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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 22, 2014 9:31:14 GMT -5
This thread, a companion to the Savage Tales one, is also imported from the old CBR Classics Board. Back in 1995, the venerable black and white magazine The savage sword of Conan published its final issue. Lack of sales, as always, was the culprit, and a damn shame it was too; the mag was at the time much better than it had been in the early and mid-80s, the years it had sold the most copies. Not giving up entirely on the franchise, Marvel apparently tried to revitalize it by producing a new B&W mag titled "Conan the savage", with the intention (or so it seems from the outside) to make it more hard-edged and more... what's the term? Rad? Extreme? Awesome? In any case, it was clear that the direction SSoC had adopted a few years prior (that of bringing back a coherent continuity to the Conan universe and trying to stick to the Robert E. Howard material or the Marvel stories of yore) was to be abandoned. If I may editorialize a bit, here, it seems to me that the people involved with the Conan character can be distinguished in two general groups. To the first one, Robert E. Howard is THE ultimate authority, and that group considers the Conan canon as something that should be treated as close to historical material as possible (in the sense that you don't just introduce flying machines in a story, because they simply don't fit in Howard's vision; the same way you wouldn't introduce a flying machine in a romanticized history of Alexander the great). To the other group, Conan is Arnold Schwarzenegger or the guy with the talking bird from the Saturday morning cartoon; he's Flash Gordon in a loincloth, a sword and sorcery hero to whom anything can happen. Replace his name by that of Thundarr, Claw, Thongor or Dagar, and it makes no difference. While people like Roy Thomas, Kurt Busiek and Tim Truman are of the first persuasion, most other people who have been involved in the several Conan comics belong to the other. And so it was with Conan the savage. Now you'll have guessed by my unsubtle appraisal that I view myself as belonging to the purists, and because of that I fear I misjudged Conan the Savage when it first came out; to the point of not buying the second issue. That was unfair to the book, because despite its faults it was actually pretty good, and a lot of effort went into it. I'll try to review each issue in the coming weeks. Let's start with Conan the savage #1, with an August 1995 cover date.  Now that is probably a smart way of trying to reach the hip and trendy young readers and get them to try a Conan book: get a fan favorite to paint your first cover. This image by Simon Bisley (ooooh, he's the guy who does Lobo! Be still my beating heart) is oft cited as someone or other's favorite Conan cover. All right, to each their own; I admit that there's a lot of the Frazetta strength in this painting. I really don't care for its exaggeration, though: a sword that must weigh a ton, Conan looking apish and wearing his favorite steak jacket, and the general feeling that we're gonna get "badass Conan" in this mag. But hey, I admit that it makes sense to try something else if the "classic Conan" approach doesn't sell enough. Look at the overdesign of the cover, though... Man, how busy can it get? Perhaps it was due to the then-novel possibilities of Photoshop and other design tools, but sometimes less is more, y'know? Here we have a logo that takes one third of the cover already; we have a semi-transparent band that takes the entire left part of the cover; we have a second iteration of the entire logo put sideways to act as indicia... That's one busy cover! But it does the job: it certainly grabs your attention. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 22, 2014 9:33:30 GMT -5
The inside of the mag showed that Marvel was not cutting costs. It's a black and white mag, but it's produced as a full greyscale one; with tones of grey treated as if they were colors. The result looks very, very good indeed. What's more, we don't get work by pipsqueaks; the talent hired was pretty good. The first story has artwork by Enrique Alcatena, one brilliant cartoonist with a lush and powerful style.  Alcatena contributed many stories to the following issues, and just for that they deserve to be read!!! What a great, great visual feast. Now the script for the first story is by Chuck Dixon. I like Chuck Dixon stories. He has a good voice for Conan, and he pens short and to-the-point action stories full of machismo, bravery and character clashes. His Conan stories were very popular during the "I don't really care for this direction but they sell like hotcakes" period of Savage Sword of Conan, so he could be considered a fan favorite among the "second crowd" of Conan fans. Good choice for this new direction, then. The story itself has a straightforward plot: Conan is a soldier in a frontier outpost, which gets run over by indigenous Northern Barbarians. Lots of intense action, gorgeously depicted. So why did I not decide to buy the following issues? It's the continuity thing, and the attention to verisimilitude... what I loved most from, say, Roy Thomas' approach was his treatment of the Conan universe as a historical time and place (albeit fictitious) and not as a fantasy place where everything goes. In this particular case, however, the frontier outpost where the action takes place is between the countries of Aquilonia and Vanaheim. Except there is no common border between the two. At one point, Conan shows off with a bow he took from a Hyrkanian chieftain; that makes no sense whatsoever. Hyrkania is on the other side of the world, and in Conan's history (which, let us not forget, is pretty well-known) there is no moment where he could have gotten straight from Hyrkania to Aquilonia carrying a bow (or anything else) with him; the poor man tended to lose all his possessions whenever he moved over long distances. That kind of "continuity be damned" attitude was typical of most of the non-Thomas Marvel Conan, and frankly, I didn't see the point in enduring a new era of Conan the Anything Goes Barbarian. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 22, 2014 9:37:43 GMT -5
