Pledge amount record for the Conan boardgame Kickstarter!

At the time I'm writing these words, the Conan Kickstarter campaign is over, and it broke all kind of records in the "boardgame" category, owned until then by Zombicide season 3 with 2,849,000$ raised, when Conan gathered more than 3,300,000$. For Frédéric Henry, Adrian Smith and all their Monolith colleagues, it's a worthy reward for an exemplary campaign, and for a lot of hard work which began a very long time before the official launch of the project.

The ending of the campaign leaves me somewhat baffled, and tired, with this lingering feeling of having participated, but not necessarily enough, to this campaign, while trying to figure out why I payed so much for a boardgame (and while feeling the impulse of paying even more at the time of the "pledge manager"). My pledge played up and down constantly over the whole month, reason winning sometimes, but heart screaming to take everything. The answer, to me, lies in two words, integrity and passion. I think those are both essential qualities which made several exceptional artists to get an interest in Conan. Other than Robert E. Howard, we can name Frank Frazetta, Barry Windsor Smith, John Buscema, Roy Thomas, John Milius, Basil Poledouris, each of them a milestone in this character's fame. Of coursen those are also commercial endeavours (but after all Robert E. Howard himself had a commercial approach to his craft), but a commercial endeavour can also be sincere and a sign of passion. Adapting Conan faithfully requires before everything an uncompromising approach, and a huge passion. Frazetta loved the character. He was the favorite of John Buscema too, much more than Tarzan, Thor, and every single superhero ever created.

It would have been without a doubt easier for Frédéric Henry to adapt Conan casually, to pick every more or less faithfull sources of Robert E. Howard's followers. But no, he made sure he got on board the self-proclaimed "pain in the ass" that is  Patrice Louinet, an absolute Howard purist (Mitra blesses him. Not Crom of course, because he wouldn't care). In-te-gri-ty I tell you. He's now rewarded aplenty, even if his work is far from finished. May my poor anonymous "thank you" join those of thousands of others who made of this dream project a probably very real thing in a few months. My bank account hates you, but I love you.