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Post by jbruel0 on Nov 24, 2014 11:19:11 GMT -5
The author is Stefano Raffele, he says in an interview at the beginning (Marvel Miniserie #35) that he did not work directly with Roy, and in case only on the plot. At the end, there are "le tavole censurate" that reveal #10 pages with too sexy images of Helliana which were censored by Marvel in USA. From that, I suppose they were done in Italy... But I will not put my hand into the fire...
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 24, 2014 14:31:21 GMT -5
Many thanks for the reference, J!
I must confess I'm happy that the blame for that story is not to be left squarely at Roy's door. It was truly a bad miniseries.
The art was awful, too, in that "every girl twists in impossible ways to show as much tits and ass as possible" and "guys wear bodysuits made of steak" way. I'm also allergic to oversized fantasy weapons.
When one compares it to another Marvel Conan miniseries like "death carved in gold"… there's just no comparison!
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 29, 2014 12:08:32 GMT -5
Savage sword of Conan #41, June 1979 The cover by Earl Norem features a decidedly Arnold Schwarzenegger-like Cimmerian as well as a princess Chabela who is actually recognizable (most times, the girl on the cover has no relation to whoever might be found inside the covers). Schwarzenegger was, of course, slated to star in the then-upcoming first Conan movie. Irrespective of what I thought of that film, I admit that the man looked the part (or would have if his hair had been dyed black). The title on the cover is "Slave of the Amazon queen", but a more accurate one would have been " Sex slave of the Amazon queen", as this issue really lays it on thick in the sex/submission/S&M department. (And Sprague de Camp said Howard was weird!) Table of contents: The quest for the cobra crown, part II of Conan the buccaneer Conan's world, and welcome to it, an article by Fred Blosser The ballad of Bêlit, a few notes on the queen of the Black Coast in the Marvel universe The return of Sir Richard Grenville, a Solomon Kane adventure
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 29, 2014 12:27:42 GMT -5
The quest of the Cobra crownScript by Roy Thomas Art by John Buscema and Tony DeZuniga Part II of the adaptation of the novel Conan the buccaneer, by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter The story so far: Old King Ferdrugo of Zingara has a lovely daughter, princess Chabela, whom a villainous duke, Villagro, intends to marry to become heir apparent. Since the girl has no liking for him, he uses the services of a low-rate Stygian wizard, Menkara, to try and manipulate her will magically. The result of these attempts are to send terrible nightmares to the girl, nightmares that prompt her to go to the country of Shem and ask advice of her uncle Tovarro. Villagro sends Menkara and his comrade-in-nefariousness, the buccaneer Black Zarono, chasing after the girl; they are to capture the princess and then, as per the advice of Menkara, push further south to Stygia and recruit the services of a mightier mage, Thoth-Amon. It is the belief of Menkara that Thoth-Amon will succeed where he failed, and that the greater wizard could even bewitch king Ferdrugo into doing whatever the conspirators want. On their way to Zarono's ship, the two miscreants have a violent encounter with a priest of Mitra who happened to be carrying a treasure island map to his friend Conan the Cimmerian. Menkara and Zarono stab the priest and steal the map. Conan, also the captain of a Zingaran ship, then pursues Black Zarono and Menkara on the western ocean, unaware that the two men are trailing princess Chabela's vessel. Menkara and Zarono succeed in capturing the princess, and then make their way to the Nameless Island of the map, where they find a temple containing a few jewels and a copy of the Book of Skelos, a priceless magical tome. While they're there, Chabela escapes their ship and swims to the island. At about the same time, Conan also reaches the island where he intends to attack Zarono. He is however distracted when, upon his arrival to the temple, he is attacked by a magically-animated statue. The statue is eventually destroyed, and while Zarono and Menkara sail away in one direction with the Book of Skelos, Conan sails away in another with princess Chabela. When they discover that the princess has escaped their clutches, Menkara and Zarono are understandably upset enough to feed her keepers to the sharks. Menkara's magic shows that she is now aboard the Wastrel, Conan's ship. Since they cannot overtake the Wastrel, they decide to continue with their mission and go south to Stygia to recruit the help of Thoth-Amon, sweetening their initial proposal with the Book of Skelos. Thoth-Amon has been described as "the Dr. Doom of the Hyborian Age". Robert Howard mentioned him in several stories: he is the main magical threat in the very first Conan story, The phoenix on the sword; he is the driving force behind the events of The god in the bowl; he is also mentioned in The hour of the dragon. His magical ring is the basis for the modern horror story The haunter of the ring. L. Sprague de Camp decided to make him Conan's main foe, something I find a little annoying; why should a hero have "a main foe"? Things don't really work like that in real life, and furthermore in The phoenix on the sword Thoth-Amon doesn't seem to be especially hostile to Conan. Roy Thomas handled things quite well during his tenure as Conan's writer: he kept Thoth-Amon as a formidable presence, but one that did not act directly; he showed up infrequently, he had no "origin story", and so each of his appearances was a big event. Here we get to see where he lives when he's not in the capital city of Luxur: the oasis of Khajar. In this issue, he manifests a slight irritation toward the Cimmerian, but no more; the man's meddling has proven troublesome in the past. Zarono and Menkara present a letter from Duke Villagro to Thoth-Amon, along with the book. The wizard is pleasantly surprised with the gift. He is however extremely annoyed when he learns that the pair found the Book of Skelos on the famous Nameless Island where an altar of Tsathoggua the toad goad can be found. The two men may have recovered a priceless book, but they left behind an ever greater treasure: the cobra crown, a magical artifact of immense power. We learn that the crown was however found... it was found by Conan, who after the destruction of Tsathoggua's statue went back to the temple to try and find whatever riches might have been left behind. The crown was hidden in the altar on which the statue was squatting before jumping away. Tsathoggua is creation of Clark Ashton Smith, and is a member in good standing of H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos.
