Read the 80 pages of REH goodness in Robert E. Howard's Savage Sword #8. Half of it was a reprint of the Thomas/Buscema/Alcala adaptation of The Tower of the Elephant originally presented in SSoC #24 (colored for this reprint). I have read and thoroughly enjoyed the Barry Smith version from the regular Conan the Barbarian title. It's one of my favorite Smith issue, but this was the first time I had seen the Buscema version. Very different. Seeing the two of them do the same Howard story really highlights the differences in their Conan style. Buscema was much better at depicting the mundane elements of Conan's world-the tavern, the worldly locations etc. but Smith excelled at depicting the fantastic elements and giving them a sense of grandeur I didn't get from the Buscema version. Smith's cosmic flight of the Yag was just magnificent, while Buscema's is just kind of there even though Buscema had more pages to work with. And Smith's spider in the tower is still one of my favorite images, though Buscema does quite well with that. I haven't read the Smith version in a while, so I need to go back and reread it to really compare the two if I were of a mind to, but I think the biggest difference is that Smith's version is the one that will always be burned into my memory and what I think of when I hear The Tower of the Elephant, and having read Buscema's version now, that won't change.

Oh and Silver Surfer #4 by Slott and Allred was amazing too.

-M

I have the Busiek run, got most of it as it came out (I missed the tail end during one of my hiatuses. I did pick up Groo/Conan but haven't had a chance to read it yet. One of the things that make the Buscema/Smith comparisons so interesting is that Rascally Roy Thomas was the scribe on both, giving the two versions a common starting point where the art is the divergence. With the Busiek/Nord version, you have a different adapter at the helm so the differences are more than just different artistic approaches and styles.

-M

Catching up on some of the Thrillbent strips and checking out new ones. James Tynion IV's new strip The House in the Wall had its first three chapters up and looks very interesting in a Lovecraftian way. Valentine had a couple new chapters up as well, and checked out the SDCC special form Top Shelf posted there-Motorcycle Samurai which was all kinds of interesting.

The sequel to Empire has started as well, but I need to go back and read the first Empire series first, as it's been way too long since I read it, but luckily Mssrs. Waid and Rogers sent me a free PDF of the trade when I subscribed, so I will be diving in to that here sometime soon.

-M

Thrillbent is Mark Waid's digital publishing house. I've never checked it out, but I hear good things.

3.99 a month sounds pretty good, I might need to check that out.

As for the Tower of the Elephant, I see what you mean about how easily one can make comparisons as in many places the prose is nearly word for word. Personally I like the Buscema version much better, I feel like it conveyed a greater sense of mood, brought us to a world that truly felt lived in and was paced much better than Smith's version. That said, I think I like the coloring in Smith's version better, especially that vibrant shade of green they used for Yag, and I agree that he did bring a greater sense of wonder to the scenes depicting the Eleaphent men and their journey through space and human history . Heck, rereading it I think I actually like the version from Savage Sword even better than Busiek's as I think that even though I love Kurt's prose the whole story none the less feels pretty thin when stretched over three issues. While having more pages allowed for greater characterization, I think it really sapped the suspense out of it. It's also funny to see just how similar the panel lay out between the Buscema and Busiek/Nord versions are, despite the larger page length all of the key scenes such as the brawl in the pub, the fight with the lions and the fight with the spider have nearly the same panel lay outs and angles where it concerns the action so it would seem evident that Nord was definitely a fan of Buscema's work.

One thing I will say in favor of Busiek's adaptation, aside from his prose, was the design of Yag as it was the only one that gave us an alien that resembled an elephant rather than just a guy with an elephant head.

July total: only 46.  Best stories I read in July: Tom Strong and The Jiro Kuwata Batmanga were both incredible fun.  Other highlights: Frank Miller's Ronin was a surprisingly good cyber punk story that read like a manga.

Got more reading in than I thought I would with 142 issues, making it my third most active month. I enjoyed my usual moderns as I usually do, but the new things I tried and liked are

Empowered volume 8. I love the series, and I love that I have to wait between installments, and every installment is a giant tome. Bringing home the new volume is always a happy moment.

Southern Bastards is a new current series. Started off a little too close to Walking Tall movie but has introduced enough new elements to keep me interested although I think the entire first arc will follow the movie it's "homaging" pretty closely. I'm wondering what the second story arc will do? If it came into it's own that would be great. If it homaged another movie that would be hilarious and I'd still follow it. Gran Torino next?

A Contract With God. Yes, an actual classic. About time I read that.

Ghost World. Another classic. I shouldn't have done it though. I loved it, but I was planning on reading through Eightball and now I feel like I've spoiled part of it. I'll still get around to Eightball though.

Disappointments include

Danger Girl. I had the trade for a while, and the first page layout is so jarring I couldn't get past it the first time I tried. I had to struggle through the first 50 pages or so before the style became less distracting, but I can really understand why that guy only draws covers now. I have to say though, even though it wasn't a masterpiece of storytelling, I enjoyed the 007 spoof a lot more than I thought I would. It was a fun read even if the illustration was hard to make sense of.

MPH. I should really start to pay attention to credits in previews. I read the prologue online and thought it was fantastic. Two issues in and I'm done.