Marvel comics veteran Roy Thomas has an auto-biography of his life in Conan comics, and his wider fascination with the Conan character. DMR Books has a good review of the 296-page Volume One, which quietly scaled the walls of the Elephant God of Amazon just before Christmas…

Barbarian Life: A Literary Biography of Conan the Barbarian (Volume One), by Roy Thomas. In this book, Roy shares not only his memories of writing the first 53 issues of the comic book (Volume Two will cover the rest of his more than 100 issue run), but his own obsession with Conan and his creator.

I expect this book might be usefully paired with Barry Windsor-Smith’s The Freebooters, for an insight into the role of the artist in sword-and-sorcery comic-book making. Despite the publisher pitching this as simply a trade paperback collecting the Freebooter stories from the BWS: Storyteller magazine, it’s far more.

The IGN review explains…

This collection is unlike anything I have ever read. Part comic, part behind-the-scenes article, Barry Windsor-Smith’s The Freebooters is definitely unique. […] Most trades* these days give a slight glimpse into the creative process, but not like this. Readers will see unfinished pages, progressive pieces showing rough sketches to final, colored pieces. We also get a narrative that guides us through the thoughts and decisions that BWS made.

* = a trade paperback book collecting a series of comic books or strips, usually formerly issued in episodic pamphlet comic form to comics shops and collectors. Also abbreviated to ‘tpb’.