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Post by berkley on Aug 2, 2014 23:21:51 GMT -5
Hadn't seen that Earl Norem Avengers cover before and I must admit, it isn't bad at all - I'd say that it reminds a bit of Alex Ross, only I think it's much better than anything I've ever seen from Ross. It succeeds in imparting the realism and Ross is known for without falling into the laughably over-inflated posturing that mars his work for me. Come to think of it, I remember another Earl Norem cover I thought was quite good, Marvel Preview no. 9: So maybe I just don't like him as a sword & sorcery artist.
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Post by foxley on Aug 3, 2014 3:03:17 GMT -5
I think this is my favourite of the Kane pastiches Marvel published. It has the right Howard feel to it, and is simply a lot of fun.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 6, 2014 6:59:55 GMT -5
Hadn't seen that Earl Norem Avengers cover before and I must admit, it isn't bad at all - I'd say that it reminds a bit of Alex Ross, only I think it's much better than anything I've ever seen from Ross. It succeeds in imparting the realism and Ross is known for without falling into the laughably over-inflated posturing that mars his work for me. Come to think of it, I remember another Earl Norem cover I thought was quite good, Marvel Preview no. 9: So maybe I just don't like him as a sword & sorcery artist. That's a neat cover; it looks like the poster for a 60s action movie. In technicolor!!! And Marvel Preview was a really, really good series. Like the comics-sized Marvel Premiere, it managed to remain intriguing issue after issue.
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Post by Prince Hal on Aug 6, 2014 7:43:22 GMT -5
Norem is particularly reminiscent of Norm Saunders.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 8, 2014 8:15:27 GMT -5
Savage sword of Conan #23, Oct 1977Cover by Earl Norem Another action-packed cover promising adventure and tales of derring-do. It has no relation to this issue's main story, except perhaps for its maritime theme, but is notable for featuring Red Sonja; if I'm not mistaken, the only other covers to do so are #1, #179 and Marvel Super Special #9. (#218's lady might be red-headed and may wear a metal bikini of sorts, but she looks nothing like Sonja). Conan's head is a little too big, I think; it's not anatomically inaccurate, but it makes him look like a 5'7 guy instead of a 6'6 colossus. This issue's contents: Torrent of doom, concluding last issue's Conan story Serpents of Stygia, an essay on the country that nobody seems to like The striking of the gong, a Kull story A new song of Sonja, an illustrated poem Red sonja at the mall, more cosplay Wizards of the Black sun, a Red Sonja story (justifying, with the two previous pieces, her presence on the cover!)
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 8, 2014 8:35:31 GMT -5
Torrent of doomScript by Roy Thomas Art by John Buscema and Alfredo Alcala Concluding the adaptation of the Robert E. Howard Conan story the pool of the black one. I made mention of the lush artwork and the mass of detail that went into last issue, and suggested that the story being split in two seemed unnecessary and was perhaps due to the dreaded deadline doom. Only Roy could confirm that, but this issue would tend to confirm that impression. For one, nothing much happens; it's only 19 pages long and is basically one long action scene that concludes last issue's intricate plots. The artwork does not look rushed per se, but shows mostly figures with little backgrounds; furthermore, Alfredo uses his "ink wash" style of shading instead of his fine line approach. To which someone would be fully justified to add "you're talking about a Thomas-Buscema-Alcala Conan story and you're complaining?" So… When we left Conan and Sancha last, they were hiding in the black ones' curious city while these strange giants were carrying the unconscious crew of the Wastrel within its walls, probably to throw them in their magic pool that turns people into small statues. The sleeping buccaneers are thrown pell-mell in an empty courtyard while their weapons are piled up in another. The giants then congregate around their pool and start listening to their leader playing his infernal flute (like a Hyborian Jethro Tull!!!) Conan and Sancha tiptoe to the side of the pirates and find that they are indeed just asleep, but that they begin to stir. The Cimmerian charges Sancha to wake them all up and to bring them their weapons while he distracts the black giants. His idea of a distraction is to run shouting at the music-loving demons and cut three of them down before escaping through one of the many large arches that link one courtyard to another in this strange place. But Spider-man isn't the only hard luck hero at Marvel: the courtyard that Conan enters is a dead end! As the islanders start closing on him, forming a circle, Conan charges through them and tries to climb up a wall, since as we know Cimmerians are born climbers. However, the wall's material breaks under his weight and he falls back down. The pirates then burst upon the scene and a great fight begins. The giants, for all their strength and fangs and unholy purposes, aren't carrying any weapon; the Zingarans therefore manage to gain the upper hand. The flute-playing leader, seeing that defeat seems inevitable, utters an inhuman cry to the sky and jumps into the magic pool, which erupts in a vertical column of green water.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 8, 2014 8:50:18 GMT -5
Conan guesses that when the water comes back down, it's likely to turn them all into statues and so he orders everyone to run for their lives. The buccaneers scramble toward the beach and the rowboats, as behind them the water column finally breaks and drowns the city. To Conan's horror, the water seems to actively pursue the pirates over ground, following them like a great green snake! Energized by panic, the buccaneers row all the way to the Wastrel, and since the green torrent follows them even through the ocean's saltwater, they don't waste time raising the anchor: they just detach it and let it sink to the bottom. The sorcerous green flow stops, then, as the Wastrel sails away; apparently, it couldn't gat too far away from the island. The crew is bruised, battered and much reduced in numbers, but Conan apparently had the time of his life! That's the attitude. Notes: - SSoC #67 is a sequel of sorts to this story; it shows how Sancha and Conan parted ways. She's also seen in issue #129, but kind of out of character… like a different girl with the same name. (The same thing happened to Valeria on a few occasions). - And how better to finish this story than with a little song?
