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Post by MRPs_Missives on Jun 27, 2024 11:53:40 GMT -5
Tangental-if you like Conan and rpgs, Monolith Games (the makers of the current Conan board game) have a new Conan the Hyborian Age rpg coming to kickstarter this fall. There is a set of Quickstart rules and a sample adventure available for download for free as a PDF at Monolith's website hereJim Zub, the writer of the current Conan series, ran this quickstart adventure using this for many interested parties at Howard Days earlier this month to much acclaim, and it is now available to the public. (x-posting with my post in the RPG thread in community) -M |
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Jul 3, 2024 20:55:58 GMT -5
Review of issue #12 and a wrap up of the first year by Stygian Dogs...
-M
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 23, 2024 8:33:54 GMT -5
It says "epic final issue"... does that mean the book is cancelled?
That would be a bummer. I read the first trade of the Titan run, and while it didn't set my world on fire it was pretty decent. Way better, certainly, than the Marvel reboot from a few years ago.
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Jul 23, 2024 8:44:50 GMT -5
It says "epic final issue"... does that mean the book is cancelled? That would be a bummer. I read the first Trade of the Titan run, and while it didn't set my world on fire it was pretty decent. Way better, certainly, than the Marvel reboot from a few years ago. No, it's the final issue of the arc that started with #1 which was divided into 3 four issue arcs. #13 is due in stores this week. It's an epic finale to the story they were telling, not a final issue. Jim Zub is contracted to do at least another year, and possibly more. -M |
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Jul 24, 2024 20:28:34 GMT -5
Roquefort RaiderYear two starts with a story set just after the battle of Venarium and begins a 4 issue arc that is a tribute to bit not adaptation of Frost Giant's Daughter to celebrate its 90th anniversary of publication. So it does not follow chronologically where #12 left off (which was in time period just after the death of Belit). -M
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 25, 2024 18:01:04 GMT -5
I've just started the second Titan trade, and was immediately annoyed!  Why? Because writer Jim Zub describes the god Bel as a six-armed, elephant headed god of theft and murder. That's wrong! Aaaaaaaargh!  This bizarre concept was introduced in an inventory story written by a certain James Rose that saw print in SSoC #211 , and was almost immediately retconned by Roy Thomas in issue 212. Alas, someone used the description from issue 211 in some gaming guide, and it seemingly proves as hard to kill as the idea that Conan started his career as a pit fighter! Most readers won't care one way or the other, as it doesn't affect the story...but I am a very cranky old fan, and that kind of mistakes really hurts my enjoyment of a Conan tale. I insist on Thomas-, Busiek- or Truman- accuracy every issue! |
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Jul 25, 2024 21:53:39 GMT -5
I've just started the second Titan trade, and was immediately annoyed! Why? Because writer Jim Zub describes the god Bel as a six-armed, elephant headed god of theft and murder. That's wrong! Aaaaaaaargh! This bizarre concept was introduced in an inventory story written by a certain James Rose that saw print in SSoC #211 , and was almost immediately retconned by Roy Thomas in issue 212. Alas, someone used the description from issue 211 in some gaming guide, and it seemingly proves as hard to kill as the idea that Conan started his career as a pit fighter! Most readers won't care one way or the other, as it doesn't affect the story...but I am a very cranky old fan, and that kind of mistakes really hurts my enjoyment of a Conan tale. I insist on Thomas-, Busiek- or Truman- accuracy every issue! You might want to take that one up with Heroic Signatures and their Conan consultants, who go over the scripts and such for consistency with the lore. Folks like Jeffrey Shanks, who does the back matter essay in each issue and who also has been the "fact checker" on a lot of the lore going into the various ttrpg versions of Conan go over a lot of that stuff, and if they let it pass, it might be what they consider "canon" now. It could also be a mistake on the author's part, but lots of stuff like that gets hashed out before the issues (and the games) see print. The original Howard stories have primacy, but everything else is fair game and is decided on a case by case basis as to whether to carry it into current material or not. And a lot of the rpg stuff has been vetted and given a stamp of approval, so if that is the source, it may be what is going for as the accepted form. I don't know anything for certain, but I know even things like using the Atlantean sword from the movie as a visual easter egg had to go through a couple of levels of approval before it got green lit for the comics, so I doubt something like that got through just as a "mistake" by the writer. The final call was probably in the hands of the series editor, but it likely went through several series of eyes of various levels of expertise before seeing print. As I said, the Howard originals are the canon, everything else is on a case by case basis, but anything not form one of the Howard originals usually has to get greenlit by several folks before being included. So that may be the version of Bel they want. -M |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 26, 2024 5:36:07 GMT -5
