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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jan 31, 2015 15:50:39 GMT -5
The savage sword of Conan #60, January 1981And so we reach the end on an era with the last SSoC edited by Roy Thomas, and the last one he'd write (barring a few inventory stories left in Marvel's drawers) for a decade. I did not realize at the time how much I'd suffer, as a fan, from Roy leaving the House of Ideas. In fact, full disclosure time, here, I felt that Roy might have been a little tired of Conan in the few months that had preceded this issue; certainly, from the adaptation of Conan the liberator in SSoC and after the death of Bêlit in CtB, there had been more average issues than home runs. I can't say anything about the enthusiasm he might have felt about continuing with this character... but I can vouch that nobody ever edited or wrote these mags better than Roy did. And we would never, ever have seen, under his watch, the absolute dreck that was sometimes published with the name "Conan" on its cover in the following years. Those would be what I call "the bad old years". The cover to this issue is by Earl Norem, taken straight from the main story: I don't know the exact story about this cover, but there must be something interesting here... In an issue of Alter Ego, Roy shared this image of a colour study done by artist Nestor Redondo for this issue's cover, a study the original of which he gave to the departing editor. (here's a color version from Alter Ego #83, online version) Table of contentsThe ivory goddess, a Conan adventure Conan of the storyboards, a pretty cool artistic feature by Neal Adams
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jan 31, 2015 15:51:04 GMT -5
The ivory goddessScript by Roy Thomas Art by John Buscema and Danny Bulanadi Adapting a short story by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter Don't let this nice splash page fool you: John Buscema did not ink his own pencils for the whole issue; he was joined right on page 2 by inker Danny Bulanadi. I have made no secret over the years for my less-than-enthusiastic opinion of Bulanadi's inking in the 1980s. His vaguely Rudy Nebres-esque approach was all right in some contexts but ill suited to many others (I especially cringed when seeing Gil Kane's angular and clean style covered by all that feathering in Micronauts or Conan the barbarian). Here, I must admit he does a good job over Buscema's layouts. The Ivory goddess is another of those de Camp/Carter pastiches where the strategy seems to be, if I'm brutally honest, "let's tell a Conan story Howard has already told, but in a less-interesting way". It is a sequel of sorts to the teeth of Gwahlur, adapted in SSoC#25. In that story, Conan and the Stygian Thutmekri competed to pass a Hyborian woman as a white-skinned goddess to abuse the crowned head of Kheshan; here, they try to do the same... in the country of Punt. As before, there is the matter of gaining access to an old sacred place where the white-skinned oracle is supposed to be found; this time around, instead of a race of ape-like things still serving the memory of a deceased wizard, we have an old crone and her monstorus son (born of her union with a demon) serving as a secondary threat. There is once more the delivery of fake oracular advice to a visiting politician (the king of Punt, no less), and the Stygian Thutmekri trying to get the king to get rid of Conan. The main difference with the original story is that the Hyborian actress, Muriela, actually gets possessed by the very real oracle and that Conan finally kills Thutmekri. The ending is an embarrassment: Conan just abandons Muriela to her fate as a goddess's garment, and he even bitches and moans about not having any money. Blech! Sprague de Camp was no Robert Howard. Notes: - Conan is roughly 38 at this time. - Before meeting his inglorious end here, Thutmekri had been a scheming trader/smuggler/slaver/con artist in CtB#28 and CtB#108, and he had tried to bamboozle the king of Kheshan in SSoC#25. It is all to Roy's credit that he had introduced the scoundrel so many years before adapting " the teeth of Gwahlur", not forgetting that Thutmekri had been, at the time, someone the Cimmerian had met previously. Such foresight would be sorely missed in the years that followed SSoC#60. - The origin of this sequel is a line spoken by Conan at the end of "the teeth of Gwahlur", as he tells Muriela that Punt has a white-skinned goddess too and that they could try the same stunt over there.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jan 31, 2015 15:51:56 GMT -5
