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Post by MRPs_Missives on Nov 27, 2023 15:07:16 GMT -5
I haven't been as excited about a new comic as I am about the Heroic Signatures produced/Titan Comics distributed Conan the Barbarian series written by Jim Zub in a long, long time. Conan release day has become appointment comics for me. In fact, I usually grab the issue at midnight the day before on hoopla, read it, then read it again in print when I get the copy the next day, and that (rereading) is something I haven't done with a new comic in many a year.   I had gotten the FCBD edition before I left and that got me hyped, but the actual series exceeded expectations for me. This is Howard's Conan writ large on the comic book page. I've been so hyped for this book that I have been supporting it as best I can online and via my wallet. I have even broken my rule against buying variants and have been buying multiple covers for it. This was my haul of ish #1, grabbing the regular Panosian cover, the Zircher homage to CTB 1 variant, the de la Torre variant, the Mignola variant and the Hyborian Age map cover variant...  I even had my lcs track down a copy of Coleen Doran's SDCC exclusive variant, which is absolutely gorgeous.  I've been chatting up Jim Zub, Fred Malmberg, Pat Zircher and others involved with the project on various social media platforms, expressing my joy, support and hopes for the series on a regular basis as each issue has been released. The first 4 issue arc features art by Roberto de la Torre done "Marvel style" (i.e. plot first, artist designs layouts/visual narrative, then scripted) with Jim Zub. The second 4 issue arc features Doug Braithewaite on art, and de la Torre will return for the third arc (#8-12). Jim Zub is on for at least 2 years. A new magazine-sized black & white Savage Sword of Conan is in the works and slated for a 2024 release. Joe Jusko will be doing a cover for #1  and Pat Zircher will be writing and drawing a Solomon Kane feature that will run in the mag. Heroic Signatures is delivering the real deal with these Conan comics. The last several years of the Dark Horse Conan comics varied form disappointing to uneven. Wood's Conan the Barbarian was awful and Salyer and Avenger had their ups and downs. The Marvel revival was hit or miss, with more misses, but the Zub written issues were the highlights of it. Zub has taken it to another level with Heroic Signature and a lot of the restrictions Marvel placed on the book in terms of "mature content" are gone, so this harkens more to the classic SSOC days in those terms. But more importantly, it feels and reads like Howard's Conan, not a watered down comic book equivalent that appeared in the recent Marvel stuff, and he's not a MArvel super-hero in Conan shape, he's Conan. This book has reinvigorated my love of Conan, my love of comics in general, and gotten me to count down to a comic release day for the first time in ages. If you like Conan, Howard, sword & sorcery, or good comics, go check this out. #5 comes out this week (though it was delayed a week and was available digitally lat week, I read it on hoopla and it's awesome, set in the aftermath of the death of Belit). -M |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Nov 28, 2023 12:28:20 GMT -5
My shop never seems to stock Titan books and I hadn't heard much quality wise so I never ordered it but if it's as good as you say I might need to try a collection of it.
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Nov 28, 2023 13:10:29 GMT -5
My shop never seems to stock Titan books and I hadn't heard much quality wise so I never ordered it but if it's as good as you say I might need to try a collection of it. I think the first trade is due in February. And the 1st issue has had 5 printings I think, the 2nd 3, the 3rd 2 so far, so it is selling well. Initial orders for #1 were over 100K and that was 1st printing only. I hope the sales sustain, and everything I have heard from Fred and Zub is that they are holding up well. Zub said that they had to rush ship more copies to SDCC because they sold out what they brought on day 1. And most of the buzz I have heard has been positive, so I'm hopeful this one is sustainable. -M |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Nov 28, 2023 14:40:27 GMT -5
My shop never seems to stock Titan books and I hadn't heard much quality wise so I never ordered it but if it's as good as you say I might need to try a collection of it. I think the first trade is due in February. And the 1st issue has had 5 printings I think, the 2nd 3, the 3rd 2 so far, so it is selling well. Initial orders for #1 were over 100K and that was 1st printing only. I hope the sales sustain, and everything I have heard from Fred and Zub is that they are holding up well. Zub said that they had to rush ship more copies to SDCC because they sold out what they brought on day 1. And most of the buzz I have heard has been positive, so I'm hopeful this one is sustainable. -M That's good to hear. I don't know if my shop just refuses to stock Titan books on some weird principle or if they're just a hard publisher to work with order wise but they just never stock them in the shop which is why I haven't tried any of the Doctor Who books since they went to Titan either. |
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Nov 29, 2023 14:04:45 GMT -5
Preview of the covers and a few pages of the new Savage Sword dropped today on TripwireHere's a look at a Solomon Kane page by Patch Zircher  -M |
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Nov 30, 2023 13:03:07 GMT -5
Issue #5 came out last week digitally, but was delayed a week due to shipping issues and released yesterday. It's already sold out at the distributor level and a 2nd printing was announced today. It continues to sell beyond expectations, as now every issue has gone to at least a 2nd printing and most to a 3rd or more. This is good, especially in this market, and Titan is doing print runs exceeding initial FOC orders by a good bit and it is still selling out.
