Michael Docherty

Volume 3 of the Conan the King Omnibus program pairs writers Jim Owsley and Don Kraar up with John Buscema, Mike Docherty, Judith Hunt, Geoff Isherwood and Mike Manley to continue this bold era of Conan’s life… as a KING! HAIL KING CONAN! LONG MAY HE REIGN! Conan the barbarian, the thief, the mercenary, and now… Conan the king! Big John Buscema is back! Included in this 900+ page volume is one of the more rarely collected stories from the conclusion of John Buscema’s first long tenure on the Conan line of books as presented here and in the Conan of the Isles graphic novel. An older, wiser Conan relinquishes the throne to his son for one final glorious adventure! While Conan of the Isles serves as a wonderful appetizer, the real meat of this collection includes the remaining run of issues of Conan the King as penned by Don Kraar and then Jim Owsley (aka Christopher Priest) with notable artistic runs by Mike Docherty and Geoff Isherwood. Stories include ‘The Road to Empire’, ‘Of Sorcery and Steel’, ‘Caliastros’, and ‘Conn, Son of the Barbarian King’. This collection also features the usual assortment of superb pin up art by some true greats of the comic book form as well as up-and-coming talents of the time. Collecting: Conan the King (1984) #36-55 and Conan of the Isles graphic novel (1988) Marvel Graphic Novel #42

Shows how the myth of the American frontier persists as an ever-present, oppressive set of ideas about space, mobility, and race in the mid-twentieth-century literature of Los Angeles. The Recursive Frontier is an innovative spatial history of both the literature of Los Angeles and the city itself in the mid-twentieth century. Setting canonical texts alongside underexamined works and sources such as census bulletins and regional planning documents, Michael Docherty identifies the American frontier as the defining dynamic of Los Angeles fiction from the 1930s to the 1950s. Contrary to the received wisdom that Depression-era narratives mourn the frontier's demise, Docherty argues that the frontier lives on as a cruel set of rules for survival in urban modernity, governing how texts figure race, space, mobility, and masculinity. Moving from dancehalls to offices to oil fields and beyond, the book provides a richer, more diverse picture of LA's literary production during this period, as well as a vivid account of LA's cultural and social development as it transformed into the multiethnic megalopolis we know today.

Shows how the myth of the American frontier persists as an ever-present, oppressive set of ideas about space, mobility, and race in the mid-twentieth-century literature of Los Angeles. The Recursive Frontier is an innovative spatial history of both the literature of Los Angeles and the city itself in the mid-twentieth century. Setting canonical texts alongside underexamined works and sources such as census bulletins and regional planning documents, Michael Docherty identifies the American frontier as the defining dynamic of Los Angeles fiction from the 1930s to the 1950s. Contrary to the received wisdom that Depression-era narratives mourn the frontier's demise, Docherty argues that the frontier lives on as a cruel set of rules for survival in urban modernity, governing how texts figure race, space, mobility, and masculinity. Moving from dancehalls to offices to oil fields and beyond, the book provides a richer, more diverse picture of LA's literary production during this period, as well as a vivid account of LA's cultural and social development as it transformed into the multiethnic megalopolis we know today.