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Post by paulie on Aug 8, 2014 9:03:37 GMT -5
Charcoal Alcala? I wonder if this was at Roy's directive? The only other place I can recall Alfredo using this effect is on Arak also edited by Roy. The classic Alcala style is certainly on full display during his Swamp Thing run.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 8, 2014 9:07:01 GMT -5
Stygia -serpent of the southarticle by Robert Yaple with art by Rick Hoberg Stygia is the Hyborian age equivalent of Egypt; a very old civilization set in its ways, poorly understood and feared by the younger nations to the north. Because its god Set is the arch-demon of the Hyborians, and because there are many sorcerers hailing from that ancient land (the Black Ring to which Thoth Amon belongs dwells in Stygia), the country has sometimes been depicted as an abnormal place, a kind of "Wizardland". Here, Yaple refers to the actual Howardian texts to show that even if it is exotic and ancient, Stygia is still a normal country where politics, commerce and military matters are as important as in Koth or Turan. The history of the land is described, as well as its relations with other nations. Informative and interesting; this kind of essay really enriches a reader's enjoyment of the Conan series. The striking of the gongScript by Roy Thomas Art by Rick Hoberg and Bill Wray Adapting an original King Kull story by Robert E. Howard Kull has been depicted in most Marvel mags as something of a thinking man's barbarian; one who, fascinated by civilization, tries to understand it even while remaining true to his more barbaric but honest ways. That aspect builds on just a few Kull stories by Howard: The mirrors of Tuzun Thune is one; the striking of the gong is another. (In most of the Kull stories, the king is not much of a philosopher; in fact, in By this axe I rule, he even comes off as something of a doofus who eventually decides that absolute monarchy backed by strength of arms is the best political system). I admit that I prefer the way Roy developped Kull as something else than a Conan prototype. Here Kull has a philosophical discussion with some mystical figure during the few seconds it takes him to recover from a botched assassination attempt. The artwork by Hoberg and Wray is very much in the Severin tradition (Marie more than John), in agreement with the Kull the conqueror original look.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 8, 2014 9:14:04 GMT -5
A new song of SonjaIndependent artist and Elquest co-creator Wendy Pini provides this illustrated poem about the she-devil with a sword. Very nice work indeed, and it's always a pleasure to see artists who aren't usually associated withj Marvel make an appearance in these pages. Red Sonja at the mallarticle by Chris Padovano, photos by Padovano and Bob Pinaha Frank Thorne plays a wizard and several ladies (iuncluding the aforementionned Wendy Pini) play Sonja, in a show that will be further explored in a story published in SSoC in just a few short months. Other photos show Pablo Marcos, Ernoe Chan, Rudy Nebres (who also provides a Sonja picture) and Dave Cockrum. I hadn't had that many opportunities to see any of these people before! I was a bit surprised by Nebres: I expected him to look like a Rudy Nebres picture, the way Gil Kane looks like a Gil Kane character or the way John Buscema looks like Odin!
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 8, 2014 9:19:58 GMT -5
Wizards of the black sunScript by Roy Thomas and Clara Noto Art by Frank Thorne I just love Thorne's Sonja. His baroque and oneiric style makes even her ridiculous steel bikini work. In this story that reads much more like a Fritz leiber tale than any Howard opne (and that's not a criticism in any way), Sonja meets a three-legged, talking goat (I LOVE THAT!), a card-reading crone, a lecherous living skeleton and a vanishing city. Great fun for fantasy lovers! "Be on your way, and see that you never again venture into places that do not exist! It generally proves most dangerous". Next issue: a new version of The tower of the elephant!