-M
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 1, 2023 20:28:15 GMT -5
Thanks for the heads up, MRP! I was so underwhelmed by Marvel's reboot that I had pretty much given up on Conan, but thanks to your recommendation I'll pre-order the first trade right now. (No LCS around here, alas).
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 2, 2023 8:32:34 GMT -5
I've been enjoying it as well...definitely a step up from the recent Marvel run.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 3, 2023 8:25:42 GMT -5
I love me some Solomon Kane!
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Post by berkley on Dec 7, 2023 1:25:20 GMT -5
I might try this as well. I'll try to find some online samples of the artwork first, just to see how it looks.
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Dec 14, 2023 16:20:32 GMT -5
There's a 6 part interview from the youtube channel Stygian Dogs (which focuses on all things Howard) with author Brian D. Anderson and Steve Saffel (the editor behind the Del Rey line of REH books) that covers a wide range of topics about Conan, Howard, new projects, pastiche past and present, and other topics. 4 parts are posted already (doing 2 per day and it started yesterday), here's part 1 -M Opinion hidden by spoiler Anderson comes across as a bit of a blohard, but Saffel has a lot of interesting insights. |
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Post by senatortombstone on Dec 14, 2023 20:07:15 GMT -5
I recently read issues #0-5 of this series and so far I am genuinely impressed. The art work is top notch and at a glance it could be mistaken for a classic issue of the original CtB drawn by Buscema. To top off each issue there are scholarly articles by Jeffrey Shanks and a decent letter section called Chain Mail.
Issue #0 introduces us to Conan's baptism in battle at Venarium and concludes with him setting off on a lifetime of high adventure.
Issues #1-4 introduces a world weary warrior [aged 24] returning to his highland homeland for a respite, only to be caught up in what could be the Hyborian Age equivalent of a zombie apocalypse. Writer, Jim Zub, introduces Brissa, a highborn Hyborian heroine descended from a noble Pictish house or hut or hovel. Both her ancient lineage and Conan's are expounded on in the exposition. The means to the resolution of conflict confused me a bit, but I still enjoyed the entire arc. There are references to other REH creations and even to a certain out of place villain from a certain theatrical adaption, but it was not done in an exploitative way, but with respect for the source material and to link it all together.
Issue #5 begins with a melancholy mercenary mourning his mate at hole in the wall of a tavern located in a seedy section of Shadizar [are there any others?]. Conan and his criminal companions are commissioned to liberate a religious artifact from the bowels of Bel's temple. After very violently violating the no trespassing sign, it ends on a cliffhanger that links this story to the previous one.
Jim Zub has made it clear that he does not want to adapt the original REH stories at this time, and instead wants to focus on creating original material. Indeed, the beginning of issue #5 is set not long after the death of Bêlit. The first few pages summarize Conan's adventures with her. It was nice of him to firmly establish when this story take's place in Conan's life.
I don't have a problem with Titan holding off on adapting the source material. The adaptions that exist are good enough for me for now and perhaps once Jim Zub establishes himself and elements unique to this new iteration of Conan, then he can begin to merge them with the original Conan canon in a way that does not defile it.
If I am looking for reasons to find fault in this new series [it can't all be applause and accolades], it would be the following:
1) Eight years after issue #0, Conan still has the jeweled sword he took as a battle trophy from Venarium. While it is a sacred sword, given his dangerous and transient lifestyle, it seems unlikely that he would hold on to that one weapon for that long.
