Conan The Barbarian #4 CGC NM/M 9.8 White

Description

This book may be considered the most important Marvel Conan issue of all. The story within this book ("The Tower of the Elephant") was the first Robert E. Howard story adapted by Marvel, as explained by Roy Thomas:



"For #4 I decided to do something different. From the beginning I had wanted to adapt Robert E. Howard‘s storles as well as make up so my own, but our contract with the REH estate gave us rights only to use Conan, not any particular stories. Now I got permission from Glenn Lord in a letter to adapt the story in which the Cimmerian is chronologically youngest—"Tower of the Elephant," which had quickly become my favorite Conan tale of all-as an issue of Conan. Either Marvel or I-I suspect Marvel-paid a little extra for the rlght to adapt the story, but at thls point I‘ve totally forgotten how I swung that or how much it cost. Working with Howard's actual prose, not just my couple of pages of accompanying notes, apparently turned Barry on, and he did a wonderful job. From the time Barry drew "Tower of the Elephant," there was no looking back for either of us."

Excerpt from "The Barry Windsor-Smith Conan Archives Volume 1" 2010 (the foreword by Roy Thomas)



Had Marvel not acquired the rights to adapt Robert E. Howards original Conan stories, Marvel's Conan the Barbarian books would probably never had reached similar popularity. Published during the year 1971 these Robert E. Howard adapted stories won the "Academy of Comic Book Arts Awards Best Continuing Feature". Roy Thomas also explained in the extra material on the 2011 Conan Blu-Ray movie, when Marvel's Conan books were selling at their best, Marvel's Conan earnings were twice as high as Marvel's earnings on The Amazing Spider-man and The Fantastic Four combined.



Furthermore, in an interview May 1998 Barry Windsor-Smith mentioned that Conan the Barbarian #4 was quite special to him:



"Roy had sent me all of the Lancer paperbacks some months prior to our beginning the first issue, so my prior affinity was merely months old but, as it happens, that made my perceptions energetic and fresh because I was utterly hooked by Howard's writing style. "The Tower of the Elephant," in particular, was a real head trip, to use the vernacular of the time".
Excerpt from "Comic Book Artist" #2



In short, this book contains Marvel's first adapted Robert E. Howard story and for that matter maybe the best Conan story ever written by Robert E. Howard. Currently there are only 7 of these books graded 9.8 by the CGC and none better. - And this book has perfect snow white pages! Should this book really carry a lower value than one of the 25 CGC 9.8 Conan the Barbarian #1 books?



The price is firm. Only in the event that more than 10 Conan the Barbarian #4 books graded at 9.8 or better are registered at the CGC Census, the seller may consider a reduced price.