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Post by benday-dot on Jan 4, 2015 18:45:47 GMT -5
Moon of bloodThe art is a mixed bag: what seem to be excellent pencils by Ernie Colón are overpowered by Tony's inking. The result is serviceable (as was the art by the same duo in early issues of Arak, son of thunder), but I can't help think that Ernie's cartoony approach is ill-served by Tony's realistic style. Ernie did lovely work in the S&S field when he inked himself, or when a compatible inker worked with him; his one-shot back-up story in the Star-Lord Super Special is especially good. But here the two artists sometime seem to work at cross-purposes instead of complementing each other's work. ![](http://i.imgur.com/WUHUIkI.jpg) I actually like that art quite a bit RR. It has a nice earthy feel to it. The way the trees in the background are illustrated is especially evocative IMO. But it may just be my personal taste. I do agree that for a pastiche work, which are usually pretty annoying, this one is pretty good.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jan 4, 2015 18:52:19 GMT -5
The savage swordbooks of ConanA review by Fred Blosser
The Howard collector and The blade of Conan are paperback books that contain articles and stories from two classic Conan & REH fanzines, "THe Howard collector" and "Amra". I would be very interested in finding copies, as the reviews here are very enthusiastic! This sword for hireScript by Don Glut Art by Hal Santiago A short story of sword and sorcery with a humorous twist at the end, this Hyborian Age tale would have been right at home in one of DC's mystery books. The art by Santiago looks a lot like Nestor Redondo's, and that is certainly no fault! ![](http://i.imgur.com/teHM2G5.jpg)
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jan 4, 2015 18:57:19 GMT -5
Moon of bloodThe art is a mixed bag: what seem to be excellent pencils by Ernie Colón are overpowered by Tony's inking. The result is serviceable (as was the art by the same duo in early issues of Arak, son of thunder), but I can't help think that Ernie's cartoony approach is ill-served by Tony's realistic style. Ernie did lovely work in the S&S field when he inked himself, or when a compatible inker worked with him; his one-shot back-up story in the Star-Lord Super Special is especially good. But here the two artists sometime seem to work at cross-purposes instead of complementing each other's work. I actually like that art quite a bit RR. It has a nice earthy feel to it. The way the trees in the background are illustrated is especially evocative IMO. But it may just be my personal taste. Oh, I don't actually dislike it, b-d; I just think that DeZuniga does not play to Colón's strengths as a penciller. As a result, this looks like a DeZuniga work with figures looking oddly cartoonish. I had the same reservations with Ernie's art on John Carter: his initial issue, inked by Rudy Nebres, was drowned in the latter's distinctive style, but with people looking smaller than when Gil Kane had drawn them. Then came a few issues inked by Frank Springer, an inker I have a lot of trouble with. And somewhere in there, a Colón-inked issue that looked absolutely beautiful!
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Post by foxley on Jan 4, 2015 19:53:51 GMT -5
I just noticed how odd the helmet on Conan's head looks in the above artwork. Was Conan supposed to be wearing a helmet that was too small for him?
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Post by berkley on Jan 5, 2015 3:18:50 GMT -5
I don't think Our Pal Sal was suited as an inker for Barry Smith either. He lacked, I don't want say 'elegance', but he lacked maybe the delicate,subtle, touch required to depict REH's vision adequately. Sal might be the most underrated superhero illustrator of all-time but he wasn't suited for Hyboria. I agree Paulie, as do I with RR's preference of Adkins on Smith's pencils. On the other hand there was a quantum leap in stylistic development in Barry Smith's own pencils from Conan the Barbarian #1 through to #24. I think Smith himself was still somewhat immersed in his Marvel house style (aka Kirby style, a style I am actually rather fond of in its own way) mode in those early CtB issues. Partly Sal might have been holding Smith's incipient look back, but partly Smith himself was a work in progress. I'm always pleasantly surprised at how well Sal's inks worked with BWS in those early Conan issues, and I agree that it was mostly (Windsor-)Smith's own development that makes the later issues even more impressive. Dan Adkins was probably even better, though. Of all the great inkers, I think he might be the one who was best at bringing out the very different styles of a wide range of pencillers - e.g. Gulacy, BWS - without imposing his style on them.
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Post by paulie on Jan 7, 2015 15:37:54 GMT -5
I have actually read SSOC 40-42 over the last couple of nights. I'm trying to catch up.
I'll have to say my dislike of Tony Dezuniga is almost irrational at this point. It is really starting bother me.
Why didn't Roy make it stop?