Conan of the storyboardsBy Neal Adams, with commentary by Mike W. Barr. Storyboards are a series of images created by an artist to help the process of staging the scenes of a movie. Here, having heard about the upcoming Conan movie, Neal Adams decided to create a series of storyboards describing what could be a pre-title introductory scene in a Conan film. It's a lot of work to do without any promise of pecuniary compensation, and I'm glad these pictures found a home in SSoC! The scene was not used by Hollywood, but IMO it would have been closer to the spirt of Conan than what John Millius did with his "Conan the unhappy slave boy". The sequence shows four assassins stalking a group of soldiers who have settled down for the night, leaving a few sentries. One of these is dispatched by surprise. Another sentry is killed silently, and the four men attack the sleeping soldiers. Each of the four is visually distinct and has a specific fighting style. Things seem to go their way until a final opponent rises, someone we only see from the back. The newcomer grabs one of the attackers by the face and crushes his skull against a rock wall. He chops off the heads of another attacker's axes, and eviscerates him with his own axe. He throws a knife deep into the forehead of a third. And then he pummels the final one with his bare fists. As the man collapses, his helmet rolls on the ground and is picked up by the victor. The camera follows the helmet as the man puts it on his own head, and we see that it is Conan, smiling grimly. Each Conan work done by Neal Adams was cause for celebration, and this exercise is no exception! The letters column, Swords and scrolls, doesn't have a goodbye note by Roy. All it has is a reference to "a new editor". Egad! The end of an era came unheralded.
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Post by paulie on Jan 31, 2015 16:16:44 GMT -5
As I've been catching up with you the past few weeks I sadly agree.
With the exception of Conan the King the Marvel Conan books veer towards awful around this time.
SSOC 66-68 were a welcome respite from the poor stories that followed 60.
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Post by berkley on Jan 31, 2015 16:27:25 GMT -5
I think I like the composition of Redondo cover better than that of Norem's. A little simpler and less cluttered, and the Ivory Goddess is appropriately more impressive.
The self-inked splash page shows how good John Buscema could be when he did his own inks. Unfortunately, I think that on the few occasions he was able to complete a full story, he was so rushed that his inks didn't always look quite as finished as they did here and in a few individual illustrations I've seen. look that J
I like the way Neal Adams drew Conan's face. He looks tough and hard-bitten, but instead of the glowering expression John Buscema gave him, he has this sort of confident, ready-for-anything look that I think fits the character and also makes for a nice change. This is a Conan who looks like someone capable not only of giant melancholy but of giant mirth, just as REH described him.
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Post by benday-dot on Jan 31, 2015 21:46:17 GMT -5
I like the way Neal Adams drew Conan's face. He looks tough and hard-bitten, but instead of the glowering expression John Buscema gave him, he has this sort of confident, ready-for-anything look that I think fits the character and also makes for a nice change. This is a Conan who looks like someone capable not only of giant melancholy but of giant mirth, just as REH described him. I completely agree berk. You nailed it. And so you also expressed (gasp) one of the slight "issues" I have always had with Big John's Conan. Don't get me wrong I still think JB was a master interpreter of Conan and REH fans are infinitely more richer for it, but I feel that Neal Adams' take seems slightly more of a kind with my most favourite Conan interpreter... Barry Winsdor-Smith. BWS always excelled at a diversity of facial expressions for Conan... whether it was portraying that famous mirth, or astonishment or bravado or, you know it, savagery. Adams, in the few forays into Conan's world he's given us, has shown a similar adeptness.
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Post by berkley on Jan 31, 2015 22:53:10 GMT -5
I like the way Neal Adams drew Conan's face. He looks tough and hard-bitten, but instead of the glowering expression John Buscema gave him, he has this sort of confident, ready-for-anything look that I think fits the character and also makes for a nice change. This is a Conan who looks like someone capable not only of giant melancholy but of giant mirth, just as REH described him. I completely agree berk. You nailed it. And so you also expressed (gasp) one of the slight "issues" I have always had with Big John's Conan. Don't get me wrong I still think JB was a master interpreter of Conan and REH fans are infinitely more richer for it, but I feel that Neal Adams' take seems slightly more of a kind with my most favourite Conan interpreter... Barry Winsdor-Smith. BWS always excelled at a diversity of facial expressions for Conan... whether it was portraying that famous mirth, or astonishment or bravado or, you know it, savagery. Adams, in the few forays into Conan's world he's given us, has shown a similar adeptness. I sometimes wonder if BWS would have changed his Conan if he'd stayed on the series as the character grew older. I think he would have. His Conan is the young thief just out of Cimmeria, still learning the ways of these strange "civilised" countries. I would like to have seen his version of the later, more mature Conan as well. I just remembered that that line describing Conan came from an intro that used to be printed at the top of the title page of each issue of Conan the Barbarian, so maybe it's from Roy Thomas rather than REH? Also, I misquoted it - should have been "gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth."