The second story of this first issue was a Roy Thomas-Tim Conrad effort. It could actually be seen as an inventory story, since Conrad had painted a cover for it and said cover had already been used months earlier for Savage Sword of Conan #230... The tale, assuming it was produced at the same time, must have spent many months in a file.  The story is all right, if a bit tame; but it's always a pleasure to see Tim Conrad's airbrush work. (In an issue of Alter Ego, Roy Thomas indicated that this tale was produced by Conrad alone, and that Roy was brought in at the last minute to write the dialog... even if the editors had clearly intended for Roy not to be in this first issue).  It was a bit heartening to see Roy at all, but as far as I am concerned, he was treated as a mere fill-in contributor while I would have wanted him to have sole control of the mag. (Not that I insisted on Roy handling all things Conan, but at the time he was the only creator to consistently treat him right as far as I was concerned). The last page illustrates (much to my chagrin) what appears to be the new editorial direction of Conan the savage:  Yes, folks, a Wolverine reference in Conan. (Not the only one, either). That bodes very ill indeed. Not that a cross-over would be in the works (and in fact such a cross-over happened in a decent What if..? issue), but it shows that we're not dealing with a Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian mag, but with a Conan the badass one. The kind that goes with this type of abomination:  Now before I sound all bitter and stuff, let me reiterate that altogether, I think I judged this mag too harshly. Apart from not being exactly the kind of Conan mag I'd have preferred, it was a pretty good book; and the following ones were too. We'll get to them in short order. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2014 9:44:39 GMT -5
I was not prepared for those last two images.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 22, 2014 9:47:00 GMT -5
Conan the savage #2 continued in the vein of the first issue. Doug Beekman, a fan-favorite among fantasy connoisseurs, provided another eye-catching cover (although covers would remain over-designed for the duration of the series).  This issue and the following one both contain two stories. Here the first one is by Dixon and Alcatena, with both men playing to their strong points. Dixon's script is straightforward, underlining the difference between the honest rawness of barbarians and the treacherous decadence of civilization. Conan and his girlfriend-du-jour are working as gladiators, but in fake bouts that are more theatre (complete with disguises) than actual combat. Conan is, in effect, a wrassler. His physique attracts the eye of a noblewoman who attempts to make him her pet, but Conan brushes off her offer -much to her chagrin. Next thing you know, she bribes the games' organizer so that Conan's next performance results in his death, and after much bloodshed there are more dead bodies on the ground than at the end of a Shakespeare play. The artwork is excellent, although this is my least favourite of Alcatena's contributions to this title. There are plenty of nice touches, from the extravagant decor of the arena to a pair of dwarves rolling a carpet under the noblewoman's feet when she walks so that she won't come into contact with dirt. (When you think about it this couldn't work in real life because you'd run out of carpet pretty fast, but it makes for a great scene).  The script is all right, but again it defies Howard's vision; Conan would never work as a gladiator, nor fight for the pleasure of others. (The "Conan as pit fighter" is a nasty meme left over from the %$# movies, and one unfortunately quite popular with sometimes Conan writer and editor Larry Hama). Also, the Aquilonia described here, as in all of Dixon's stories, is essentially Rome. Aquilonia might have counted a few Roman-sounding names, but it was not the Roman empire, and Dixon's version is often derided as "Romilonia" among fans. According to Howard, it was actually closer to medieval France and Provence (and with a king, not an emperor, please). The second story in the mag is the first chapter of a multi-parter written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Mike Docherty and Rudy Nebres. I could swear I read somewhere that this was supposed to see print as a graphic novel, but apparently it was later recycled. (The format difference would explain the black bands on either side of the pages, actually). ***EDIT*** -> I finally found where the info comes from... It's from a text feature in SSoC #208 on the Conan graphic novels. Mention is made of a future graphic novel taking Conan and Bêlit to Antarctica. ***It is a very, very rare instance of a B&W story set during the Conan-Bêlit partnership, when both lovers led the Black Corsairs from the Silver Isles. It is also an attempt to introduce concepts from a Lovecraft story ( At the mountains of madness) into the Conan universe, a transition that's natural enough considering the frequent Lovecraftian horrors described in Conan stories. In this first chapter, a challenger from the Silver Isles has been fomenting a revolution while Bêlit was roving the seven seas. When her crew reaches port, everyone's captured by supposed friends. Conan fights the challenger but is downed thanks to treachery (poison-soaked nails! How unsportsmanlike!) and believed dead. Thomas writes Bêlit with a more a harpish personality than in the past; I don't know if it's a conscious decision to pave the way for the next story (chronologically speaking), "Queen of the Black Coast", in which she's quite ready to sacrifice her own men for petty gains. Some half-hearted explanation will be given at the end of this story.  Altogether, a nice package; some new, some not so new, with some promise for the future.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 22, 2014 9:47:36 GMT -5