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Post by badwolf on Nov 29, 2014 12:36:13 GMT -5
These are great reviews and the art reproductions alone are making me want to read them, even though I never really had much interest in the character. I see that Dark Horse has published several collections; are these recommended?
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 29, 2014 12:45:58 GMT -5
These are great reviews and the art reproductions alone are making me want to read them, even though I never really had much interest in the character. I see that Dark Horse has published several collections; are these recommended? I would certainly consider the first few volumes, the ones that cover issues 1-59. There are a few caveats, though: the reprint books are smaller in size than the original magazine-sized comics, and all that's reprinted are the Conan stories.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 29, 2014 13:08:05 GMT -5
Conan and company try to make their way back to Zingara but must first get some fresh water. Their ship reaches the coast of Kush, where they are beset by native warriors. As everyone gets ready to kill everyone else, the natives' leader halts their attack. He has just recognized Conan, for he is Juma the black, a warrior with whom Conan once served in Turan's army! Juma was first seen in Conan the barbarian #37. After this particular story arc, he would reappear many, many years later, in the last few issues of Savage sword of Conan. "How came you to leave Turan?" "I was born in Kush... so among other things, I got tired of freezing my privates off, every turanian winter. I drifted south... helped my old birth-tribe here conquer a neighbouring tribe... and became war-chief. Then we conquered two other tribes and I became war-prince. Now I am ruler of all this coast for fifty leagues... and we are on the way to becoming a nation". Juma is a guy after Conan's heart, clearly! A big party follows, and everyone goes to bed more or less drunk (except the prim and proper princess). During the night, a thief steals the cobra crown from Conan's hut. Enraged to discover the theft when he wakes up at dawn, Conan marches off into the forest to recover his treasure. The willful princess decides to follow him, and very quickly both she and Conan are captured by slavers. Oh, the indignities of plot-imposed revoltin' developments! The pair are taken to the city of Gamburu, capital of the kingdom of the Amazons. The princess is stripped naked, much to her humiliation, and sold at auction; she is eventually bought by Gamburu's queen, Nzinga. Conan goes next, and his demonstration of strength when he roughs up the slave-master gets him noticed as well; the queen then acquires a few hundred pounds of Cimmerian flesh. We are then treated to a few pages of Conan acting as queen Nzinga's stud, and since she believes her paramour has feelings for Chabela, she delights in further humiliating the girl. (All of this is sort of embarrassing. "Conan, sex slave to the beautiful and dangerous amazon queen" would make a great 1970s porno, but is it the kind of story Howard would have written?) Conan finally has to intervene to keep the princess from being murdered, and the queen has him drugged and Chabela taken away so she can work her vengeance on them both. Meanwhile, Thoth-Amon has magically located the cobra crown and uses a spell to teleport himself to its position. To be continued! Notes: - Copies of the book of Skelos can be found in a crypt beneath the royal library of Aquilonia, in a secret temple in Vendhya, and there is an incomplete one in Kheshatta, the Stygian City of Magicians. - The idea of someone going to the oasis of Khajar to recruit Thoth-Amon was also used in John Maddox Robert's novel Conan the valorous. - Conan as sex-slave to queen Nzinga is a theme that was re-used by Michael Fleisher in the thoroughly dreadful "Leopard men of Darfar", in SSoC #97. In that story, he decides to leave Bêlit for a while to roam aimlessly in Kush, and encounters another amazon queen named Nzinga. - In King Conan #3, we meet the daughter of Nzinga who may or may not be Conan's daughter as well.She's the right age, in any case.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 29, 2014 13:15:17 GMT -5
Conan's world -and welcome to it! by Fred Blosser A review on the book Conan's world and Robert E. Howard, a scholarly monograph by Darrell Schweitzer. The article is illustrated by a Kerry Gammill picture of Conan sporting a rare hairy chest. The ballad of Bêlit, by Roy Thomas Conan the barbarian #100 has come, and with it the end of the queen of the Black coast. Here writer/editor Roy Thomas tells of how the character was adapted into comics form; how her hateful character had to be shaped into something readers could care about (since she was to be around for many years) and how her appearance had to be made compatible with the comics code. We are also showed several studies for the cover of that historical issue. (A study for Bêlit's clothes) (A first cover project, deemed too mild) (A stormier study by Marie Severin, left, finished by Ernie Chan, on the right. But since Roy wanted John Buscema on the cover as well, we finally got the following cover).
