A Guest Post by John Bullard and Bill “Indy” Cavalier

John Bullard: As was mentioned at Howard Days, the Robert E. Howard Foundation Press is going to publish a book containing all the known photographs of Robert E. Howard, his family, friends, places in his life, and photos he took. I “volunteered” to edit the book, and began working on it. I had an idea to take the handful of photos that REH scholars argue over whether that is indeed REH in the photo or not, and have the scholars present their arguments for the readers to decide. Bill Cavalier, whom I had ”volunteered” to write the introduction to the book as it was his idea to do it in the first place, heartily agreed, and we started working on the arguments for the two most contested photos in hopes of getting the other scholars ideas to argue from, and for and against.

Unfortunately, most of the other scholars were too busy with their own work to participate, so I took the following arguments out of the book for the two photos that Bill and I had written up so far, and with Bill’s kind permission, am presenting them here for interested folks to read. This will give readers an idea of what photos will be contained in the upcoming book, “This Isn’t to Flaunt My Homely Countenance”: The Robert E. Howard Photo Album, hopefully available sometime later this year, depending on finalizing the printing details.

Keith West: I’ll post an announcement when the book is available for sale. Back to John:

In presenting the arguments, I will first present the argument by the person who maintains that the photo is of Robert E. Howard, followed by the argument about why it is not Howard. Photo numbers mentioned in parentheses and under photos correspond to the number of the photos in the upcoming book. We hope you will enjoy this, and it will get you excited to buy a copy of the book. First up is the photo known as “Dude on a Rock”. Take it away, Bill:

1. The “Dude on the Rock”

Why I think the “Dude on a Rock” photo is REH

by Bill Cavalier

The infamous “Dude on a Rock” photo was first brought to our attention at Windy City Pulp Con in 2013 when Morgan Holmes and I viewed a photocopy of it provided by David Rajchel. Mr. Rajchel had bought an extensive collection of August Derleth’s papers and this photo comes from that collection.

David had a photocopied page of this “Dude on a Rock” (as christened by REH Scholar Patrice Louinet) along with four other REH photos: REH at the fence facing right #30, mustachioed Bob #43, “Serape” Bob #35 and Fort McKavett Bob #36 (inscribed in ink with his autograph on the back.)

[All numbers in this post  refer to the numbering of photos in the forthcoming book. – KW]

Rajchel did not have the original photos with him at Windy City. So, in the name of the REH Foundation and Personal Curiosity, I arranged a trip to Rajchel’s home in Wisconsin to make scans of these REH photos. My pal Flash Jervis rode shotgun on the four hour trip. David brought out just some of the 19 giant file folders filled with Derleth’s collection and showed us a pile of photos. The Howard photos were all pretty dinky: 2 x 3 inches or so but extremely cool – especially “Serape Bob”, which had never been seen before.

When we looked at the Dude on a Rock print, I was pretty certain at that time that this was Howard. On the back, inscribed in Derleth’s hand, is “REH”. Looking at a number of other photos David showed us – of Derleth’s friends, correspondents and acquaintances, including a turbaned L. Sprague de Camp – we noticed Derleth was meticulous about identifying the subject of each photo. David also said that if Derleth had written “REH” on the back of this photo, that’s who it was.

The photo shows a man in his early 20’s (my estimate) sitting on a rock, brandishing a Josey Wales type pistol. The date and photographer are unknown and the image is slightly fuzzy, marred further by an obvious greasy thumbprint that has stained the lower portion of the photo.

So, why am I pretty darn sure this photo depicts REH? I think I’ll do bullet points.