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Post by benday-dot on Aug 8, 2014 19:07:27 GMT -5
Well done again RR. "Pool of the Black One" is a favourite of mine. I always loved the Howard stories wherein Conan, and perhaps a comely companion, wonders off to some mysteriously isolated, often abandoned and decadent place of ruin and foreboding. Fortunately, this happens quite a bit in Conan's early career. These yarns are also often the most Lovecraftian of REH's efforts. The part where the green tide races after the fleeing party made for a thrilling and breakneck finish, and seemed inspired by something out of Lovecraft's Dagon or parts of Shadow Over Innsmouth. That final panel of Conan is priceless, his expression and his words: "I have a ship and a fighting crew and a girl with lips like wine... and that's all I've ever asked." How quintessentially Conan. I agree about your assessment of Thorne's Sonja. Beautiful stuff, and a a great marriage of style and substance. Are you familiar with Thorne's Ghita of Alizarr? It is every bit as well done, if not better, that his Sonja. It's rather more adult oriented, as seems to be a favourite avenue of expression of Thorne's, but is also probably the best feature to emerge from Warren's 1984/1994 magazine. Look at the glorious costumery in this splash.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 8, 2014 20:00:04 GMT -5
Quintessential Conan indeed, b-d, and I don't understand how Hollywood can miss that point again and again. (There was some effort made with the Momoa film, but we're not there yet).
I yet have to put my hands on a copy of a Ghita book, but the first one was advertised in old SSoC issues (by Bud Plant, I believe) and if you think it as good as Thorne's Sonja, I'll probably check it out the next time one gets on the radar screen. The spoof by Dave Sim was pretty funny, with Frank Thorne in the role of the wizard explaining that he had replaced the steel bikini with silk because of the scar tissue.
I'm sorry that the realities of business and intellectual property means we'll probably never see Conan and Sonja again. Unless Disney buys out Conan properties and Red Sonja properties?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2014 21:36:29 GMT -5
Quintessential Conan indeed, b-d, and I don't understand how Hollywood can miss that point again and again. (There was some effort made with the Momoa film, but we're not there yet). I yet have to put my hands on a copy of Ghita, but it was already advertised in old SSoC issues (by Bud Plant, I believe) and if you think it as good as Thorne's Sonja, I'll probably check it out the next time one gets on the radar screen. The spoof by Dave Sim was pretty funny, with Frank Thorne in the role of the wizard explaining that he had replaced the steel bikini with silk because of the scar tissue. I'm sorry that the realities of business and intellectual property means we'll probably never see Conan and Sonja again. Unless Disney buys out Conan properties and Red Sonja properties? Gail Simone is working on a Conan/Sonja cross-over co-published by Dynamite and Dark Horse. Brian Wood was co-writing, but thankfully he dropped the project. I think Fred Van Lente may be stepping in to co-write with Simone. It was first announced at the tail end of convention season last year, but has not been solicited yet, but Wood's departure may have delayed it. -M
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Post by berkley on Aug 9, 2014 2:11:18 GMT -5
It's funny - I really like Frank Thorne's artwork a lot, except for the one aspect of it that was obviously most important to him: his depiction of the female form. Not that I dislike his aesthetic in that regard - I'm kind of neutral - but I don't think it's one of the strongest points of his work.
To me it's the detail, the imaginative designs - including the lettering and panel borders at times, as can be seen in the samples posted above - and the sort of controlled roughness of his rendering that comes out better in black & white than in colour comics - that stand out.
It's been so long since I read the REH Kull stories that I can't say whether or not I agree with RR that the philosophical side to Kull was brought to the fore more by Roy Thomas than by Howard. My (quite possibly inaccurate) impression is that REH wrote such a small number of Kull stories that even one single "Mirrors of Tuzun Thune" carries a lot of weight in determining the kind of character he was in contrast to Conan.
But I fully admit to being heavily influenced by my love of the early Marie and John Severin Kull series, in which he was at a more mature stage of his career, weighed down by the responsibilities of rule and the irresolvable conflict between his barbarian instincts and his position as king and defender of Valusian civilisation, in contrast to the equally brilliant Thomas/BWS CtB, where Conan was a young adventurer looking no further than the next treasure to steal, the next fight to win, the next woman to love.
I agree that Rick Hoberg followed Marie Severin's Kull in The Striking of the Gong, but unfortunately Bill Wray was no John Severin. That's unfair, of course, because who was, apart from the man himself, but I think that while Wray's inks here would have been fine for a superhero story, they were the wrong choice for a sword & sorcery, and especially a Kull story. That's a bit harsh: he did a good job, but I'd like to see how a different inker - e.g. Sonny Trinidad or Yong Montano (I don't dare dream of Severin himself or Alfredo Alcala) - might have done. I think the story called for more atmosphere, more shadowy nuance and moodiness than Wray's style was able to bring to it.
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