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Post by berkley on Nov 1, 2014 23:13:52 GMT -5
Damn. I don't like the Buscema/Nebres artwork, which is probably why I didn't buy SSoC 37 at the time, but I might have to look for it now that I see that Solomon Kane back-up story.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2014 0:34:57 GMT -5
I read that (and lots of other Solomon Kane stories) in the Savage Sword of Solomon Kane phone book trade Dark Horse did, collecting all the b&w mag appearances of SK in SSoC and other places. The Wenzel art on those stories is fantastic. I firs saw Wenzel when he replaced Perez on Avengers in the middle of the Korvac saga and because of that was not a fan, but later saw his painted fantasy stuff on the Eclipse Hobbit adaptation and Kurt Busiek's A Wizard's Tale, and totally loved it. The SK stuff is his best non-painted line work in comics I think.
-M
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 2, 2014 9:30:54 GMT -5
Damn. I don't like the Buscema/Nebres artwork, which is probably why I didn't buy SSoC 37 at the time, but I might have to look for it now that I see that Solomon Kane back-up story. There is a certain stifness to the Buscema/Nebres art, but generally speaking I quite liked this issue. In context, the contrast with the Alcala and DeZuniga styles was a welcome change; not because those two inkers did bad work, but because SSoC's diversity of artistic styles always appealed to this reader. There are more Kane stories drawn by Wenzel in the following issues, including his best piece: the adaptation of " the one black stain".
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Post by benday-dot on Nov 4, 2014 21:13:14 GMT -5
I think Nebres generally does good modelling of his figures, and is particularly well suited to the sword and sorcery genre, in which skill at drawing anatomy is important. I don't think he meshes that well with Sal B. here. The younger Buscema has always been a very inker dependent artist to my tastes. Those panels that appear as more Nebres than Buscema here look the best to my eyes. Sorry Sal!
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 14, 2014 9:57:54 GMT -5
Savage sword of Conan #38, March 1979An Earl Norem cover full of action, sexism, monsters and a hazy background: this is the stuff pulp art is made of. Would I defend its artistic qualities? Well... let's say that it has a role to play, attracting the customer's eye, and in that sense it succeeds. The girl has an important role in the story but she never actually meets Conan, so there are a few liberties taken here. Table of contents The road of the eagles, a Conan adventure A gazetteer of the Hyborian Age, part VIAnd that's all!
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 14, 2014 10:22:35 GMT -5
The road of the eaglesScript by Roy Thomas Art by John BUscema and Tony DeZuniga Adapting a story by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp. The road of the eagles was first a historical adventure tale by Robert E. Howard, set in 1595. De Camp conanized it for inclusion in the Gnome Press book "Tales of Conan" in 1955. As in previous instances, the kingdom of Turan replaces the Turkish empire and the pirates of the Vilayet sea replace their Black Sea colleagues. A supernatural element is also tacked on, although in this story there was no need to also add a female character (one being prominent in the Howard story). The road of the eagles is typical of this kind of conanized material: de Camp adapts a non-Conan story in such a way as to have it act as a bridge between two previous adventures, and to highlight an important Hyborian age political event. In this particular case, the story allows us to see how Conan lost the captaincy of the ship he acquired in Iron shadows in the moon (adapted in SSoC #4), and how the empire of Turan went from the hands of King Yildiz (mentioned in the above-mentionned story) to those of his son Yezdigerd, mentioned in the devil in iron (SSoC #15) and the people of the black circle (SSoC 16-19). Turan is the equivalent of the Turkish empire in its most successful expansionist phase, and in Conan's time its borders stretch to the limit of Zamora in the west, and to undisclosed limits in the Hyrkanian east. We know the city of Zamboula, toward Stygia, is ruled by Turanians. That empire is therefore a pretty big deal. Conan has had dealings with Turan before: taken aboard the galley of Prince Yezdigerd, he worked as a mercenary for the Turanians during the siege of Makkalet, until deserting at the end of Conan the barbarian #20. On that occasion, he slashed Prince Yezdigerd across the face with his sword, leaving a lifelong scar... and an enmity that would not be resolved until King Conan #7. Later, he visited Turan's capital Aghrapur in Conan the barbarian #29, and was drafted in its army (luckily, while Yezdigerd was overseas, waging his war of conquest). That's where Conan would gain his first taste of formal military discipline and gain experience with many weapons, including the bow (which Cimmerians do not routinely use, seeing it as unmanly). He acted as bodyguard to King Yildiz for a short stretch, saving his life from a murder attempt suspected to have been engineered by Yildiz' own son and heir-apparent, Yezdigerd. Deserting again after a few months, he would travel west for a few years and return to western Turan as one of the Kozaki, who would be crushed by the Turanian forces of Shah Amurath in the opening pages of SSoC #4; thereafter, the Cimmerian would kill and replace the captain of a pirate ship sailing the Vilayet sea. That's where we find him here. In this story, the plot revolves around two different agendas: Conan is out for revenge on a certain individual, and that individual is out