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Post by Nowhere Man on Jun 1, 2014 1:18:01 GMT -5
I realized not long ago that Conan is basically the only epic fantasy/S&S series that I have any real experience with. It's puzzling that beyond Conan, there really haven't been many success stories in this genre in terms of comics.
Are any of the Dungeons & Dragons comics worth reading? I generally like the D&D universe, but as with most licensed material, the quality is often lacking. Warlord and Weirdworld are on my to read list, as is the European fantasy epic Thorgal. I'm looking for as many good fantasy recommendations as possible. (By "fantasy" I'm mostly talking about stuff in the general vein of Tolkien, Howard's Hyperborean Age, etc.)
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Post by Deleted on Jun 1, 2014 1:42:17 GMT -5
I have a whole review thread for sword and sorcery books here.... From the Sorceror's ScrollSlaine is one I havn't read that others here really like Gil Kane's Blackmark is definitely worth the price of admission Marvel's Kull stuff is generally very good, especially with Severin art the DC TSR books were a mixed bag, sometimes good, sometimes far inferior to the stuff you would get in the back pages of Dragon mag First Kingdom by Jack Katz Roy Thomas' Arak, Son of Thunder there's a lot out there.... -M
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Post by foxley on Jun 1, 2014 4:49:45 GMT -5
I'd add CrossGen's Sojourn to the list.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jun 1, 2014 10:07:40 GMT -5
My personal favorites are Thomas and Russell's Elric stories, Claremont and Bolton's Marada: The She-Wolf, and, while the art comes and goes, I really like what our own JKCarrier has done with his ongoing Glorianna webcomic.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 1, 2014 14:08:25 GMT -5
Elfquest, but only the first three runs. I'm trying to read the rest but it really fell apart in the 90's. Before that it was excellent though
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 1, 2014 16:24:53 GMT -5
Elfquest did go a little loopy when they tried to make it a franchise, and there were books written by people that were not the Pinis. After the 1st 3 runs (the original series, Siege at Blue Mountain, and Kings of the Broken Wheel), you want to go to Elfquest:Shards, IIRC... the others are side bits and/or expanding the universe, which was pretty much a failure.
Besides what's in the Sorceror's Scroll thread... there's Warlord, Arion, Amythest... lots of stuff from DC pre-crisis.
Besides Conan, Marvel did Kull and John Carter.
Currently, IDW has a Pathfinder series.. no idea if it's good or not, though.
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Post by fanboystranger on Jun 1, 2014 16:31:57 GMT -5
After Slaine: The Horned God, which, in my opinion, is the pinnacle of the fantasy genre in comics, I always recommend Gal and Dionnet's Conquering Armies and Arn's Revenge, which were recently collected (and colored) by Humanoids in a nice oversized HC edition titled Armies. What Druillet was to Franco-Belgian sci-fi comics, Gal was to fantasy. His meticulously detailed work needs to be seen in order to be believed.
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Post by fanboystranger on Jun 2, 2014 0:09:35 GMT -5
I just realized that I pimped Slaine: The Horned God and didn't give any reasons. Here you go:
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2014 0:39:47 GMT -5
After the 1st 3 runs (the original series, Siege at Blue Mountain, and Kings of the Broken Wheel), you want to go to Elfquest:Shards That's what I thought too, but I just read Shards #1 and I'm lost. Feels like I missed several arcs. I can't find spoiler tags so I won't go into detail, but I think there may have been something in Hidden Years or Blood Of Ten Chiefs that leads into Shards. I wish it wasn't this confusing. I'm half tempted not to bother, but I think if I can get them all in order and skip the futuristic Jink stuff I'll enjoy it well enough.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jun 2, 2014 6:06:23 GMT -5
After Slaine: The Horned God, which, in my opinion, is the pinnacle of the fantasy genre in comics, I always recommend Gal and Dionnet's Conquering Armies and Arn's Revenge, which were recently collected (and colored) by Humanoids in a nice oversized HC edition titled Armies. What Druillet was to Franco-Belgian sci-fi comics, Gal was to fantasy. His meticulously detailed work needs to be seen in order to be believed.
Seconded and thirded! Gal's work is astonishing. How does his work fare in color? I thought B&W was perfectly suited to his high contrast approach (like, say, Alcala or Colan) but one never knows.
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Post by fanboystranger on Jun 2, 2014 8:06:53 GMT -5
After Slaine: The Horned God, which, in my opinion, is the pinnacle of the fantasy genre in comics, I always recommend Gal and Dionnet's Conquering Armies and Arn's Revenge, which were recently collected (and colored) by Humanoids in a nice oversized HC edition titled Armies. What Druillet was to Franco-Belgian sci-fi comics, Gal was to fantasy. His meticulously detailed work needs to be seen in order to be believed.
Seconded and thirded! Gal's work is astonishing. How does his work fare in color? I thought B&W was perfectly suited to his high contrast approach (like, say, Alcala or Colan) but one never knows. It looks very good. It was obviously a labor of love for the people at Humanoids. I probably would have preferred a b&w volume for the sake of historical accuracy, but I have no complaints about the coloring. (Unlike, say, Dark Horse's new coloring for BWS Conan volumes.) You can still see all of Gal's detail on everything.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jun 3, 2014 4:20:42 GMT -5
Thanks for the recommendations. Slain and Conquering Armies are two I've never heard of. I'll do some research on those.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jun 3, 2014 10:16:52 GMT -5
There is one graphic novel in bad need of being reprinted, but it's usually still available for not too much money : The jewel in the skull, adapting the first book of the Runestaff novels by Michael Moorcock. It is drawn by James Cawthorn, who as I understand it is a friend of Moorcock's. The art reminds me of Druillet and Gal (and a little bit of Gould), and the only drawback to this original edition is that some clueless Person In Charge didn't realize that there were several double-page spreads in this story, and allowed them to be printed on succeeding odd and even pages. All of them!!! A simple blank page at the beginning would have solved the issue, but.... *big sigh*. Anyway, recommended.
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Post by DubipR on Jun 3, 2014 10:26:35 GMT -5
Marada the She-Wolf (Chris Claremont & John Bolton)
I'm thrilled the powers that be finally reprinted this classic tale. One of my favorites.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jun 3, 2014 10:33:14 GMT -5
I have ever issue of Epic Illustrated (took me awhile to track them all down) and have read Miranda the She-Wolf. Some of the best illustration I've ever seen in comic form by John Bolton.
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