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Feb 1, 2015 7:06:18 GMT -5
It's from the opening of the phoenix on the sword, berk, so it's vintage REH!
I agree with you and benday-dot's appreciation of Adams' vision of Conan. For all my love of BWS's version, Adams strikes me as closer to REH's description, if only because of the Cimmerian's "square cut mane". (Sal Buscema also used to draw Conan's hair as square cut, but made him look a bit like a dork in the process...)
Adams's Conan indeed exsudes confidence, as berk noted, and he looks suitably big without looking too heavy, more pantherish than bear-like. (BWS's Conan always looked a bit too... I don't know, elegant? Like an underwear model?)
One iconic version I don't care for is Frazetta's low-browed, brutish one from the Conan the adventurer paperback. I acknowledge its historical and artistic importance, but that's not how I see Conan. (It's actually closer to how I see Brule the spear slayer!)
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Feb 1, 2015 10:35:43 GMT -5
Savage Sword of Conan #61, February 1981Cover by Joe Chiodo, who illustrates a scene from this issue's tale. Table of contents:The wizard fiend of Zingara, an original Conan adventure Barbarians by Day, a portfolio by Gene Day (with an extra picture by another artist). This is the first issue following the departure of Roy Thomas as writer/editor, and a special note in the letters section points it out. However, saying that Roy "has recently left Marvel to write comics for another firm and to further pursue his career in movies and television", while not factually incorrect, definitely paints an inaccurate picture of the circumstances surrounding his leaving Marvel. Louise Jones becomes the new SSoC with this issue. -------------------------------------------- The wizard fiend of ZingaraScript by Michael Fleisher Art by John Buscema This tale is pretty typical of the many Conan adventures Michael Fleisher would write for SSoC. Its tone is that of a light adventure, with some humour, some drama, and not a whole lot of consequences. There are references to places and persons previously established in the canon, some appropriate and some not. A few historical references show that Fleisher is a man of culture, which is always welcome. The first pages still make me cringe a little inside, as I remember they did back in 81. First we see Zingaran fishermen swearing "by Ishtar's eyes". A Zingaran would not swear by Ishtar, whose cult is an eastern one; Hyborian countries all the way to Koth worship Mitra. Yes, Conan himself does swear by Ishtar from time to time, but that's because he's travelled so much and is an equal opportunity offender. Then we are told that this story is set shortly after Conan returned from the Black Kingdoms following the death of Bêlit (which is pretty much where the Conan the barbarian colour comic was at the time) and is serving as a mercenary for King Phehemenes of Zingara. Oy. To begin with, when Conan came back from the South, we know he served for a time as a mercenary in Shem (SSoC#36); he later served under general Malthom in Khoraja (SSoC#2). It is not impossible for him to have served in Zingara in between those two jobs, but it's quite a long detour, geographically speaking; Zingara is very, very far to the west of either Shem or Khoraja. Furthermore, who the heck is King Phehemenes? (I believe that was the title of a column once written by Roy). We previously met a King Ferdrugo of Zingara (SSoC#40-43, #48); he was an elderly gent and was in charge ten years after the events depicted here. Adding to our puzzlement, there would be another Zingaran king, neither Phehemenes nor Ferdrugo, in SSoC#73, in a story also set roughly a decade in the future. Now it's possible that Ferdrugo came to his throne late, after his two predecessors died, but he had appeared as a guy who had been on the throne for a good long while, and his 20-something daughter, princess Chabela, also seemed to have been a princess all her life. Oh, well. This would not be the only continuity puzzle of the Roy Thomas interregnum years. Despite this false start, the issue as a whole has a very strong selling point: full art by John Buscema. It is a rare treat to see John ink his own work, and it looks very good indeed, very Hal Foster-like. The plot goes like this: after a civil war that Conan helped stop, the country of Zingara faces famine. Hearing of a certain wizard (Tamar-Shar-Khun) who is said to be able to make cattle attain a huge size, the king sends his trusted sword-for-hire Conan to steal his secret. This provides a reason for Conan and the wizard to clash, but does it make sense? Why not send negotiators to ask the wizard what he'd accept as payment for