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Conan in Comics


Matt John S

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more than any other medium, comic books have been Conan's constant home over the years. What are you favorite runs, artists, writers etc? 

 

I'll start the converstation by sharing this post I put up in the Conan Gaming Group on Facebook:

 

I finally finished Wolves Beyond the Border, after having misplaced it. You really need to check this out if you haven't. I did not enjoy all the output of Dark Horse's Conan but the dream team of Timothy Truman, Tomas Giorello, and Jose Villarrubia has created some of, if not, THE best Conan comics ever. Here, Truman cleverly weaves 3 of Howard's most famous characters together using a particular item found in a particular story. Howard was rockin' a shared universe before it was the cool thing to do, and clearly Truman understands this. I shall not spoil that for you and encourage you to read this collection of you haven't already. Beautiful stuff.

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  • 1 month later...

 

My favourite Conan comic of all time is not for the purists. It was a 1983 Marvel What If where he travelled into the future and fought Captain America. Great story and amazing art. 

 

I remember my first exposure to Conan was through the comics. I was 7 years old and I saw an amazing painted cover of a savage sword of Conan at my local shops. A couple of days later I asked my mum if could buy a comic. Neither her nor I realized that the Savage Sword series was mature age ( to me it looked like a cool He-Man) I started reading it on the way home and I was shocked!!! People were being killed and Conan was severing hands and heads! Nothing like He-Man. That started my love of all things Conan. I think that it was a Sal Buscema b&w sketched style. Now I'm going to have try and find it. 

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8 hours ago, Arthadan said:

For me Conan was defined by Jhon Buscema and Ernie Chan. Cary Nord is my most recent favorite.

 

I would argue that Frank Frazetta defined Conan but that Buscema used that and  made it the template for Conan.

 

This image defines Conan for me.

 

 

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Edited by Footballzs
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I agree. I think Frazzetta captured Conan the best. But for Conan comics there have been a few great artists. Barry Windsor Smith took me a while to get used to but I ended up enjoying. Boris Vallejo and then Julie Bell were great cover artists for Conan

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Frazetta is still the king.  I first discovered Conan through the Marvel comics (first the color ones and then Savage Sword of course!), though, so I have a soft spot for John Buscema and Barry Windsor-Smith.  BWS has an incredible line quality and interesting shape design that looks great with some of the exotic locales that Conan visits.  I did really enjoy the Busiek/Nord run from Dark Horse.  I like how they didn't ink over Cary Nord's raw pencils, which made his art more evocative of Frazetta's work by making it look very expressionistic and painterly.

 

 

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Edited by Crom
typo
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I've started to read Conan after the Kickstarter campaign.... and in that time a new collection was presented by Panini comics "the savage sword of Conan". It is the chronological b/w story of Conan's comics and it is fantastic!!!! The draw are amazing, Buscema is an artist

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10 hours ago, Rhell said:

I will have to pick up a volume and give the comics a try.

 

Depends a lot of which comics you will start to read. For example the collection I've started are all stand-alone story, sometimes there are some cross-reference but they star and end (like Tex or Dylan Dog).

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Frazetta because...well, no need to tell why....it's just so obvious.

As Matt John, "Big" John Buscema - The "one and only Conan" in the comics. 

More recently, I really enjoy the illustrations of Gregory Manchess, as some of his paintings try to capture the essence of the character.

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Edited by Pallantides
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I'll put in another vote for Roy Thomas and Big John Buscema. Nobody could bring a scene to life like Buscema, and the characters all look so natural all the time.

 

Derek - I also like those crossovers! I'm looking forward to the Conan/Wonder Woman crossover too. I've always been a sucker for crossover books.

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I actually meant to post this here, but I somehow accidentally posted it in another thread, but...

 

Oh yeah, I forgot about Greg Manchess!  He did the illustrations for the third Del Rey book.  All his work is great, not just the Conan stuff, and everyone should check him out.

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  • 1 year later...

Gotta chime in here; I own a copy of every single English language Conan comic in existence. That means Conan the Barbarian, Savage Tales, Savage Sword, and all the mini-series, one-off’s, Giant Sized, Annuals, and Graphic Novels)... I love the Marvel work (barring the quasi D&D stuff from the end of the color comic’s run). I also love the Dark Horse run, and I agree with @Matt John S that the recent King Conan stuff is among the best Conan comicbooks ever created. I’m very curious to see what Marvel will do now that they reaccuired the license. I’m also hoping that the new French language Glénat books might get translated to English and brought to these shores (but not holding my breath). 

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Edited by Epaka
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@Footballzs, indeed I do! It’s in very good condition too. I lucked out on eBay. A third party seller was liquidating someone’s extensive comic and memorabilia collection and I’m thinking they didn’t know it’s real value, so I got a pretty damn good deal I think. I think I paid more to get ahold of some of the more hard-to-find Marvel Conan graphic novels TBH. 

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