I was not prepared for those last two images. I apologize, mars. That was indeed cruel. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 22, 2014 9:52:27 GMT -5
Conan the savage #3
 In this third issue, Enrique Alcatena makes us really stand up and take notice. What an impressive work! In this tale of piracy on the northern seas, Conan and his crew of reavers abduct a Vanir chief's daughter to deliver her to her would-be husband; they are caught in a storm, driven far north, attacked by a kraken, and Conan has to kill everybody just so the frightened bandits don't throw the girl overboard as she's obviously blamed for the ship's bad luck. "So, what's wrong with the script?" will you ask, knowing how I usually react to Dixon's treatment of the Conan universe. Well, we have the unlikelihood of having Conan play the pirate along Vanaheim's coast; there's hardly anything worth stealing up there apart from salted cod or, in this case, pretty girls; and second, Conan was known as a pirate among the Black Corsairs, the Barachan and the Zingaran (plus on the Vilayet sea), all far to the south, and this "northern pirate" career is something more to add to a résumé already bursting at the seams. But apart from that? Hey, no real complaint this time around! And the artwork is so gorgeous, I'd forgive the story almost anything. Alcatena draws splendid-looking northern clothes, inspired by Russian and by North American Native cultures.   He's also amazing when drawing water that actually looks like water, and with sea-creatures! 
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 22, 2014 9:54:55 GMT -5
That kraken swimming below the surface is all kinds of gorgeous, isn't it?  In the second story, we have the second chapter in Conan and Bêlit's penultimate adventure. Both heroes and a skeleton crew of Black Corsairs make good their escape, but are pursued by a vengeful Ghomli (the usurper with the nails). With them is a white-skinned (as in albino-white) captive whose language is unknown, and who is apparently a native of Antarctica. The sea pursuit brings Bêlit's ship, the Tigress, down south all the way to the last continent. (Unlikely? Certainly. But that's where the Mountains of Madness lie, and besides it's the only place Conan hadn't gone to yet in a Marvel comic). Our heroes land and make their way toward their white captive's home, at the foot of cyclopean peaks. There they are made prisoners again, maybe because their brains froze on account of walking around the south pole in loincloths.  Final mark: this is the best issue to date, thanks to Alcatena's art. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 22, 2014 10:01:10 GMT -5
Conan the savage #4
 On to issue #4 and more Alcatena goodness! This is an interesting issue for another reason than its beautiful images: it's sort-of tied into an important Conan comic published at about the same time: the one-shot Conan vs Rune that was written, drawn and colored by Barry Windsor-Smith. Can you still hear, 17 years after the event, the shouts of joy from the fans finally getting some more Conan art by the legendary Windsor-Smith? Well, it would be the last time such a treat was given them: Marvel having unwisely decided to screw up Smith's colors (deciding to add some stupid photoshop effects and changing many details uselessly), the artist turned his back on the company for good. Good job, Marvel. Anyway. The Conan vs Rune special was set when Conan was in his early twenties, and it was a short story depicting the encounter and clash between the guy from Cimmeria and the dark god Rune from Malibu. (Rune, in case you wonder, was a BWS character featured in his own mag published by Malibu; as I understand, when this team-up occurred, Marvel had bought Malibu to get access to their coloring technology. Rune is essentially an über-vampire, a celestial being who eats worlds on occasion but will be happy to just chew off your head as an entrée). Luckily for Conan, when the two met, Rune was a bit the worse for wear after getting his ass kicked by some other dark gods, and the two just duked it out. It was still something akin to the Spider-Man/Firelord punch-out, and although Conan ended up buried in dead bodies and flies, the dark god just flew off instead of killing him). So now with Conan the savage #4, the first story (by Dixon and Alcatena) picks up the story decades later, when Conan is king of Aquilonia. Notice the Roman apparel of the Aquilonians... at least Dixon's vision is consistent.  Conan has brought his army with him down south to show a certain "brotherhood of the spider" that he doesn't take kindly to some weirdo cult trying to assassinate him and his wife. I really like the older look than Alcatena gives Conan; the only other time artists really tried to show that years pass for the character too was in Conan annual #7, when inker Armando Gil had turned Buscema's barbarian into a tough old coot with wrinkles.  