to put a new king on Turan's throne. The issue opens as Conan's ship and a Turanian galley have just engaged in a violent sea fight, leaving both crews badly depleted and both ships water-logged. The captain of the galley is Artaban of Aghrapur, who has recently been scourging the Vilayet sea to rid it of pirates. We will later learn that this Artaban is a gambler who, pressed for money, recently used his ship to attack a honest Turanian merchantman. But someone in his crew talked and the officer was saved from public execution only by agreeing to undertake the perilous task to attack the encampments of the Vilayet pirates at the mouth of the Zaporoska. This mission he accomplished with success, killing everyone there; but on the way back, he was overtaken by Conan's ship and attacked. The Turanians managed to score an indecisive victory, but now they have to limp to shore, Conan's ship still in pursuit. The Turanians have to abandon their wreck, and as they make their way in a hilly country they encounter a blonde girl who is riding away from a group of Hrkanian pursuers. She whispers a name to Artaban's ear, and he decides to save her and send the Hyrkanians back in retreat. The girl is Roxana, and she carries portentous news: she knows where Prince Teyaspa is being kept prisoner. Prince who, one might ask?
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 14, 2014 11:00:18 GMT -5
Teyaspa is King Yildiz' brother, a man as dashing and decisive as the king is weak and uncertain. (Yildiz doesn't quite look like his old self from CtB #36, but he's still bearded and plump. I think in the above image he looks like Frank Thring as Herod Antipas in King of kings!!) Roxana explains to Artaban that Teysapa, whose qualities could have made him a threat to Yildiz's reign, was confined to the impregnable castle of a hill-bandit. There he is forced to live a life of idleness where his will is expected to be sapped by inaction, wine and dancing girls. Roxana is one of those girls, but grew to love the prince and wants to see him escape and try to usurp the crown. Artaban, seeing a chance to turn his fate around, agrees to help her in her plan. He will accompany her to the castle, where she will find a way to get him and his men in. Meanwhile, Conan's crew has reached the point where Artaban has landed. A man of the Yuetshi people, who have been brutally exploited by Turanians and by the hill-bandit holding Teyaspa, agrees to show Conan the direction in which Artaban went. He further shows the Cimmerian a great cavern filled with niches where ancient corpses lay; the Yuetshi explains that shamans of his people cast a spell to make sure that their ghosts stay in the tombs, and lit a fire in the cavern to keep them quiet. The caverns leads to passageways that lead to mountain trails that eventually lead to a good vantage point overlooking the hill-bandit's castle.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 14, 2014 11:16:51 GMT -5
Meanwhile, Roxana has managed to get back into the castle and is trying to get her lover Teyaspa to shake off his lethargy. As per the plan she concocted with Artaban, she gets to the only door to the castle: a small door set in the outer wall, with no road leading to it; only a plank pushed across the ravine allows people to go from a mountain trail to the castle. She bats her yelids at the guard who, aroused, gets too close to her ans she stabs him. The Turanians get in, recover Teyaspa, and make their escape even as the hill-bandit and his rogues pursue them. The Turanians prove superior to the bandits, and everything seems to go according to Roxana's plans; but then, Conan and his men attack the group, not knowing or caring who Teyaspa might be: they just want to kill Artaban (something Conan does in single combat). Not understanding that these newcomers are not sent by his brother, Teyaspa loses hope and is ready to surrender, but Roxana, unable to bear seeing her lover's will crushed, prefers to kill him and herself. As Artaban is dead, Conan and his men run from the remaining Turanians, just as (oh, the coincidence!) a messenger arrives from Aghrapur: King Yildiz is dead, and the people would be ready to raise him to the throne instead of Yezdigerd. But it's too late. As Conan and his pirates race back to their damaged ship, they go through the big cavern slash cemetery, with the Cimmerian acting as rear-guard. A pursuer he slays fall on the shamans' fire, extinguishing it; this causes the tombs to erupt with goblin-like creatures. The pirates keep going, but Conan is cut off and has to escape another way; eventually, he climbs his way out of danger but then sees that his frightened men sailed away without him. Laughing it off, he decides he's had enough of Turan and wishes to see the west again. Notes: - The matter of Turanian politics would probably have been more important in the Conan series had Roy Thomas stayed at the helm. The personal enmity between him and Conan was a promising plot twist, but one that was ignored by later writer (who would even have the two men meet face to face, without Yesdigerd actually recognizing Conan. That happened again when Marvel regained the license to the character, and writer Jason Aaron had Conan and Yezdigerd meet once more for the first time). - Conan acted as bodyguard to a king Yildiz of Turan in the graphic novel "Conan the reaver", written by Don Kraar (and beautifully drawn by John Severin). But that king Yildiz was a kindly, elderly man who would be killed by ambitious plotters and succeeded by his infant son, Yildiz II. This story is honestly very hard to reconcile with the Conan the barbarian continuity. - Conan is about 29 in this story, although DeZuniga makes him look a decade older. It's those scritchy scratchy ink lines!