• Look at the pose, which is the first thing we notice. Howard liked to posture in a lot of his photos – look at the ones with LeRoy & Faustine Butler #’s 11-15. He posed with weapons several times and this Josey Wales pistol is a nice prop. We’ll never know if this gun was in Howard’s collection but we can surmise he would’ve loved to have a pistol like this one.
• Look at how this Dude is dressed. Light colored shirt – check for REH. Sleeves rolled up past the elbows – check for REH. Pants legs rolled up – check for REH. High top shoes – check for REH.
• The body shape is about right for Howard in his mid-20’s, which is my estimation of his age here. Howard, like many other fellows, didn’t start “filling out” until his early 20’s. It looks like he’s in that process here. His neck appears thicker than that skinny kid with the boxing gloves.
• Howard’s arms, in all the photos of him I’ve seen, appear to be on the longish side. That is certainly true here. The shape and musculature of his right arm is consistent with other photos of him with his arms folded in front of his chest.
• Now, to his face. First, the overall shape is consistent with the longish face that Howard had. High forehead, cheekbones and a slight fatty deposit under his chin point to Howard.
• His eyes and eyebrows: the squint is something we’ve seen before as well as the dark, bushy, furled eyebrows. Howard’s eyes were set back in his head a little bit, giving a darkness to his gaze and countenance.
• The ears are definitely the same shape as Howard’s in other photos.
• His nose is decidedly the same shape as Howard’s. Compare this nose with the “Serape Bob” nose and you will see they’re the same; that bulbous end on a slightly large, protruding nose is evident here.
• As for the lips: this photo shows a pair of thin lips in a pucker posture so it’s hard to tell how wide the mouth is. But the lips are certainly thin and that matches other photos. The pucker displays prominently that little two-line indentation that comes down from the bottom of the nose to the top of the lips. The upper lip is distinctly bow-shaped and that is the consistent shape of Howard’s lips.
• The distance between the bottom of Howard’s nose to the upper lips is consistent with other photos, in keeping with how his features were distributed evenly on his longish top-to-bottom face.
• The hair throws everyone off. It’s longer than we’ve seen in most other photos and fairly curly, sweaty and tousled in this photo. But if you look at the Bob Howard photo of him posing with a sword alongside Lindsey Tyson and Clyde Smith (#21), the hair on the “Dude on a Rock” is remarkably similar to REH with his pals. And looking at Serape Bob and you’ll see a longish tuft of hair peeking out from under the hat, so longish (for Howard) hair could be a possibility. It’s obviously summer time in the Rock photo and I would guess maybe he ran his hand through his sweaty hair and messed it up like it is. Novalyne mentioned a number of times how Bob would run his hands through his hair.

Sadly, we’ll never know for absolute sure whether this is Bob Howard or not. These existing photos are very small and somewhat fuzzy and blurred in their original state, so getting high definition scans for detail is difficult at best. A high def scan of fuzziness is still fuzziness.

But I think this is Bob Howard and that’s good enough for me.

Contra-argument:

That is “Some” Dude, and Not REH on the Rock

By John Bullard

I originally got to see this photo back at the 2013 Howard Days, when Bill showed it and the other photos that he had scanned to all interested parties. My initial impression was that it was indeed Robert E. Howard. As I was editing the Ultimate Edition of The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard Vol. 1, and looking at some photos to include in that book, I was struck by how much the “Dude” looked like the photo of Howard boxing with Clyde Smith (photo #17)

In addition, as Bill mentioned in his argument for it being Howard, the “Dude” also looks like Howard in the following photos:

I also agreed with Bill that the “Dude” was dressed as Howard was often photographed or described as being dressed.

However, I noticed something when I was looking at the “Dude’s” photo blown up. The person in the photo doesn’t have noticeable earlobes that hang down. See for yourself:

Howard most definitely had noticeable hanging earlobes. In fact, in some of the Howard photos Bill used to justify his identification of the “Dude” as Howard (above photos #’s 21 and 22), you can clearly see the lobe of the ear separated from the jawline. Here are some more of Howard that show his unmistakable earlobe:

And finally, the most well-known photograph of Howard:

In all of these photos, you can clearly see that Howard had earlobes that hung down. The “Dude” doesn’t have lobes that hang down. How important is this characteristic? It is a fact that your earlobes don’t change shape as you age. Your ears and earlobes do get larger as you grow older, but you suddenly don’t develop detached hanging earlobes if they weren’t present when you were born unless you have them changed medically. Now, it may be that the “Dude” does in fact have detached earlobes like Howard did, and due to the way he’s holding his head, jutting his jaw out, and the lack of detail due to lighting and the older abilities of the camera to take detailed pictures may be hiding his earlobes in the photograph. But I doubt it. Howard’s earlobes were too prominent, and almost like fingerprints, identified him.

While there are many things about the person in the “Dude on a Rock” photograph that match things we know about Howard, the lack of the earlobes marks this photograph as not being of Howard.

In Part 2 of this series, we will examine the evidence of whether or not the person in another photograph is Robert E. Howard or not. The photograph in question will probably surprise most of you that there is some disagreement among Howard scholars as to whether that is indeed him or not.

John Bullard has been diligently working on the Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard for a long time.

 

 

 

Bill “Indy” Cavalier is the editor of REHUPA, the Robert E. Howard United Press Association.