2) In issue #0 Conan is 16 years-old, he is 24 in issues #1-4, and he would have to be a few years older in issue #5. I prefer the original Marvel way of telling Conan's life chronologically in CtB and anthologically in SSoC. There ends up being far fewer continuity contradictions that way.
3) I really did not like the Marvel Conan 2019 Life and Death of Conan story arc. I acknowledge that this new Titan series is orders of magnitude superior to Marvel Conan 2019. However, the plots of the first two story arcs are linked by a particular plot device while spanning several years apart, and I just hope this does not devolve into some over-arching threat that follows Conan all his life that REH never once deigned to discuss. Things like that just annoy me.
4) The writer excessively employs adjacent alliterations.
On the net, I really like what I see. Jim Zub might not yet be the equal of Roy Thomas at this time, but he really seems to be making an effort to create something in the spirit of REH and not some generic sword and sorcery in Conan skins.
Highly recommended!
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Dec 14, 2023 22:11:22 GMT -5
2) In issue #0 Conan is 16 years-old, he is 24 in issues #1-4, and he would have to be a few years older in issue #5. I prefer the original Marvel way of telling Conan's life chronologically in CtB and anthologically in SSoC. There ends up being far fewer continuity contradictions that way. I'll go on record (and have before) that I much prefer Howard's method of treating Conan's life as a tapestry in which he could just tell the stories he wanted at various points in Conan's life, having a general sense of the flow of Conan's life but not worrying overmuch about the minutiae of details and focusing instead on what make a good story. He humored fans who wrote to him trying to establish exact chronology and gave them words of encouragement, but such things didn't matter to him, what mattered was telling the story he wanted to tell in the best manner he could at that given time. Yarns told 'round the fire as he put it, not a biography of a fictional character. And Zub and Heroic Signature is on record as saying they are treating all of Howard's stories, no matter what character is featured, as taking place in the same universe (and sharing that universe with Lovecraft's creations). Howard himself gave some cues towards that (Kull appearing in the Bran Mak Morn story Kings of Night, the Black Stone featuring in several of his horror stories-and that Black Stone is what informed the MacGuffin connecting the three arcs planned for the 1st year of Conan-and the ring of Toth-Amon appearing in a horror story set in the 20th century, not to mention Howard incorporating elements of Lovecraft's mythos is several of his tales and blatantly discussing his intention to do so in much of his correspondence with the Lovecraft Circle. So while REH did not conceive of some overall threat haunting Conan's life (that was more deCamp & Carter and Then Thomas elevating Toth Amon to recurring arch-villain status after being mentioned and used in a couple of Howard's Conan tales), he did have a sense that there were connections between many of his tales via the use of the Mythos nd his coontributions to it, and his use of elements of some of his characters in stories about others. -M |
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Jan 2, 2024 12:19:11 GMT -5
Jim Zub offers an overview of his feelings about the relaunch of Conan, a thank you to the fans and a glimpse at what's to come...
If you have been on the fence about this, or hadn't looked at what was between the covers of the new Conan yet, you can get a glimpse in this video. But 2024 looks like it's going to be a great year for fans of Conan and REH.
-M
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jan 4, 2024 8:20:53 GMT -5
(...) Writer, Jim Zub, introduces Brissa, a highborn Hyborian heroine descended from a noble Pictish house or hut or hovel. How can a Hyborian highborn be descended from anyone but Hyborian nobles? What is a Pictish noble, for that matter? I'll wait to read the issue before forming an opinion, but I'm very prickly about how Conan writers handle Howard's concepts!  Same here. After the Marvel, Dark Horse and Glénat adaptations, it would take something very special to make me want to see new adaptations. I loathe the idea of Conan having any kind of special sword. Howard never gave him one. True, true!!! Howard managed to tell stories out of order with no contradiction, but most comics writers can't manage that. Neither did I. It had bad Hyborian Age scholarship, contradicted the previous Marvel Conan storyline, and a minor story arc shouldn't stretch over Conan's whole career. That's good news indeed. I won't make the mistake I made with Dark Horse's reboot and refuse to give the new series a chance, even if the recent Marvel relaunch was a massive disappointment. Thanks for the comments! |
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