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jan 7, 2015 21:45:00 GMT -5
I have actually read SSOC 40-42 over the last couple of nights. I'm trying to catch up. I'll have to say my dislike of Tony Dezuniga is almost irrational at this point. It is really starting bother me. Why didn't Roy make it stop? Roy even brought him over to Arak when he left Conan!!! ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/wink.png)
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jan 11, 2015 12:29:28 GMT -5
Savage sword of Conan #47, Dec. 1979![](http://i.imgur.com/C5DRJCh.jpg) This issue and the next present a two-part story, the last really great one from the first Roy Thomas run in Savage Sword of Conan. They’re in my top ten of the best SSoC issues ever. I remember distinctly the day I bought issue 47 from a certain news outlet (now gone wherever news outlet go when they die): it was a cold and sunny Autumn day where we had also gone to see an air pageant... And with SSoC#47, I had also found this little gem: ![](http://i.imgur.com/SpkK5M2.jpg) The Earl Norem cover to SSoC #47 is heavily inspired by Frazetta, but what it lacks in originality it compensates for in raw impact. Now that’s a Conan cover. Table of contents The treasure of Tranicos, a Conan adventure The secret of the black stranger, an article on how this story came to be.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jan 11, 2015 12:34:44 GMT -5
The treasure of TranicosScript by Roy Thomas Art by Gil Kane, John Buscema, Joe Rubinstein and Rick Bryant (not credited here, but mentioned in the letters page of SSoC 51). Adapting the Conan story written by Robert E. Howard and altered by L. Sprague de Camp. Right on page 1 we see that this will surely be a special story; we hadn't seen Kane on Conan for a good long while, and readers remembered fondly the amazing Conan the barbarian #17-18 and Giant-sized Conan #1-4. Kane would only pencil the first 30 pages or so of this issue, however, the rest being drawn by the ever-reliable John Buscema. ![](http://i.imgur.com/Ijk4RW7.jpg) The switch from Tony DeZuniga (who had inked many of the previous issues) to Joe Rubinstein makes for a welcome change in artistic sensibility; one of the cool aspects of SSoC had always been its variety. And while I prefer Tom Sutton or Dan Adkins (or Ralph Reese!) on Kane, Joe does a good job here with brush and zip tone. We'll say more about how the script evolved over time a little below. The treasure of Tranicos is a very good story. It's partly Fenimore Cooper, partly Robert Louis Stevenson, and even so it remains pure Howard. It has pirates, woodland Picts, an ancient curse, a treasure, a wizard, scheming and double-crossing, a damsel and a child in distress, and grand fighting scenes. Plus Conan gets to exercise his smarts as well as his brawn, manipulating events even as he cleaves skulls. As we open our tale, Conan finds himself deep into the Pictish wilderness, pursued by Picts. We learn later on that after his military success against the Picts (as described in issue #46, "moon of blood"), he was made a general in the Aquilonian army and was invited to the country's capital, to be honoured by the king himself. But king Numedides is a jealous and fearful fellow, and he decided to have Conan charged with treason and slated for execution, fearing that the popular frontier hero might one day make a move for his throne. Conan had escaped his jail thanks to supporters he had in the capital and had made his way west, toward the Pictish border, where he still counted many friends. Captured by Picts instead, he had been traded by one tribe to another and brought ever deeper in Pictish country; when he had managed to finally escape, he had decided to go further west in the hope of reaching the ocean. Such a feat, crossing the entire Pictish wilderness, had never been done by anyone who wasn't a Pict. (Let me point out how Dark Horse's Conan the barbarian recent series had Conan and Bêlit cross the same Pictish Wilderness unmolested and in fact not even worried, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Ugh). Conan arrives at a crag that seems to be taboo to his pursuers, for they suddenly stop cold in their tracks and even start walking back to their village as if their prey's fate was no longer in their hands. Intrigued, the Cimmerian explores this island of rock jutting out of the forest, and discovers a large cave which has clearly been modified by masonry. A large oaken door reveals a room in which silent men are sitting around a table. Since they won't answer his challenge, Conan walks into the room and suddenly finds himself choking! The room is guarded by a supernatural creature that starts to take solid form until Conan manages to break from of its grasp and jump out of the room, leaving behind him what are obviously treasure-filled chests. The men around the table are all dead, their bodies kept mysteriously intact. Conan prudently withdraws. We jump to a different spot, many miles to the west, where the forest stops to make way to the ocean. A fortress stands there, bizarrely enough; we will learn that it is the retreat of a Zingaran nobleman called Valenso, who had it built in this remote and hostile place to escape some unknown threat. We are also introduced