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 14, 2014 11:20:56 GMT -5
A gazetteer of the Hyborian world, part VI, compiled by Lee Falconer
From Nakareh - a village in Turan. CtB 36
to
Python, which was the capital of the empire of Acheron.
Still a great resource.
The ads in this issue make me wish I could send money back in time: we are offered art books by Frazetta and Boris; a fantasy portfolio with plates by Kirby, Conrad, Smith, Nino and Steranko (intriguing, isn't it?); the Sabre graphic novel, the Gorblimey press catalog, and so on.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 14, 2014 11:48:25 GMT -5
The ads in this issue make me wish I could send money back in time: we are offered art books by Frazetta and Boris; a fantasy portfolio with plates by Kirby, Conrad, Smith, Nino and Steranko (intriguing, isn't it?); the Sabre graphic novel, the Gorblimey press catalog, and so on. I get that feeling every time I read a Warren magazine.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 16, 2014 9:57:55 GMT -5
The savage sword of Conan #39, April 1979 Cover by Earl Norem, inspired by this issue's main story. Table of contents: The legions of the dead, a Conan adventure A portfolio of Robert E. Howard, a series of pin-ups by Rudy Nebres A gazetteer of the Hyborian Age, part VIIThe moon of skulls, the conclusion of the Solomon Kane adventure started a few issues prior.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 16, 2014 10:30:40 GMT -5
The legions of the deadScript by Roy Thomas Art by Sal Buscema and Tony DeZuniga Adapting a short story by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter When reviewing SSoC#37, I had somehow forgotten that Sal Buscema had drawn a few issues in the late 70s. Here's another, and a third one would soon follow. The inking by DeZuniga is as overpowering as Nebres had been previously, but we can still recognize Sal's typical "camera work" (and the BIG HANDS that he draws and that I enjoy so much). This story is not a conanization, and it was written for the paperback book "Conan the swordsman", published in 1978. It features a very young Conan, only 16 years old, shortly after he's joined a band of Aesir warriors who are on their way to make war on Hyperboreans. As many other de Camp stories (original ones or adaptations), this one seeks to flesh out something alluded to in actual Howard writings, be they stories or the famous letter to P. Schuyler Miller. To Miller, Howard said this about Conan's early voyages: " (...) There was the space of about a year between Vanarium and his entrance into the thief-city of Zamora. During this time he returned to the northern territories of his tribe, and made his first journey beyond the boundaries of Cimmeria. This, strange to say, was north instead of south. Why or how, I am not certain, but he spent some months among a tribe of the Aesir, fighting with the Vanir and the Hyperboreans, and developing a hate for the latter which lasted all his life and later affected his policies as king of Aquilonia. Captured by them, he escaped southward and came into Zamora in time to make his debut in print". Roy Thomas had already shown Conan as a member of an Aesir band in Conan the barbarian #1, and shown him as a captive of the Hyperboreans (in flashback) in CtB #3. De Camp telling a slightly different story, the Marvel writer (as is his wont) does his best to reconcile all the available plot threads as we'll see below. Conan the barbarian #1 must come first, as it deals with the Vanir (to the west of Asgard) and has a more open ending. From there, Conan must have traveled east for the events of CtB #2, and then joined a new band of Aesir that we meet here. Their leader is Njal, and one of his men is old Gorm, a balding and scarred warrior. Continuity alert! Old Gorm is an Aesir warrior we've seen before, as he's the guy who explains who Atali is in the story the Frost Giant's daughter (Savage Tales #1, CtB #16)!!! But that particular tale is set years later in Conan's life, during one of his rare returns to the northern lands. This is a strange error for de Camp to have made, since he was the one to place the Frost Giant's daughter later in Conan's life, even though most people find more logical to have it the first chronological Conan adventure. However, the leader of the Aesir band we see here is Njal, while the band in Frost Giant's daughter is led by Niord. We must conclude that in the Marvel chronology, when Conan traveled back to Cimmeria after the events of CtB#15, he spent a few weeks further north in Asgard where he joined another band of Aesir to which old Gorm coincidentally also belonged. We'll see how this is arranged a bit below.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 16, 2014 10:41:09 GMT -5
But let's return to the legions of the dead. Njal's band is approaching the Hyperborean castle of Haloga (and we take this opportunity to point out that Hyperborea, according to the essay The Hyborian Age, is one of the first places where people started erecting heavy stone walls). The mission of the Aesir is to recover Njal's daughter, Rann, who has been abducted by Hyperborean slavers. Reaching their goal, a ghastly surprise awaits them: up on the parapets, they see that a few of their fellows are being tortured in plain sight. The Hyperborean witchmen who live in the castle are taunting the raiders they must know are nearby!