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 29, 2014 13:18:11 GMT -5
The return of Sir Richard GrenvilleScript by Roy Thomas Art by David Wenzel Adapting an poem (or an adventure written in rhymes) by Robert E. Howard. Solomon Kane is awakened by the ghost of a former comrade-in-arm, Sir Richard Grenville, who warns him about approaching men intent on killing him and hanging his head on the ju-ju tree. Grenville and Kane repel the attck, and the ghost vanishes. It's a short tale, but Wenzel draws a very good Solomon Kane; plus there's the added bonus of learning a little more about Kane's past.
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Post by badwolf on Nov 29, 2014 13:20:12 GMT -5
These are great reviews and the art reproductions alone are making me want to read them, even though I never really had much interest in the character. I see that Dark Horse has published several collections; are these recommended? I would certainly consider the first few volumes, the ones that cover issues 1-59. There are a few caveats, though: the reprint books are smaller in size than the original magazine-sized comics, and all that's reprinted are the Conan stories. Thanks for the info. I think I might give the first volume a try. They are certainly very inexpensive for the amount of content (over 500 pages.) I don't mind about the size.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 14, 2014 11:43:44 GMT -5
Savage sword of Conan #42, July 1979 Cover by Bob Larkin. Larkin produced several covers not only for magazines but also for novels, including quite a few Conan paperbacks. This was his first cover for SSoC, and he'd be at the helm for the next two issues as well! Table of contents:The devil tree of Gamburu, part III of Conan the buccaneer. A gazetteer of the Hyborian age, the ninth and final part. Kings of the night, starting the adaptation of a Kull / Bran Mak Morn team-up.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 14, 2014 11:45:14 GMT -5
The devil-tree of GamburuScript by Roy Thomas Art by John Buscema and Tony DeZuniga Part III of the adaptation of Conan the buccaneer, a pastiche written by L. Sprague deCamp and Lin Carter. The story so far: Conan and Princess Chabela are captive in the Amazon city of Gamburu, where the Cimmerian has been assigned the role of royal stud and the princess is assigned to humiliating menial tasks. Queen Nzinga of Gamburu is a very jealous and vindictive character, and suspecting that her favorite boy toy might hold feelings for the Zingaran slave, tries to have the latter murdered during a feast. Conan having managed to derail the attempt, the queen has the princess brought to a dungeon and the Cimmerian drugged. Meanwhile, the priceless cobra crown, a magical artifact of immense power, has also made its way to Gamburu. And so we begin. An unconscious Conan is thrown into a cell while the hapless Chabela is manacled to chains hanging from the dungeon's ceiling, to face a very angry queen Nzinga armed with a whip. Nzinga accuses the Zingaran of trying to steal Conan's heart from her, which Chabela pointlessly denies. The queen cruelly whips her rival, who finally feels a measure of pity for all the Kush-born slaves who were so treated in her father's court. Despite the pain, she also notices something on a corner table: a gleaming tiara, recovered from a wanderer who was captured earlier and finished his days in this torturer's cell: we readers recognize it as the cobra crown! (Damn, but aren't these coincidences practical?) The scene is interrupted by the magical arrival of none other than Thoth-Amon himself. The Stygian wizard has sensed where the crown was and transported himself in the dungeon. A quick eldritch zap is enough to render Nzinga unconscious, and the mage pays no attention to the white-skinned slave being chastised in the room, concentrated as he is on his orize. (More fool he, since she is the very princess his allies Menkara and Zarono were hunting for). Shouting in triumph, Thoth-Amon grabs the cobra crown and vanishes again. Taking advantage of Nzinga's unconsciousness, Chabela slips from her manacles (they weren't that tight to begin with, and her sweaty arms are now slippery enough to be pulled free). Demonstrating once again some of the determination she showed in earlier issues, she wanders the dungeons without having first killed her torturer (for it would be unchivalrous to slay an unconscious foe, and Zingarans are pretty big on chivalry). Chabela eventually sees Conan behind a barred cell door, and she wakes him by throwing a jar of water in his face. Without the keys, Conan twists the bars of the door and the two try to get out of the dungeons, only to be captured again by an awakened Nzinga and a troop of her amazons. Oh, well. Nice try anyway. Chabela and Conan are condemned to be cast to the Kulamtu trees, which are animated, carnivorous plants. The public execution is cause for much excitement among the amazons, until the Cimmerian breaks his bonds and deracinates one of the trees to use as a very big cudgel! His desperate fight against the angry amazons could have only one conclusion, but right then an army of black warriors erupt upon the scene: they are Juma's men, who have finally tracked Conan to this place. With Conan and Chabela safe, Juma and his men retreat to Kulalo. To be concluded!