If several people went over the script and let it pass, it shows that Titan's level of scholarship isn't up to the level of Dark Horse under Busiek, Truman or Van Lente or Marvel's under Roy Thomas. Once again, the only reference to that elephant god I can find is the erroneous SSoC #211 (and online sources referring to it) while issue 212 made clear that this was not the god Bel. SSoC #6 had an essay written by Robert Yaple, "The Gods of the Hyborian Age", in which he makes the cogent argument that Bel is one of the foreign gods Conan swears by, and that these only include deities that do not invite human sacrifice. No Erlik, no Set, no Hanuman... Conan seems to stick to gods more aligned with his own world views. I have a hard time picturing Bel as an "evil" god. As you say, perhaps it's just the Bel Titan wants. If so, more power to them. Larry Hana wanted a Conan who was a pit fighter, and many fans of the first movie want the Atlantean sword or a Conan who was orphaned as a kid. Heck, a writer at Marvel even had a Venarium destroyed by magic! Publishers can do what they want. As an old-time Conan reader, I prefer things like the first two Conan series published by Dark Horse or the now pretty old Roy Thomas books. References to video games lore or incorrect SSoC stories do nothing for me. That's a curmudgeon's privilege!  |
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Jul 26, 2024 10:04:28 GMT -5
If several people went over the script and let it pass, it shows that Titan's level of scholarship isn't up to the level of Dark Horse under Busiek, Truman or Van Lente or Marvel's under Roy Thomas. Once again, the only reference to that elephant god I can find is the erroneous SSoC #211 (and online sources referring to it) while issue 212 made clear that this was not the god Bel. SSoC #6 had an essay written by Robert Yaple, "The Gods of the Hyborian Age", in which he makes the cogent argument that Bel is one of the foreign gods Conan swears by, and that these only include deities that do not invite human sacrifice. No Erlik, no Set, no Hanuman... Conan seems to stick to gods more aligned with his own world views. I have a hard time picturing Bel as an "evil" god. As you say, perhaps it's just the Bel Titan wants. If so, more power to them. Larry Hana wanted a Conan who was a pit fighter, and many fans of the first movie want the Atlantean sword or a Conan who was orphaned as a kid. Heck, a writer at Marvel even had a Venarium destroyed by magic! Publishers can do what they want. As an old-time Conan reader, I prefer things like the first two Conan series published by Dark Horse or the now pretty old Roy Thomas books. References to video games lore or incorrect SSoC stories do nothing for me. That's a curmudgeon's privilege! I guess I just don't hold Roy's stories sacrosanct the way others do. I feel a lot of his Conan stories read better as their originals featuring other characters and adapting them forced Conan into places, scenarios and actions I felt ill suited the character and his world, especially when he was adapting S&S stories by writers other than Howard and trying to cram them into the Hyborian Age, so I don't feel his opinions on Conan lore are any more or less valid than any other writer, and place him more in line with the de Camp Carter Conan ethos than a pure Howardian one. And later Howardian scholarship, hearkening back to the Howard originals not the de Camp/Carter edits show the flaws in a lot of the scholarship presented in SSOC back matter and the Amra articles most of it was based on, so again I don't hold that stuff sacrosanct or even the standard Howardian scholarship should be held to. Interesting reads sure, insightful at times, but flawed and full of bias that colored their interpretation of the material and the conclusions they drew. -M PS to add- as an analogy I look at it like medieval/folklore scholarship looks at Georges Dumezil and his tripartite model for world religions. It was interesting, amazingly influential, and considered the standard for a long time, until later scholarship showed it was flawed, limited in scope because it picked and chose what data it used and ignored whole cultures that didn't fit the model he was putting forward. It was the standard for a time, but later scholarship showed its flaws and limitations and scholars as a whole moved past it as more material was discovered or recovered, and I think Howard scholarship has done the same. The availability of the Howard edits and Howard's correspondence have revealed how wrong-headed a lot of the assumptions and assertions in Howard scholarship that was done before they were widely available were. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 27, 2024 8:37:31 GMT -5
I hope you'll indulge me if I keep harping on the subject... obsessive Conan fans, eh?