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 16, 2014 10:57:10 GMT -5
Njal reflects that attacking the high walls makes no strategic sense, and the Aesir withdraw for the night. However, brash young Conan slips away undetected, and thanks to his well-known scaling abilities (which are dangerously close to being treated like a super-power, sometimes), climbs the massive walls of Haloga until he reaches a window. Quickly discovering Rann's cell, he escapes with the Aesir princess and sets the castle on fire. Back in the Aesir camp, Njal is overjoyed to have his daughter back, demonstrating a newfound respect for the young Cimmerian. No one seriously expects the Hyperboreans to pursue the group. This proves to be wishful thinking, and the pursuers are far more dangerous than could have been expected: instead of Hyperborean warriors, they turn out to be walking dead men, including dead Aesir! These corpses can be cut to pieces, after which they don't pose a serious danger, but even decapitated they can still move and strike blindly; therefore, the battle quickly turns into a rout. The leader of this legion of the dead, queen Vammatar, orders that as many enemies be taken alive as slaves, but Rann tells the Aesir to fight unto death after her father Njal is killed. Conan grabs the battle-crazy princess, makes his way to queen Vammatar (who's the only person present riding a horse), throws the witch-queen in a puddle (Conan just loves throwing women in puddles, if CtB#11 is any indication) and forces Rann to ride away as he and the few surviving Aesir are captured and brought back in chains to castle Haloga. The chains Conan wears are the same as he wears on the opening page of CtB#3, in which he explains how he was captured by Hyperborean slavers and later escaped, nursing a grudge against Hyperboreans in general and a big whip-happy one in particular. (Conan gives few details in CtB#3, but his words do not actually contradict SSoC#39).
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 16, 2014 11:08:21 GMT -5
In Conan the barbarian #254, we get a more detailed version of how Conan escaped from Haloga in a continuity-heavy (but functional) story. Conan, old Gorm and a few other comrades are brought into the castle. Conan is (naturally) selected by the witch queen Vammatar to act as a temporary paramour, and the others are to be killed by their own deceased friends, now reanimated as more undead soldiers. The Cimmerian jumps into the pit to help his allies, and just then the castle is attacked by more Aesir that were brought back by a vengeful Rann. The fun and games have to end, and the few survivors are chained again. But then a jailer is careless (as seen in CtB#3) and Conan and the others join in the fighting. Let's skip the details of the fight and race to the end: as the good guys make good their escape pell-mell, Conan (chained as in CtB#3), is separated from the others... but not before Rann throws him his old helmet, the one with the two horns pointing forward (that he was not wearing in SSoC#39, but did wear in CtB#3). We also see that old Gorm has survived, so his presence in the Frost Giant's daughter does not contradict continuity if that particular tale is indeed placed later in Con n’s life. Personally, I’d rather put it very shortly after CtB #1. Notes: - Conan is 16 during this story. Sal Buscema tries to make him look youthful, but Tony's inks add a few decades to his face. - After Conan's escape here, he will not go straight into the events of CtB#3; the next adventure he knows is chronicled in CtB#92. In the pages of that fill-in issue (appropriately enough, it, too, is pencilled by Sal Buscema!) Conan is once again shown escaping from the Hyperborean cells. The details are not exactly the same as what we've seen elsewhere, but come on... it's a pretty good job for tales drawn by different people in different mags over the course of more than ten years. - That particular story in CtB#92 deals with Conan fleeing his captors and discovering a hidden tomb. There he finds an ancient mummy, and when he takes the cadaver's sword he sees the dead thing come alive and try to kill him. Setting the whole place on fire solves the problem, and we are told Conan will soon lose that hard-won sword. CtB#92 naturally bears a strong resemblance to CtB#31, in which a young Conan is escaping his northern captors, finds a tomb with a sword in it, has to fight a supernatural foe who doesn't want him to keep the weapon (this time it's not a mummy but his own shadow, grown solid and independent) and solves the problem by setting the place afire. The captors in this case are however Vanir, not Hyperboreans, and we can safely place it a bit earlier... a little before of after CtB#1. The similitude between the two stories was not mentioned "on page", so to speak. To Conan, it's probably "another day, another tomb, another magic sword".
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