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 14, 2014 11:47:19 GMT -5
A gazetteer of the Hyborian Age, by Lee Falconer Part IX, from Wadai (a Black nation mentionned in shadows in Zamboula) to Zug, a presumed place in the Far East that was the center of worship for the Yezmites. Nice illustration by Tom Yeates, who wasn't yet a big-name star. Kings of the nightScript by Roy Thomas Art by David Wenzel dapting the story by Rpbert E. Howard. Now this is a big deal. In this tale set in the days of the Roman occupation of the British islands, Howard teams up his pictish hero Bran Mak Morn with the king of Valusia, Kull the conqueror! It's one of my favorite Howard stories of all time (and it got me to do three Bran Mak Morn paintings, including this one): Wenzel does a brilliant job on the art. His rendition of the wild Picts and the sturdy Northmen is splendidly barbaric but authentic-looking. The moody atmosphere of the original tale is perfectly rendered. There is a desperate feel to this particular adventure. Bran Mak Morn is king of the Caledonian Picts, from a lineage that stretches back tens of thousand of years, to Kull's Valusian Age and beyond. But the Picts are old, their glory days gone, and their king knows that they are not long for this world. Even now the Roman legions are pushing north into Caledonia, threatening to take the few lands that remain to the Picts. But even in the face of oblivion, Bran will not surrender; he will stay his people's fate for as long as he can. Today, as the Romans approach, he will stand. Siding with Bran are a few allies: Cormac, a prince of Erin; chariot-driving Britons; plus a band of Northmen. The latter had been raiding the coasts of Caledonia and been defeated by Bran, who agreed to spare their lives if they would fight with him against the Romans. But now there's a problem: their king Rognar was recently slain, and the Northmen don't feel bound by the agreement anymore... unless Bran provides them with a king of their own race; not a Pict, not a Gael, and not a Briton. The Pictish shaman Gonar thinks he can come up with a solution. His magics allow him to fetch a famous king from very long ago, and in the first rays of dawn a towering figure appear: old King Kull of Valusia. Kull thinks this is but a dream, and although he recognizes Gonar (there was also a Gonar at his court during his reigh, and the two Gonars look amazingly alike) he mistakes Bran Mac Morn for his old friend Brule at first. Bran explains that he would have Kull lead the Northmen in a great battle that is to come on the morrow, and Kull readily agrees -especially since he doesn't see the harm in going at war during a dream. The Northmen, however, still grumble; Kull might be no Pict, Gael or Briton, he's still no Scandinavian. He will have to fight one of them to prove his right to lead! Kull and a big Viking named Wulfhere go at each other with axes, and Kull breaks the back of his opponent with his bear hands. The Northmen acclaim him as their new leader, and the stage is set for the final battle with the Roman legions. To be concluded! Notes: - Prince Cormac is not Cormac Mac Art, even if both men are from Connaught. He was mentionned in another Bran Mak Morn tale, Worms of the Earth. - The Gonar from Valusian times was seen a few times, particularly whenever there was a crossover between Kull and Conan; he's the guy to go to when time-travel is involved. He's usually depicted as heavily tattooed.
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Post by benday-dot on Dec 14, 2014 18:18:31 GMT -5
Astonishingly beautiful work on the painting Ben. I knnew you were talented, but that is something else. Just gorgeous. That sky.. that is a sky of war!
And keeping with nice covers. I always loved the Bob Larkin cover on this issue. It exudes an old school pulp feel, with its theme of man eating plants.
I think as well the Buscema/DeZuniga combo do some of their best work on this story.
Finally, I appreciate your story note on the distinguishing of Cormac from Cormac Mac Art. Though I've long since figured it out, there was a time when I thought the two were one and the same and was left baffled by it!
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 14, 2014 21:14:40 GMT -5
Thanks for the kind words, b-d!
Howard did like reusing the same names again and again, didn't he?
At least three Cormacs, two Conans and Crom knows how many Amalrics!
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