On the subject of Bel, here's what Conan himself says in The Queen of the Black Coast:
I thought of something else as well: when Conan enters the tower of the elephant and finds the elephant-headed Yag-Kosha, he is startled by the alien's strange appearance and assumes that it is a statue of Yara's unnamed god. Surely, if Bel had sported such a head, Conan would have identified Yag-Kosha as the famous god of thieves and not be taken aback.
Crom's curse on SSoC #211!!!
Right. I'll stop flogging that poor dead horse now. Next post will be on the good aspects of Zub's writing, because I quite like his Conan!
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Jul 28, 2024 18:04:25 GMT -5
Titan/Heroic Signatures announced today at SDCC that Savage Sword of Conan has been renewed for a second year and Roy Thomas will have a story in an upcoming issue.
-M
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Aug 5, 2024 19:50:46 GMT -5
The other news coming out of SDCC was that Jim Zub has signed a 3 year contract extension to remain the writer and creative coordinator for Heroic Signature's/Titan's Conan and REH books. He's not exclusive to Heroic Signatures/Titan and will do some books at other publishers too, but he'll be leading Conan for at least the next 3 years.
-M
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Aug 25, 2024 20:23:46 GMT -5
Here's Grim Jim Zub's Conan panel form Fan Expo in Toronto this past weekend, recorded and presented by the Stygian Dogs youtube channel (if you are a fan of Conan or REH you should check out the channel and subscribe. Jim talks about the past, present and future of Conan and Howard properties.
-M
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Aug 27, 2024 9:31:15 GMT -5
Cross posting from the Books thread... Apparently I was a bit ahead of schedule in reading Conan the Liberator... from Jim Zub's Twitter feed...  I will be participating for sure. Any one else want to read some Conan in September? -M |
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Post by senatortombstone on Aug 27, 2024 21:45:20 GMT -5
Cross posting from the Books thread... Apparently I was a bit ahead of schedule in reading Conan the Liberator... from Jim Zub's Twitter feed... I will be participating for sure. Any one else want to read some Conan in September? -M Booktuber, Michael Vaughn, did a video about Cimmerian September and his plans to re-read the pastiches. Alas, I do not have time for that, but I am re-reading King Conan #1-8, which adapts four pastiche short stories about Conan vs. Thoth-Amon and The Return of Conan. I also plan on binge reading Titan's Conan #1-12 and writing a review and also the new SSoC issues. Roy Thomas adapted and incorporated many pastiche stories during his tenures with Marvel, but the majority of pastiches have not been adapted to comics. I hope Titan continues that tradition, as those books are not always easy to come by and it easier to read a comic adaption than it is a book. Thus far I am enjoying Titan's Conan, but if I had to compare them with the other comics, I would say that the SSoC stories are on par with the non Roy Thomas run of SSoC. They are okay stories, but there is little lore and world building and how they portray Conan does not seem entirely consistent with REH. Conan #13 takes place not long after Venarium and is about Conan experiencing an existential crisis over the existence of Crom. This is EXTREMELY inconsistent with Conan's views on gods and life which are made plain and simple in Queen of the Black Coast. It appears to lead into The Frost Giant's Daughter. Not necessarily a bad story, but it does not make sense as a Conan story. |
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