to Valenso's niece Belesa and her young companion Tina, whom she looks after as if she were her stepdaughter. A sail on the horizon prompts the fortress to sound the alarm. The visitor turns out to be a Barachan corsair named Strombanni, who has been brought to this spot by a map, one leading to the legendary treasure of Tranicos. ![](http://i.imgur.com/bgNLf72.jpg) Strombanni, finding a fortress on this isolated spot, is convinced Valenso has come to find the same treasure and must have been stranded when he ship sank; he agrees to depart peacefully if Valenso will give him one half of the loot. Valenso claims to know nothing of any treasure and to have been brought to this spot by his ship's erstwhile pilot, who insisted he knew the right place to build a secluded retreat. Strombanni orders the fortress attacked, but the engagement is interrupted by the arrival of a second pirate ship! That ship is helmed by someone we are familiar with: the Zingaran buccaneer Black Zarono, who we first met in SSoC 40-43. Zarono is apparently after the same treasure that Strombanni is looking for! Seeing as both Zarono and Valenso are Zingarans, they agree to meet on more civilized terms and discuss issues over wine. Valenso does warn Zarono not to let his sailors wander off into the woods, for they are swarming with Picts whose tolerance of the foreigners on their soil is extremely thin. ![](http://i.imgur.com/G6iGNl3.jpg)
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jan 11, 2015 13:06:44 GMT -5
Over dinner, we learn more about the situation. Valenso was indeed led to this spot by a sailor whom we now suspect had seen the map to the treasure of Tranicos, without telling the nobleman. The sailor had ventured into the woods shortly after the ship had made landfall, and his head had been sent back by the Picts. The ship had sunk in a storm shortly therafter and Valenso is now stranded with his retinue, although they managed to build a fortress to defend themselves from the Picts. Zarono, in turn, tells of the treasure of Tranicos: how this most infamous of all Barachan corsairs had stormed the island of the exiled Stygian prince Tothmekri and then sailed north to hide his new-found treasure somewhere on the Pictish coast, where he would vanish. Only one fellow had made it back to the civilized world, and he had drawn a map of the landing site. Zarono had managed to get a glimpse of the map, as had Valenso's future pilot, but it was Strombanni who now owed it. Zarono proposes to unite their forces against the Barachan, and to ferry Valenso back to the Hyborian lands, if he agrees to share the treasure and to give him the hand of his niece Belesa. Valenso would refuse, until little Tina mentions what she has just seen on the beach: a tall dark man coming ashore on a small black boat with blue fire playing about it. At these words Valenso flies into a rage, beats the child and agrees to do whatever Zarono wants in order to escape from this place. Later that night, Belesa and Tina witness the dark stranger walking down the fortress' corridors; we recognize him as the Stygian wizard Thoth-Amon. ![](http://i.imgur.com/fWdSFXk.jpg) A great storm rages throughout the night, severing Zarono's ship's moorings and sending it crashing against jagged rocks. Now both Zingaran leaders are lacking a ship! Strombanni returns eventually, asking for parley. He, Valenso and Zarono have a meeting of rogues, trying to resolve their issues. Strombanni explains that his first mate came ashore a little while before, with the map, to determine the general direction of the treasure's location. He was apparently killed by a civilized man, for his corpse was found a bit later among tracks of booted feet -so the Picts didn't do it. And the map has been taken, so he assumes Zarono or Valenso (or both) are the killers, and now have the map. He, in turn, has the only sea-worthy ship around. So he suggests that they all join forces and share the treasure. As negotiations evolve into an argument and swords are drawn (for neither Zarono nor Valenso has the map), a fourth rogue shows up in an impromptu fashion: it is Conan, who matter-of-factly takes control of the situation. ![](http://i.imgur.com/65xsg7K.jpg) After leaving his crag (which he omits to mention is haunted!), he made his way to the beach, where he met and killed Strombanni's man. He found the map on the corpse, but actually doesn't need it since he knows where Tranicos' treasure is, having found the cavern by chance. In fact, to show how valuable he is to this association of pirates, he throws the map into the fire! Strombanni runs to save it but is knocked down for his trouble. The deal will then go as follows: Conan will lead a small group to the crag and recover the treasure. the loot will be split four ways. Strombanni will sail away with Zarono and Valenso and such men they can bring with them, leaving Conan in command of the fort where he intends to build his own ship. All reluctantly agree, and Conan adds that it was a foolish thing for Valenso's men to kill and decapitate a few local Picts the night before. Valenso protests and claims none of his men did so, but the Cimmerian shows what he found on the severed heads: a medallion bearing Valenso's family seal. This causes Valenso to choke, for that medallion hung around his very neck only the night before! As everyone retires, one of Valenso's men, Galbro, takes a look at the charred map in the fireplace. To be continued next issue! Notes: - Conan is reaching 40. - Strombanni and Zarono will be seen again during Roy's second tenure on SSoC, when several issues in a row will focus on the Cimmerian's career among the Barachan corsairs, which chronologically speaking occurred something like four years prior to this story. - Tranicos's reputation as a legendary pirate had been mentioned before, for example in CtB #65. - Conan himself has gained a formidable reputation as a pirate, since even the child Tina knows his name.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jan 11, 2015 13:37:03 GMT -5
