Introduction
It may not be easy navigating the world of ownership and rights regarding Robert E. Howard’s legacy. Who owns the rights to his characters, and what are the different organizations and fan groups? Who is who and who did what?
The missing will
But first, an interesting story about a missing Will who could have changed everything.
When L. Sprague de Camp (see below) wrote his Howard biography ‘Dark Valley Destiny’, he made a point to interview people who actually knew Howard. Another discussion can be made since de Camp picked and chose how and what to present, but the point is the information that appeared during an interview with Kate Merriman, who was the last nurse for Hester Howard.
She said that after Bob and Hester were both dead, the very next day Doc Howard told her they had to straighten up REH’s room, sort out all the papers, so he could find things to sell to the pulps. Apparently, money was an issue for Doc Howard. She said papers were scattered everywhere, a real mess to sort out. As they were working their way through the papers she picked up one item, read it, and said “Look, Doctor Howard! It’s a will!”. She said it left everything to his friend Lyndsey Tyson who loaned him the gun, an Automatic Colt Pistol (.380 ACP) also called 9mm Browning Short.
Doc Howard took the will, read it, got very angry, walked out of the room with it, and didn’t return for a few minutes. When he finally did, he no longer had the will, and he told her “Don’t you dare ever tell anyone about that!” And so she didn’t (she said), at least not till she talked to LSDC.
Wills and laws in Texas
What makes this even more interesting is that Howard at one point worked for a lawyer. And a generic Texas lawyer working in a small town does everything, including wills. And he could have told Howard that in Texas, a “holographic” will is valid. That is one that is handwritten and signed. They can be VERY simple that way, whereas a normal typed-out will require witnesses, notaries, much more extensive.
And if the lawyer, Paul Harrell had Howard asking him about wills, he may have known about this will. And so it was that when Glenn visited with Lyndsey Tyson in the 1960s, Lyndsey told him that yes, the lawyer came to him a couple of weeks after Bob died, and said Bob had written a holographic will leaving all his rights to Lyndsey, and that Doc Howard was trying to take everything instead, and that Lyndsey needed to speak up at the court, to stop it from happening. Lyndsey told the lawyer Bob had used Lyndsey’s gun, he wanted nothing to do with any of it, and he was so upset. Decades later, when talking to Glenn, Lyndsey told Glenn that that was the dumbest thing he ever did, he should have taken all those rights when he had the chance, maybe he could have gotten rich.
The judge that was handling the estate of REH following his death delayed and delayed and delayed, perhaps because the lawyer told him what was happening, and the judge was giving Lyndsey time to come forward. Doc Howard wrote a couple of nasty letters to the judge asking him to hurry the hell up, he needed the money in the bank account to pay bills. Lyndsey never came forward back then, and so after way longer than necessary, perhaps as much as 9 months or even a year, the judge finally closed the estate and gave all the rights to Doc Howard as the nearest living kin, under the “intestacy” laws of Texas. (Intestacy is for when there is no will.)
If Howard had kids, they would have gotten all of it. Under Texas law, contesting the disbursement of an estate has to be done within either a certain time period (one or two years?) after which time it can no longer be contested. So it was long done and nothing can change it.
The Howard estate
A popular term to use is the Howard “estate”. This was something created out of Howard’s rights and property (like his books and swords) while the judge was deciding what to do with it. Once he gave it all to Howard’s father, the estate was closed and ceased to exist.
People still use this word like it’s still something that exists, but that is the wrong term. Howard’s “copyrights” is likely a more accurate word for this use.
After Howard's death
But let’s step back a few years. Who “owned” Robert E. Howard’s characters after his death?
Alla Ray Kuykendall was only 18 the day Robert Howard, killed himself in Cross Plains, a small West Texas town 30 miles away from Ranger, Texas where she lived. The Kuykendalls met Howard’s father, by then in his 70s, during World War II. Alla Ray’s father had a small hospital and helped doctor Howard (Roberts’s father) who was unable to run a practice by himself. It helped her father and made it easier for dr. Howard. When dr. Howard tied four years later he left his entire state to Kuykendall. The doctor’s possessions consisted of a couple of thousand dollars in the bank, some manuscripts in a trunk — and the copyrights to Robert’s work.
Outstanding albino quarter horse stallion, Bud, owned by Dr. P.M Kuykendall and trained by Phelton Herrington, ultimately performed as both a roping horse and a barrel racer (with Helen Bradford), two rather different sorts of skills.
Enter Glenn Lord
When Alla Ray’s father died in 1959, the literary agency closed down. It suggested that Howard’s property be put in the hands of a Pasadena, Tex., paper warehouse operator named Glenn Lord, who was a fan of Howard’s and had collected many of his works.
Glenn Lord was the man who built up the interest in Conan and the other stories Howard wrote when he took over as literary agent. He began collecting and sending copies of manuscripts to publishers and magazines. By sheer perseverance and enthusiasm, he created a market. It started growing slowly about the late 1950s. It gradually grew and grew and grew until by the 1960s, Robert became quite a popular writer. From then on, it just exploded.
