It’s as common as finding a god to kill.

Conan’s gonna be honest with you. Conan meets a LOT of underwear princesses in his line of work.

Conan warns you. He actually doesn’t want to hurt you. He told you not to follow him around and beg for fighting lessons. You didn’t listen. But you were warned. The life of a warrior is not for the faint of heart, or men who are super attached to their limbs.

Conan is telling you flat out, he really does not recommend this lifestyle.

Conan doesn’t respect your authority. He may tolerate it for a little while if you give him food or gold, but his heart bows to no man. He doesn’t tolerate your lack of respect for his authority, though. He is Conan.

The rest of this issue is just Conan slaughtering the entire army, to a man, single handed.

Honor among thieves. Conan is totally cool with stealing. He’s cool with you stealing. (Don’t steal his stuff, though. He will cut you. And take your stuff.) What’s not cool is stealing from the dead. Corpse robbing is right out! It’s on par with rape. Maybe worse. Don’t do it. If you do, the dead will be justified in their revenge.

Look, without the rule of law, society will break down. If you're going to steal, you steal from the living, OK?

Look, without the rule of law, society will break down. If you’re going to steal, you steal from people who can fight back, OK?

Conan is the Marxist champion of the oppressed. If you are downtrodden or in thrall of an evil wizard, Conan can free you from your bondage. Conan believes in fairly remunerating artisans for their handiwork. You can’t imprison the blind in sweatshops on Conan’s watch.

Just kidding! Conan will fully liberate you guys on the next page.

Conan has a past. Periodically, it catches up with him. Conan remains stoic.

In all fairness, Conan will throw in with anyone whose lifestyle involves a lot of fighting.

Conan has a future. A shaman hermit showed him once. It’s going to be awesome.

Conan’s retirement plan is much better than yours.

It can get boring, being an invincible mercenary all the time. That’s when Conan takes a break from all that sword-for-hire work to enjoy life as a pirate. This makes total sense. Revel in it.

Conan can be a pirate if Conan wants to be a pirate.

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