Secrets of the black strangerarticle by Fred Blosser In this text piece illustrated by Thomas Yeates and John Buscema, we learn of the convoluted publishing history of today's Conan story. The black stranger was a Conan story written by Howard in early 1935 (according to Patrice Louinet's Hyborian genesis in Del Rey's The conquering sword of Conan ), but one that was rejected by Weird Tales' editor Farnsworth Wright. Howard then turned the story into a straight pirate yarn, Swords of the red brotherhood, in which he morphed the Cimmerian into the Irish pirate Terence Vulmea. That, too, failed to sell at the time although the story was later included in books, including this one: ![](http://i.imgur.com/1FZUcmG.jpg) Amusingly enough, Howard wrote a second Terence Vulmea adventure, which in turn was adapted into a Conan story in Marvel Super Special #2. In the 1950s, L. Sprague de Camp modified The Black Stranger to make it fit into his vision of Conan's career, retitling it "The treasure of Tranicos". He placed it later than Howard had envisioned and changed its ending, on top of turning an unknown wizard into Thoth-Amon (which he meant to build as Conan's nemesis). That The Black Stranger follows immediately after Beyond the Black River is parcimonious, and it does make sense for Conan to simply build on his success on the Aquilonian border to make an attempt to usurp the Aquilonian throne. However, that's not how Howard had planned it. The unfinished story "Wolves beyond the border" makes it clear that Conan was a hero of the Aquilonian frontier many, many years before he finally took the crown (enough years for a boy to grow into a man). Furthermore, at the end of The Black Stranger, Conan returns to a life of piracy; at the end of The Treasure of Tranicos, de Camp has him join a rebellion against the king of Aquilonia. The treasure of Tranicos, the rewritten tale, would first see print in Fantasy Magazine, in February 1953. It is the version seen in the paperback book Conan the usurper. The restored original story, The Black Stranger, is the one included in the Del Rey series.
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Post by benday-dot on Jan 11, 2015 16:58:51 GMT -5
We are nearing the end of the "golden age" of Savage Sword's run. You are right RR this story is a corker. It combines two of my favourite elements of REH Conan lore: Pirates 'n Picts! The Kane art is great, and you've done the review justice. There are still many great stories to come over the course of the title's long run, but when you wrap up this discussion of The Treasure of Tranicos" next issue it will be a bit bittersweet.
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Post by berkley on Jan 12, 2015 0:36:26 GMT -5
Savage sword of Conan #47, Dec. 1979![](http://i.imgur.com/C5DRJCh.jpg) This issue and the next present a two-part story, the last really great one from the first Roy Thomas run in Savage Sword of Conan. They’re in my top ten of the best SSoC issues ever. I remember distinctly the day I bought issue 47 from a certain news outlet (now gone wherever news outlet go when they die): it was a cold and sunny Autumn day where we had also gone to see an air pageant... And with SSoC#47, I had also found this little gem: ![](http://i.imgur.com/SpkK5M2.jpg) The Earl Norem cover to SSoC #47 is heavily inspired by Frazetta, but what it lacks in originality it compensates for in raw impact. Now that’s a Conan cover. One of Norem's better Conan covers, though for me it suffers from a lack of contrast in the colours and shading - too many variations of beige and brown! On the plus side, even though the girl here is in the standard clinging/cringing pose so often seen in this sub-genre, she's a good example of how Norem was able to give his damsels-in-distress a little more individuality than some other cover artists. I can almost imagine a personality for her just based on the image, which is something you couldn't really say about a lot of the other women on the covers of SSoC and similar mags. Those Stan Lee Presents paperbacks were how I ended up first reading many of the earliest issues of Conan the Barbarian that I'd missed when they were first out. Tiny reproductions, of course, shrinking the comic book page down to pocketbook size, but even so the stories and Barry Windsor-Smith's art still carried a huge impact and I cherished them in spite of the less than perfect format.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jan 12, 2015 18:28:23 GMT -5
