Conan the Barbarian is jumping ship to a new comics publisher – again. Titan Comics and Heroic Signatures have teamed up on the Conan license for comics publication starting in 2023 with a brand new ongoing series. The publisher will also produce remastered archives, including the omnibus program spearheaded by Marvel Comics.
This is the second time the Conan license has left Marvel: the publisher began publishing Conan comics in the '70s but stopped when the license expired in the '90s. Dark Horse Comics picked up the license in the early aughts and published Conan from 2003-2018, at which point Marvel once again acquired the license and began publishing new Conan comics in 2019.
Three years later, Robert E. Howard's slate of characters – minus Red Sonja, who still resides at Dynamite – will feature in stories published by Titan in partnership with Heroic Signatures. A new Conan ongoing will be part of Titan's 10th-anniversary celebration, and the publisher has also teased limited series featuring other heroes from Howard's world.
"We have been working with Titan for a year on the prose side and established a good foundation for expanding our business together. When it became clear that Heroic Signatures would publish our own comics it was natural to partner with a team that we have known for decades. Their expertise in publishing is stellar and we couldn't be more excited to launch a barbarian horde of titles like Conan, Solomon Kane, Dark Agnes, and many more together," says Heroic Signatures president Fredrik Malmberg in the announcement.
Titan Comics and Titan Books co-publishers Vivian Cheung and Nick Landau add, "Following on from the Conan fiction and illustrated books Titan Books is publishing this year with Heroic Signatures, we are very excited to be extending our relationship with our longstanding colleagues, Fred and Jay and their incredible team, to include comics, graphic novels, and archive editions through Titan Comics, for all the Robert E. Howard properties which we will be launching in 2023."
Titan picking up the Conan comics license follows on the heels of last year's announcement that its book division will publish new Conan novels, short stories, and illustrated art books starting in fall 2022, to celebrate the character's 90th anniversary. This line will launch with the Conan: Blood of the Serpent novel on October 18, followed by behind-the-scenes retrospective Conan the Barbarian: The Official Story of the Film on November 1.
Titan's Conan comics will be distributed through Penguin Random House and Diamond Comic Distributors. Stay tuned for more information, including the ongoing series' creative team and additional titles to be announced.
