So You Want to Get Into The Savage Sword Of Conan
It was a comic book. Published by Marvel from 1974 to 1995. Originally a one-shot, then a full series. Forty pages of black and white comics featuring Conan the Barbarian, drawn by different artists each issue. It ran for 202 issues plus a few specials. That's the basic summary. What it actually feels like to collect or read these days is another matter. I picked up my first copy around 2008, back when the eBay prices were still reasonable. By 2015 I had the complete run. Then I realized I'd bought a lot of them in decent shape but not great shape, and I spent the next three years trying to sell the duplicates I didn't need while keeping the ones I did. Here's how I made sense of it all, and what you should know before diving in.
The Savage Sword Of Conan: What It Actually Is
The Savage Sword Of Conan was Marvel's answer to horror anthologies like Tomb of Darkness, but built around a single character. Gary Gianni did the first few issues, then a rotating cast of artists took over. Howard Chaykin, John Buscema, Val Mayerik, Barry Windsor-Smith, Mike Zeck, Alan Moore wrote a famous story arc in there, and the humor inserts by Bill Mantlo and Tony DeZuniga are genuinely funny if you're in the mood for it. The format changed over time. Issues 1 through roughly 80 were standard comic dimensions, 6.625 by 10.25 inches. After that they shrank slightly. The paper quality also shifted. Early issues used higher-grade pulp stock that yellowed less than later printings. This matters if you care about long-term preservation.
How to Actually Read These Without Losing Your Mind
Most people approach this wrong. They start with issue 1 and work straight through. The continuity isn't that tight. Many issues are standalone stories. The Alan Moore "Swords of the Purple Kingdom" arc runs from issue 99 through 102, and that's about as connected as it gets. Otherwise you can jump around without feeling lost. Here's what I'd suggest. Start with issue 1 because it establishes the visual tone with Gary Gianni. Then skip ahead to the Conan stories by Barry Windsor-Smith in issues 52 through 56, or the Alan Moore stuff I mentioned. The humor features appear in almost every issue, so those are consistent touchpoints regardless of where you are in the run. Reading order doesn't matter much, but reading them in publication order does help you see how the art style evolved across two decades. The biggest problem people hit is availability. Issues in the 100 to 150 range tend to be the cheapest on the secondary market because nobody collected them back when they came out. The early issues and the late Alan Moore arc are the expensive ones. If you want complete issues in decent condition, budget around $3 to $8 per copy for the mid-run, and $20 to $60 for the key issues depending on grade.
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The Restoration Problem I Ran Into
Here's a specific issue I encountered that most collectors miss. A lot of issues from the mid-1980s have a problem called "newsstand bleaching." The UV light exposure from being left in comic shop windows for extended periods caused the black ink to shift toward a grayish-brown tone. It's not reproduction quality damage, and it's not something you can fix with a toner pen. I spent about forty-five minutes on issue 134 trying to clean it up with a microfiber cloth and distilled water on a cotton swab, which is the standard spot-cleaning method for surface grime. It removed some dirt but did nothing for the bleaching. The ink shift is permanent. The workaround I settled on was straightforward: don't pay full price for a newsstand copy with visible bleaching. Buy a direct edition instead, or buy a lower-graded copy and underframe it with a mat. The mat hides the top quarter of the cover where the bleaching shows most. It cost me about twelve dollars in supplies and saved me from overpaying by thirty on a copy I was going to frame anyway.
Where to Find Copies
eBay is the default. ComicConnect has some well-graded lots. MyComicShop runs auctions periodically. For the complete run, you're looking at either finding a estate sale lot (which happens maybe once a year if you're lucky) or building it individually over several months. I spent about fourteen months buying one to three issues per week from different sellers to get the full set in the condition I wanted. If you just want to read the stories rather than collect, the Marvel Digital Comics subscription occasionally includes Savage Sword issues, though the selection rotates. The complete run has never been fully digitized there. You can also find individual issues on Amazon Marketplace from third-party sellers, usually at a markup over eBay prices but with faster shipping.
What the Collecting Community Gets Wrong
People obsess over the first appearance of characters in here. The Red Skull appears in a backup story in issue 2, and that's treated as a key issue. It's not really a key issue. It's a cameo in a black-and-white comic that nobody was collecting in 1974. The actual keys are the Alan Moore stories and the Windsor-Smith run. Those are what hold value. Everything else is collector hype. Another common mistake is assuming that higher grade always means better investment. A CGC 9.4 from 1988 newsstand stock looks worse than a CGC 8.0 from the same era direct edition because the newsstand copies were physically more abused before they were graded. The grade number is the same, but the visual experience is different. Check the actual photos, not just the certification number.
Should You Start This Collection
It depends on what you want. If you're interested in Conan as a literary character beyond the Robert E. Howard originals, this is where most of the comic book adaptations live. If you're into comic art from the 1970s and 80s, the rotating artist roster gives you a survey of American comics illustration across two decades. If you're looking for a straightforward superhero narrative, look elsewhere. The main drawback is storage. Two hundred and two issues take up real space. I estimate about four to five linear feet on a shelf if you're keeping them upright in bags and boards. Some issues are thicker than others because of the page count varying between thirty-six and forty-four pages, but the dimension difference is minor. I'd say start with a curated subset rather than the full run unless you have the space and the budget for both. The first twenty issues plus the Moore arc and the Windsor-Smith stories give you about sixty issues that cover the material most people actually want. The rest is filler and humor inserts that are fine but not essential. That gets you through in a reasonable timeframe without committing to two hundred comics you may never open again.
