The Man-Eaters of Zamboula (a.k.a. Shadows in Zamboula)
from Weird Tales November 1935, collected in the Conquering Sword of Conan

I had read the de Camp edited version of this collected in The Spell of the Seven and Conan the Wanderer long ago, but this was my first go at the Howard original sans de Camp's edits. The effect of the story is heavily dependent on the twist ending, and is not one that bears up well upon rereads because the surprise is not there. It's a very good Conan tale on the first read, and the twists and turns and surprise moments are part of its charm, but once the cat's out of the bag, i becomes a bit of a pedestrian read, even with Howard's strong prose style.

One more Howard original left to read, but first, it's time to check out an 80s indy book picked out by the randomizer.

-M

Catching up on what I've read through....

Finished off the Howard original Conan stories with Red Nails. Of all the supporting characters Howard threw into his Conan stories, I think Valeria may be my favorite, and one I wished he had touched on a bit more. Belit is a close second, but Valeria may have the edge by a notch. What was jarring for me was later reading one of the stories form the Ace Conan series-The Thing n the Crypt-which was written by Carter and deCamp and had been one of my favorites when I first discovered the Conan books in junior high and high school-and seeing how different the tone and style of prose between them and Howard was. I never disliked the de Camp/Carter pastiche material when I first encountered it, in fact it went a long way towards making me a Conan fan, but after a concentrated dose or Howard's stuff, it does read very differently now. Still don't dislike it, but not as enthused about it as I was when I was a wee lad.

Next moved onto another Jungle Queen and read a story from a Sheena Golden Age collection I had-Jumbo Comics #148 from '51 featuring Sheena vs. river pirates. My only real exposure to the character previously was the 80s movie with Tonya Roberts ( a favorite of adolescent me for reasons entirely different than my love of comics) though I had read a lot of the jungle girl genre outside of her stuff. The story seemed a bit pedestrian, but had enough charm I will likely sample some more from the collection at some point.

From jungle queen to lord of the jungle, I then moved onto the DH collection of Russ Manning's adaptation of the Jewels of Opar originally appearing in Tarzan 159-161 from '67. Manning's art is gorgeous, bu for me, a little too slick and clean for a savage jungle story, in this I prefer Kubert's Tarzan as it feels more raw and visceral, but Manning is a master at what he does. Jewels of Opar was the first Tarzan novel I was ever given as a kid (I was 11 at the time) and for that reason it holds a special charm for me, but the story itself is a bit lackluster and filled with contrivances mostly revolving around Tarzan's memory loss. It pretty much relies on one coincidence after another for all its plot twists, so while I enjoy it, and have fond memories of it, I realize it is not a very good story in and of itself.

Next up the randomizer brought me to summer 1984 where I picked out Sgt. Rock Annual #4 with a very compelling story of Rock and Easy Company's encounters with a Nazi major with a literal iron hand, who had survived the Russian front and an earleir encounter with Rock, and who faced Rock as he led Easy Company on a raid into Germany to answer the challenge of a gauntlet thrown down by Uncle Adolf. A very moving story of friendship, family, and how war can dehumanize people and how some of the enemy can still cling to their hmanity despite it all.

Next up, back to the library pile for another dip into the Flash 75 Year Celebration collection and as read through the Silver Age material collected-Showcase 4 with the origin of Barry Allen, Flash 110 with the origin of Kid Flash, Flash 123 and Flash of Two Worlds, plus a few other Flash tales (125 with time travel story introducing the cosmic treadmill I believe) and one centering on the Rogues and a parallel earth where Mirror Master was the hero and flash the villain. Fun read all around, and this was the first time I ever actually got to tread A Flash of Two Worlds, so very glad to have had the opportunity.

Moving from here, I dipped into the Ace Conan as mentioned above for The Thing from the Crypt by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter.