providing his services? Even Thoth-Amon worked freelance from time to time, as we learned in SSoC#49. Even if that approach fails (and we learn that the wizard is a crotchety one), why send a lone thief? Zingara is one of the most powerful nations in the west, and is famed for its chivalry. If negotiations fail, send in ten thousand knights! That's what a powerful king does. Anyway. The counterproductive idea might have come from the queen, who's a young schemer intending to see her royal husband die soon so she and her paramour, captain Bar-Helm, can usurp the throne. The two see Conan as too powerful a defender for the king and want to be rid of him, hence the suicide mission. Conan travels to the wizard's castle and is distracted by the sight of a dragon attacking two helpless girls; he kills the dragon but is almost slain in turn when the grateful ladies (who insist on rewarding him in a very carnal way) turn out to be hideous monsters in disguise. They are acting on behalf of the wizard, who sensed the Cimmerian's coming. Again, plot-wise, does this make sense? Why bother with this subterfuge? I'm sure Conan would have welcomed the attention of the girls without the dragon. And if it's so easy to sic a dragon at people just as a distraction, why not send two or three and get the job done all at once? Anyway, Conan kills the two monsters as well. (I must also voice my displeasure at the casual use of dragons in many non-Thomas Conan stories. When he and Valeria met one in Red nails, it was a big deal. The Hyborian Age is a fairly realistic one, and things like dragons should be rare, not be treated like just another problem you meet on the way to the office). Conan then reaches the wizard's castle, built high atop a cliff overlooking the sea. The place is of course filled with the usual death traps, and the wizard turns out to be a rather misanthropic individual who couldn't care less about starving people and just wants to be left alone. He manages to get Conan stuck in a vast room that starts filling with sea water, and when the water level reaches the ceiling a wall panel opens to let in a giant moray eel (the one from the cover). I assume that there was a big fish tank somewhere in one of the top towers of the castle. Conan and the fish clash underwater, and the animal's tail hits a wall brutally... causing it to crack! (Now that's one strong eel or a pretty weak wall). The crack widens, and the water cascades down the corridors of the castle, drowning the wizard and even causing the entire building to collapse into the sea. (Jeez, the engineer should have told the wizard that all his death traps were weakening the foundations). Conan survives the tidal wave of destruction and makes his way back to Kordava, where he learns that his current girlfriend has been taken by the queen's men and tortured nearly unto death; the lass had learned of a plot to poison the king. She expires in Conan's arms after he kills her torturer. Angrily storming the royal apartments, the Cimmerian challenges the treacherous queen whose lover Bar-Helm tries to silence him, only to have his neck cut. The king then shows up, and reveals he has always known about his wife's plotting; he still won't punish her because life without her would be bland and ordinary. Conan leaves, muttering about the foolishness of the highborn. All in all, the story is pleasant enough; it just feels a little light. Especially considering that we're dealing with the throne of Zingara! The same story could have been told using characters from some minor city, and probably gained in credibility. Notes: - Conan would be about 27. - I liked a reference to the Alimane river, which in indeed located north of the country. Also, a character is the son of "an oud maker from Khorshemish", which is a nice note; the oud is an ancient string instrument, and one which was the subject of a funny Kaamelott short. - Not quite enough Spanish-sounding names to make this place sound like Zingara, but there are a few like Zerbo and Stabrono (who turns out to be from Koth). Big John also makes Kordava look like it's on a plain and not on the seaside.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Feb 1, 2015 10:40:13 GMT -5
Barbarians by DayA portfolio by artist Gene Day, who is best known for his stellar work on Master of Kung Fu. Here he offers pin-ups of Kull, Thulsa Doom, Thak and Murilo (from Rogues in the house), Solomon Kane, El Borak, and Dennis Dorgan! (Dorgan is basically the same character as Steve Costigan; his name was changed because his adventures were offered to a different boxing stories magazine). Fan artist Paul Schliesser also provides this stunning portrait of Dark Agnes de Chastillon, the star of the paperback book Sword Woman.
