Conan The Barbarian – Queen of the Black Coast is Excellent
I’m just a bit behind on this new Conan series by Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan, but it’s not at all too late for me to say that what I’ve seen is excellent and very well-crafted. Wood’s doing a fine job with the writing, and Cloonan’s art has me becoming an instant fan of her style. I mentioned her Dracula book a few days ago (posted here), but it’s the future collection of these Conan comics that I think I’m most excited about.
But instead of taking my word for it I suggest checking out this review at Comics Bulletin and then getting yourself to the comic shop to see the comic for yourself. And I promise that the fact that we have been running ads for Munchkin Conan in the comics has not affected my opinion; I was loving the various Conan comics before we ended up working on the property. It’s just lucky for me that part of my job allows me to play with the toys of others.
What Dark Horse is doing with their Conan series (not to be confused with their reprints of the old Marvel Comics version) is quite impressive. They’re basically straightening out the chronology of the old Robert E. Howard stories while filling in the gaps with some pretty well-written original stories, many of which are extrapolations of known Howard story fragments. The chronology and the original additions to the canon are very comprehensively researched as far as I can tell, and they rival any that have been written in non-comics literature in that regard. And the art has been pretty consistently great, with only an artist here or there that I wasn’t really into, style-wise.
It’s weird that the book doesn’t get a lot of attention from the bigger comics news sites, because to me, it is one of the best titles out there, bar none.
@zuludelta – “It’s weird that the book doesn’t get a lot of attention from the bigger comics news sites, because to me, it is one of the best titles out there, bar none.”
Most of the big comic sites seem more focused on the titles that are being made into movies than they are great comics. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s how it feels to me. And that’s sad; there are some neat titles being produced that aren’t at all related to Hollywood.