Savage Sword of Conan #48, January 1980Cover by Nestor Redondo Table of contentsA wind blows from Stygia, the conclusion of the Conan adventure begun last issue The barbarian in Babylon, an article about the upcoming Conan movie
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jan 12, 2015 19:31:30 GMT -5
A wind blows from StygiaScript by Roy Thomas Art by John Buscema and Klaus Janson Second part of the adaptation of the Conan tale The Treasure of Tranicos, written by Robert E. Howard and modified by L. Sprague de Camp I am most of the time a HUGE fan of Klaus Janson, especially as an inker. His early Defenders work had something immediately recognizable and his work on Daredevil, over the likes of Bob Brown, Gil Kane or Frank Miller, was a thing of beauty. Janson manages to do things with ink that few others can; at times he seems to be painting in black and white, playing with light and textures with an impressive brio. And here he does not disappoint! Some pages and some individual images are almost like artistic experiments, looking like nothing else I had ever seen in comics at the time (and very few times since, come to think of it). When we left our cast last issue, an uneasy alliance of pirates (Strombanni the Barachan corsair, Black Zarono the Zingaran buccaneer and Conan who has been both) had been concluded to recover the fabled treasure of Tranicos, hidden on the shore the western ocean, right in the Pictish wilderness. A Zingaran nobleman, Valenso, was acting as a reluctant host to these rogues; a virtual prisoner in his small fort for lack of an escape ship, all he hoped for was an opportunity to flee this isolated spot where some sorcerous enemy from his past had apparently followed him. A witness to these events, his niece Belesa and her ward Tina sees her uncle go deeper and deeper into despair. As we open our tale, Conan leads his companions to the crag he has found earlier, where the treasure is hidden. On the way, they encounter the severed head of a Pict attached by its hair to a branch: Conan recognizes it as a head he had previously found and buried. Apparently, someone went through the trouble of putting it once more where Picts are bound to see it, very likely to stir up trouble with the Natives. Back at the fort, Valenso tells his niece of his predicament. When he was a young man, he had hired the services of a Stygian wizard named Thoth-Amon to get rid of a political rival. Valenso did not intend to pay the price "a mortal must pay who calls the dark folk to do his bidding", however; and so when Thoth-Amon took residence in Zingara, Valenso had betrayed him to the king of the land, Ferdrugo, who had forbidden the cult of Set. The wizard had had to leave Zingara and go back to Stygia. Then, one night, Valenso had a vision: the face of Thoth-Amon, leering at him from the shadows of his own castle hall. Valenso had hoped to lose his hunter by fleeing on the ocean, but now the wizard had found him. And Belesa causes her uncle to freak out when she reveals that Thoth-Amon was in this very fort the night before! Conan leads Zarono, Strombanni and a few of their men to the cave, where he tries to get them to enter the room guarded by the demon he met earlier. The plan fails when Zarono finds the corpse of Galbro lying on the floor, and understands that death waits in the room! Galbro, as you'll recall, was a man in the employ of Valenso, and the one who took a look at the burned treasure map at the end of last issue. Conan manages to escape the pirates and climbs the crag to where no civilized man will be able to follow him. To Zarono's shouted accusations of having tried to kill them, he replies non-apologetically; after all, the two pirates were doubtless also planning to cut his throat at the first opportunity. The Cimmerian had intended for the cavern's guardian to kill the two captains, so as to take command of their crews; the plan would have worked, too, if Galbro hadn't tried to reach the treasure on his own. He explains the origin of the guardian in a tale that Picts tell around the campfires, a tale about twelve strange men who came out of the sea to fall upon a pictish village, and who then filled a nearby cavern with gold. But a witch-man of the Picts had escaped and evoked a demon to strangle the twelve men at their cups, confining the creature to the cavern afterwards so it would not trouble the Natives. As the pirates all trade insults and threats, a party of Picts gets within reach and starts shooting arrows. Conan explains that he could escape on his own when night falls, but that since Cimmerians hate Picts he will help the pirates flee from the crag. The treasure will of course have to be abandoned, as it is still guarded by the demon. Conan will create a diversion, attacking the warriors on his own, while the Zingarans and Barachans will run in the other direction, toward the beach. At the fort, that evening, Pictish war cries are heard and the pirates burst from the forest, a howling wave of warriors on their heels. They make for Valenso's stockade, which is immediately besieged by a horde of Picts. (This here is one of my favorite representation of Conan's face. Janson does wonders on John's pencils.) ![](http://i.imgur.com/q0TNw7V.jpg)
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