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Post by benday-dot on Feb 1, 2015 20:50:41 GMT -5
It's from the opening of the phoenix on the sword, berk, so it's vintage REH! I agree with you and benday-dot's appreciation of Adams' vision of Conan. For all my love of BWS's version, Adams strikes me as closer to REH's description, if only because of the Cimmerian's "square cut mane". (Sal Buscema also used to draw Conan's hair as square cut, but made him look a bit like a dork in the process...) Adams's Conan indeed exsudes confidence, as berk noted, and he looks suitably big without looking too heavy, more pantherish than bear-like. (BWS's Conan always looked a bit too... I don't know, elegant? Like an underwear model?) One iconic version I don't care for is Frazetta's low-browed, brutish one from the Conan the adventurer paperback. I acknowledge its historical and artistic importance, but that's not how I see Conan. (It's actually closer to how I see Brule the spear slayer!) Well, the loin cloth clad Conan, could certainly fit the sartorial requirements :-) I've always been pretty forgiving of the liberties BWS took with Conan's coif. The danger of the square cut, as you point out with Sal, is that it could render our favourite barbarian with something akin to that unfortunate style sported by Prince Valiant. I love Foster's Valiant, but the page cut is a little hard to take at times. BWS's Conan sported a suitably wild, unkempt mane that may have passed for stylish at times, but I thought it worked, for our youthful Cimmerian sowing his oats. Still, no doubt about it Neal Adam's nails the look described by Howard in his stories.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Feb 7, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -5
Savage sword of Conan #62, March 1981A really eye-catching cover by David Mattingly. One thing I must give the post-Thomas issues of SSoC: they were very varied when it comes to the cover artists. Table of contents:Temple of the tiger, a Conan adventure The one black stain, a Solomon Kane tale
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Feb 7, 2015 10:40:19 GMT -5
Temple of the tigerScript by Michael Fleisher Art by John Buscema and Ernie Chan The second SSoC written by Fleisher offers a honest S&S adventure, in the vein of a 1980's action-comedy movie. It honors the traditions of the genre, with a lost civilization, a prophecy, swordplay, sexual innuendo and a cataclysmic ending leaving the hero pretty much where he was at the beginning. The art by Buscema and Chan is quite all right, with Ernie complementing his busy brush strokes with grey ink washes. One must respect the work ethics of these gentlemen: they really did produce a lot of comic-book pages in those days, and they were always enjoyable. Re-reading this issue, I confess that I probably judge it (and the ones that would follow) a bit too harshly. It is quite a decent Conan adventure, and if you enjoy a bit of humour mixed with your adventure, this is a book for you. My reservations come from the fact this Conan really sounds more like a Hollywood action hero than a real-life character: he throws himself in hugely unequal fights making wisecracks, as if he were Spider-man, and he talks entirely too much (and too eloquently). The plot involves many points that are hard to explain once you think about them, and naturally... references to the rest of the Conan canon contain numerous mistakes. None of that would preclude a new reader to enjoy this tale for what it is, but as a Conan story it can be annoying if the reader is familiar with the character. The story is set three months after Iron shadows in the moon, adapted in SSoC#4 and Conan is now captain of a pirate ship on the sea of Vilayet. Relations seem to be tense aboard ship, and after the pirates plunder a merchant ship and capture its owner's beautiful slave, the crewmen are upset that Conan prevents them from gang raping her. The grateful girl tells Conan of her erstwhile's boss's mission: thanks to a certain map, he meant to reach an uncharted island where live white-skinned Amazons he meant to enslave and sell abroad. (This bit of exposition is unnecessary and even redundant, for when we -inevitably- get to the island in question, we will be told the whole story again). The other pirates burst in Conan's cabin, their sexual frustration pushing them to mutiny, and here's an example of Conan's amusing but overly wordy remarks: "Pardon their manners, girl! A lengthy voyage like this makes swine like these rambunctious! To maintain decorum, now and again I'm forced to kill a few!" Conan is knocked down, and one is puzzled at pirates frowning upon simply stabbing their captain