(EDITOR’S NOTE: Welcome to Musings from the Monk, a semi-regular column written by the chief archivist and comic nut who organizes Paint Monk’s Library. Expect bloviations on many topics here, from comic books, pop culture and current events to reviews, random thoughts, and sometimes, things that are even relevant.)

By WALLY MONK – Paint Monk’s Library Editor

Welcome to Musings from the Monk! If you’ve made it this far, then I’m off to a rousing start. This is the space where I’ll keep everyone informed with news, snippets and what’s going here at the monastery library. Sometimes it will be a short little update, other times I plan to ramble like I will today.

Your thoughts, opinions, and insights are always welcome. You can comment on any article here at Paint Monk’s Library using your Facebook or Google accounts. I look forward to hearing from you, and maybe even building a little community here in a dusty nook near the bookshelves.

Classic Conan Countdown Resumes May 27th

I’ve received several emails from readers the last week inquiring about the absence of recent installments of our Classic Conan Countdown. This feature will begin again this coming Wednesday with a review of Conan the Barbarian (Vol. 1) #119 by yours truly.

I can’t lay blame here on any librarian but myself. In the course of my day-to-day work and other obligations, I’ve lost many of the advance reviews I had already written and have been re-writing many of them as I go – and Conan #119 is one such victim. Bob and Andy have both done an admirable job staying ahead of things, and I, sadly, have not.

A Familiar Face Returns to the Library

As the Library looks to resume regular posting and roll out some new features, I’m pleased to welcome back Dean Plakas to the fine group of scribes here. Dean was one of the first volunteers to begin writing with me here on the blog and was a regular contributor to the Classic Conan Countdown, with occasional feature stories and interviews also. He has also graciously contributed artwork to the blog, including the logo and banner for the Conan countdown.

It’s great to have him back, and I hope you all give him a warm welcome. In the meantime, keep an eye out for the launch of Into Skartaris! – the Warlord chronology in review. Dean has graciously volunteered to head up and organize that particular project.

A Tentative Schedule as Posting Resumes

Assuming that I can get ahead once more on editing, my hope is to have a weekly schedule as follows:

• Mondays – Moon Knight Chronology Reviews
• Wednesdays – Classic Conan Countdown
• Fridays – Into Skartaris! Warlord Chronology Reviews

Tuesdays, Thursdays and the weekends will be left open for reviews of new comics (Conan the Barbarian, Red Sonja) as well as interviews, columns by our bloggers and this Musings column.

Check out the Reviews of Conan #1-24

As of this afternoon, the first 24 installments of the Classic Conan Countdown have been re-edited and re-formatted from our old eBlogger site and are now “fit to read” here on WordPress. You can now read complete reviews of the entire Roy Thomas – Barry Winsdor-Smith run on the site by clicking here, without worrying about misformatted pages and weird objects stuck in the middle of each page.

Friends, that’s all for now. As always, thanks for all of your support. Stay healthy, stay safe, and we’ll see you in the library soon.

As always, I am – Wally (AKA Paint Monk)