La Reina de la Costa Negra!!!

Look! Not one, not two, but three exclamation marks, and for good reason. It’s Conan the blond Conquistador in the unauthorized, unabashed, unbelievably cool Mexican comic book La Reina de la Costa Negra (Queen of the Black Coast)!

Reproduced in issue #3 of the Spanish fanzine Sword (Sept. 1999, look here), and featuring the artwork of Salvador H. Lavalle and a script by Silvaquiros, it’s here for your viewing pleasure (link below)!

Coincidentally, Marvel’s The Savage Sword of Conan #44 (Sept, 1979) has a article with fairly in-depth coverage of this particular issue of “La Reina…” by one Douglas Menville, including several scans, so there are a few things that I can safely say about this comic:

1. This is indeed issue #16, originally published by Ediciones Joma on Dec 8, 1965.

2. Although some of the stories in other comics in this series have a title, that is not the case with this particular issue.

3. This advertisement appeared on the back cover:

Interestingly enough, these same guys were also responsible for another comic book at the very same time, a Tarzan parody entitled Chango'o El Rey De Los Monos (Chango'o King of the Apes?)…now I'm no comic book artist, but can you imagine pumping out two 32 page comics (plus covers) every week? I'm getting carpal tunnel syndrome just thinking about it.

Just for fun, here's the cover from issue #9 of Chango’o, from Nov 27, 1965...

Also just for fun, I needed a break while translating this comic into English, so I colored this here picture of Lavalle's Conan (taken from one of the panels of the comic)…

Now point your pointy thing right HERE, and check out La Reina de la Costa Negra #16!

Once again, we have Joseba to thank for all of this, so…THANK YOU JOSEBA!