and instead deciding to cast him (still alive) overboard. Just then, a sudden monstrous wave is upon the ship, which is thrown upon reefs and smashed to smithereens! No, this is not the result of some sorcery... apparently, there are routinely rogue waves like that on the Vilayet; no explanation for it is given. The sailors must fight off sharks and the angry waters, and only Conan makes it to a beach. All right, continuity error time... How can Conan's ship sink here, when we know that it is still afloat (with its original crew) for SSoC #39, set at the end of the Cimmerian's career as a Vilayet pirate? The castaway is rescued by peaceful fishermen, and cared for until he recovers from his ordeal. Then the fishing village they inhabit is attacked by a horde of tiger-riding amazons who shout contradictory things like "Let only the fittest live!" and "Death to all!" Conan is felled by an arrow and chained with a few other survivors, to be marched into the faraway city of Z'Harr Hr'ann, the kind of unpronounceable name that Fleisher often used. The city is peopled solely by women, war-like Amazons all. Continuity error time, once again: we are told that " Conan is well aware, of course, of the firece, dusky-skinned black amazons who dwell in the Black Kingdoms south of Kulalo (...)" Well, no, he bloody well isn't. The Cimmerian will first hear of the Black Amazons when he first meets them, almost a decade later, in SSoC#41. This particular society of Amazons has a supernatural origin. once upon a time, the women of the land were oppressed by their male companions who worshipped some tiger-headed god. With the help of a goddess who seduced and turned the tiger god to stone, the ladies took over; since then, they keep a few males in chain and scour their island for slaves. Naturally, as is usually the case, they hold some doomsday prophecy: if an unchained male was ever to enter the temple of the tiger at the center of their city, the whole place would collapse. Conan is sent to an arena where he has to face other males for the honour of becoming the queen's stud for a while. Since these guys turn out to be survivors of his mutinous crew, he delights in killing them all. Then the Cimmerian quite happily (and uncharacteristically) submits to his subservient role. The next day, he intervenes as the amazon queen orders a newborn baby (a male) to be thrown to her pet tiger; the lady orders Conan drawn and quartered for his impudence. (Well... they use only two horses... should that be "drawn and halved", then?) The Cimmerian's luck serves him well: one of the ropes tying him to the horses breaks, and he topples one of the riders to steal her mount. He then gallops to the temple of the tiger instead of just fleeing the city, because he has noticed that the statue of the tiger god found therein has eyes of ruby. Forget about imminent death inflicted by an army of angry warrior women! There's money to be made! Extracting the stones from the statue's head has an unexpected effect, however: it brings the god back to life! Amazons and real-life tigers jump on the tiger-headed monstrosity, and general mayhem ensues. As per the prophecy, the city then begins to fall down and its inhabitants to dissolve into skeletons. Conan rides away posthaste, and as he looks back he sees nothing is left of Z'Harr Hr'ann; not even ruins. Notes: - Conan is 28 at this time. - Conan's ship is referred to as the Temptress.- That island is huge. One really must wonder how so few people had heard of it, and why the Turanians hadn't simply conquered it (since the Vilayet sea is sometimes referred to as "a Turanian lake"). - The Amazon queen brags of having hacked off her right breast to be a better archer (as did the Amazons described in Herodotus' Histories) but her bosom is clearly unscathed.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Feb 7, 2015 10:44:11 GMT -5
The one black stainA poem by Robert E. Howard Illustrated by David Wenzel This without a doubt the crowning achievement of Wenzel when it comes to his Solomon Kane work. The art is gorgeous, and the costumes and ships authentically depicted. The stark black and white approach, the wood-cutting quality of the rendering, all contribute to give a very lyrical and moody feel to this tragic story told in verse. Truly a delight to behold, and I'm sure Howard would have been very happy with the results.
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Post by foxley on Feb 7, 2015 17:00:55 GMT -5
Here Conan is paraphrasing Blackbeard (or, at least, a quote often attributed to him) about randomly killing a crew member every so often to remind them who he was.
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