Next up, I read the first trade volume of Crossgen's The Path collecting the Prelude and issues 1-6. The story is different than what I expected, I gues I was thinking it was a more straightforward samurai tale, but I enjoyed it. I think I have a love/hate relationship with Bat Sears art here. It's very different than his usual super-hero fare (which I am not overly fond of) and different from the sword and sorcery stuff he did on the Warlord revival a few years after this which I also did not like). Hos work here is more raw, darker (using a lot more blacks) and more Miller-esque for lack of a better term. Creates a much better atmosphere for the work, but becomes too murky at times (though from the interview with Sears at the back of the book that seems to be intentional). I am not sure yet how I feel about every page being a 2 page spread with panels covering both pages. In one sense, it does create a more expansive canvas and make it more cinematic, on the other, the middle of every spread loses something because of the binding of the book obscuring the pages because there is no border gap. Sears also revels in lots of small panels with extreme close ups to try to portray quick chaotic action, but the panels don't seem to move the story along in and of themselves, so it is page design over panel efficiency, which is an interesting technique, but the double page spread nature of it make it ill-suited for reading via trade (and probably digitally). If this had been done in a nice oversized magazine style format, it would have worked a hell of a lot better, especially if the pages could be opened all the way and allowed to lay flat so the eye can move over it and take it all in without the loss of the middle of the page the binding causes. So I love the experimentation and the attempt to design something that fits the genre and the tone of the story, but the execution is blunted by the format, which ultimately makes it a failure for me. But then I start to rethink and...like I said, love/hate relationship.

Next up another martial arts themed comic, but this time an 80s indy...

-M

Have been chugging along reading through stuff but haven't felt much like writing comments on it, so a few snippets to get caught up since reading Shuriken....

from the library read through the Bronze Age material in the Flash 75th anniversary collection, but stopped before Crisis 8 with the death of Flash and skipped to post-Crisis material as well (much of which I had read before). Bronze Age stuff was a bit uneven, but mostly enjoyable.

also read the Rage of Ultron OGN by Rick Remender, which was a very good Ultron story surprisingly. Not worth the $25 of the format, so glad I read it from the library, but did enjoy it.

Also finally got around to reading Thanos the Infinity Relativity OGN by Starlin from the library-enjoyed it but was a bit frustrated that an OGN ended on a semi-cliffhanger leading into the third OGN in the trilogy. I think the format and the cost call for a more complete story in and of itself even if it is a part of a larger story cycle. I own the first one, and the library got vol. 2 before I got around to picking it up. Will likelsy still grab it when I have a gift card somewhere, but not as happy with this one. I was really enjoying the story until it kind of ended abruptly when they ran out of pages and had to be continued. Fine with a monthly, not with a supposedly standalone OGN that is yearly.

dipped into the pre-comic era for a short story called The Spider by Hanns Heinz Ewers from 1915, collected in an anthology called HP Lovecraft's Book of Horrors, and a story that was a favorite of and an influence on HPL. I found it more interesting than good, as I found the prose style to be a bit lacking, but that could be the translation moreso than the writing a sit was written originally in German I believe.

another, much more recent short story read was Troll Bridge by Terry Pratchett collected inthe Oxford Book of Fantasy stories and was a much more amusing and entertaining little tale, typical Pratchett.

A dip into a few random comics included
-Mystery in Space #113-nice little mix of stories
-Batman Annual #8 (1982) neat little Rhas al Ghul tale
-Jonah Hex #56-57 (1982) the Hex leads were good, especially the story of Jonah's mother, but the El Diable back ups were pretty terrible except the art.
-Action Comics #572 (1985) didn't really enjoy any of the 3 8 pagers within, not even an early effort by Mark Waid
-Charlton Action featuring Static #11 (1985) almost unreadable as Ditko's ideology fills the pages with words that almost obscure the art in places and get in the way of any narrative flow

dug out the first trade of Morrison's JLA: New World Order collecting the first 4 issues and found I didn't enjoy them nearly as much now as I did when they burst on the scene and it was my favorite series on the racks. Not bad, but in hindsight, nowhere near as good as I used to think it was.


also dipped back into Grell's Warlord reading #25-30. which meander a bit after the conclusion of the second Deimos story with Morgan having to face the aged Joshua at its climax, as Morgan wanders in his grief, but seems to get some traction and direction with the oncoming war against Shamballa. The issue where Morgan traveled through his past incarnations was both interesting and annoying. It allowed for an exploration of Morgan's character and filling in some details about Atlantis in this mythos, but fell into the hackneyed trap of cliche making the character lots of famous people throughout history to make them seem more important (Lancelot, really?), so in the end was mostly unsatisfying.

-M