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 22, 2014 10:07:06 GMT -5
So, as the Aquilonians make ready to invade the sanctum of the bad guys, we race ahead inside to witness their casting a spell meant to bring their evil god to this sphere. Notice that for once, the sacrifice isn't a naked girl but a naked boy! The spell's ceremonial is also all kinds of creepy: the victim is hanging by a foot from the ceiling while his throat is cut, and the priest uses him as a fountain pen to draw a magic sigil on the ground. Spooky!!!  Conan breaks in and he and his men start killing the wizard/assassins (but hey, they've clearly been established to be very, very bad guys), and I can't help but admire Alcatena's sense of design when he comes up with clothes, make-ups or other ways to make his art stand out. This is light years ahead of the crooked or weird-looking swords that other artists consider "fantasy material".  Now although the Aquilonians get rid of all the members of the brotherhood, two things nevertheless happen: first, the dark god makes it through to our plane, and second (as we lucky readers can see, but Conan is unaware of), our old friend Rune flies in from wherever he was resting; having felt the coming of the evil god, he intends to eat it. In the page below, the dark god appears before his high priest; the poor fellow will barely have time to say "welcome, boss" before getting his head bitten off. Never trust an evil god who looks like a Giger painting.  |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 22, 2014 10:09:11 GMT -5
Things are coming to a boil! The head wizard has lost his own, the evil god is among us and threatening all sorts of unpleasantness, and the winged Rune jumps in for a snack of his own! But he's apparently bitten off more than he can chew, for the evil newcomer stands ready to reverse the tables on him and consume Rune. All to the consternation of Conan who remembers what a hard time he had last time with the winged vampire.  As the evil god swallows Rune, what's a middle-aged king to do? Send his men away and stand his ground, of course!  Looking at the two opponents, we can imagine that the fight shouldn't last more than a second, of course. And in fact it's lucky for Conan that most bad guys (including otherdimensional demonic entities) like the sound of their own voice so much, for as the gigantic mass of teeth and tentacles drones on and on about how he's going to do all sorts of nasty things to Conan, the world, the universe and my mom, he suddenly bursts from the inside, having been tricked by Rune to eat him and allowing his smaller opponent to consume him from the inside. Ka-boom! The evil god is destroyed, leaving a triumphant and regenerated Rune behind, ready to pick up when his prey left!  Conan witnessed the whole thing, and with only an axe, how can a lone mortal take down a demonic vampire who has just eaten a god and has more power than Galactus? There's really only one thing to do, really... |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 22, 2014 10:10:39 GMT -5
Cheat!!! Although more powerful than anyone has a right to be, Rune is apparently not invincible and decapitation can take the wind out of him. And for good measure, Conan continues chopping him into small bits. I bet Spider-man never thought of that to take Firelord down! Rune's head is left to pout in the catacombs of the now-defunct brotherhood of the spider, and as he asks his victor to tell him his name so he can howl in in the void, the answer is "Conan. And there will be many there to howl it back at you". Tough guy, that Conan. As always, when Alcatena draws it's impossible not to like a story. The absolute creepiness he brought to the cultists in this story, the sheer size of the evil god, the action and storytelling, they all make for a great reading experience. And Dixon's script is very effective, too, for all its simplicity. But that's a Dixon Conan story for you: focused, direct and letting the action tell the tale. The second part of issue #4 is the conclusion of the Conan & Bêlit adventure in Antarctica. I'm sorry to say that the mix between the Black Corsairs and the South Pole natives with the Lovecraft mythology didn't gel for me; perhaps it was a case of too many disparate elements that had no time to be integrated into a whole? In any case, here we have our valiant crew look at a mural depicting Great Ancients and Shoggoths; then Ghomli's corsairs arrive and engage everyone, thena shoggoth bursts in and Conan has to stab it with a stalactite. The whole mysterious world from "At the mountains of Madness" is reduced to a bried encounter with another monster, and everybody but the good guys die. I'm sure that this story could have been much, much better given more time to expand to fulfill its potential.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,860
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Post by shaxper on Aug 22, 2014 15:36:53 GMT -5
It is so great to see you reviving these invaluable resources!
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Post by paulie on Aug 22, 2014 15:57:34 GMT -5
I have issue #1 but I've never read this. I know this series is actually quite scarce and kind of hard to find.
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Post by fanboystranger on Aug 22, 2014 18:27:11 GMT -5
I think they went with Bisley not because of Lobo, but because of Slaine: The Horned God, which had become the #1 English language graphic novel in Europe and really revitalized the sword and sorcery genre in comics. It was an attempt to update Conan by association. Alcatena also provided a more "European" feel to the art. I really think Marvel was looking to Slaine for its inspiration.
Funnily enough, Slaine: The Horned God would pretty much be the high water mark of 2000AD, and soon all the talent, including Bisley, would start working in the N American market because of favorable exchange rates and higher page rates. Other than Nikolai Dante, generally strong Dredd stories by Wagner, and a few odds and ends, 2000AD was a mess throughout most of the '90s. Matt Smith was the guy who turned it around when he started in 2000.
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