But along with the bigger dividend checks came copyright problems. So the Kuykendall’s and Philadelphia science fiction writer Sprague de Camp established Conan Properties, of which the Kuykendall’s own half.
More about Glenn Lord...The infamous L. Sprague de Camp
Lyon Sprague de Camp (1907-2000) edited some of Howard’s works for publication in book form and began writing new stories using Howard’s characters and storylines. Many things have been said about de Camp and not all flattering. He added and rewrote the Conan stories and also published a biography about Howard where he gave his own opinions on him.
Wandering Star
In 1998, Rusty Burke got involved with Wandering Star and for the next few years had a lot of interactions with Jack and Barbara Baum, who inherited the Howard Properties from Alla Ray Kuykendall Morris (1916-1995). Together they were working to try to get “pure text” Howard into print. At the same time, for business reasons, they tried to consolidate the various properties.
Separate corporations had been set up for different characters. Not just Conan, but Kull, Solomon Kane, etc. The goal was to bring it all under the same REH Properties umbrella, except for Conan. Red Sonja did not become part of this and Red Sonja (with a j) is not a character of Howard anyway.
More about Wandering Star...Paradox Entertainment and Fredrik Malmberg
In 2002, Paradox Entertainment Inc. purchased Conan Properties International (CPI) and has run CPI as a subsidiary since.
By 2005 Jack and Barbara Baum realized that they could not handle all this business themselves with all the copyright, trademark, licensing, and other business issues. They sold REH Properties, Kull Productions, and Solomon Kane Paradox Entertainment Inc in 2006, and Fredrik Malmberg.
I contacted Fredrik Malmberg, a man with many talents. He speaks Swedish, Norwegian, German, Spanish, and English. With broad experience in different media channels. Direct experience with high-level negotiations, creative and business development as well as talent packaging, domestic and foreign sales, financing, and production of film, tv, and videogames. He is also listed as a producer for Conan the Barbarian (2011) and as a producer for the announced “The Legend of Conan”.
Fredrik Malmberg served as President and CEO of Paradox from 2006 before he later left Paradox Entertainment and founded Cabinet Entertainment in 2014. His Cabinet Group purchased Paradox Entertainment Inc in 2015 and changed its name to Cabinet Licensing Inc. in mid-2015. They subsequently rolled Solomon Kane Inc and Kull Productions into REH Properties, also run as a subsidiary of Cabinet Licensing Inc.
Malmberg has financed and produced more than ten films and has extensive experience in the branding, merchandising, and licensing fields. Cabinet Licensing is the consumer products division that manages and develops global entertainment franchises in all forms of media, including motion picture, television, and the gaming, publishing, and toy/collectibles industries.
Cabinet Group and Funcom
In 2021 Funcom has acquired control of Conan the Barbarian and other popular culture intellectual properties with its acquisition of Cabinet Group.
The Oslo, Norway-based Funcom will merge the properties into its IP studio Heroic Signatures. In addition to Conan, it is acquiring IPs such as Mutant Year Zero and Solomon Kane. The purchase price wasn’t disclosed.
The Cabinet Group was formerly known as Paradox Entertainment. Funcom CEO Rui Casais said in a statement that the company has high ambitions for the IPs and revealed it has at least one unannounced project already in development.
We are currently overseeing the development of an unannounced game which will combine many of the characters in the Robert E. Howard universe,” said Casais. “And if you combine Funcom’s knowledge of games with Heroic Signatures’ knowledge of the TV/entertainment, publishing, and licensing industries, it makes us perfectly placed to take this venture to the next level. It’s exciting times ahead for us and for fans of the IPs.
Funcom already had the interactive rights to the IP’s shared 50-50 with Cabinet Group. Now, the company has 100% ownership of the rights to everything, including motion pictures, comics, and board games. Funcom has several licensing agreements in place for the production of these for some of the IPs, and Funcom plans to expand upon that through their subsidiary Heroic Signatures.
In September, Netflix said it will develop a new Conan TV series as a part of a larger deal involving Cabinet Group CEO Fredrik Malmberg and Mark Wheeler from Pathfinder Media. Netflix has exclusive rights to the Conan library for the rights for live-action and animated films and TV shows.
Malmberg will continue as president of Heroic Signatures at Funcom, which counts Tencent as a majority owner.
We took Cabinet Group as far as we could as an independent studio, but in order to achieve further growth, we were in need of bigger financial investments and infrastructure,” Malmberg said in a statement.
Malmberg cut licensing deals with Penguin Random House, Panini, Titan Books, Monolith, and Funcom to get Conan the Barbarian to reach a new generation of fans around the world. Marvel Entertainment is publishing a new Conan comic book every month, and a Netflix series based on the same IP is also currently in the works.
Copyright and publishing
Coming…
Sources and links
Conan’s royalties go to two women originator Robert Howard never knew – UPI Archives
Fredrik Malmberg
Rusty Burke
Alla Ray Kuykendall Morris (1916-1995) – Find A Grave Memorial