Big Box of Comics: Conan Chronicles 1 to 3

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big box of comics, Conan, conan chronicles, Dark Horse, Dark Horse Comics, Marvel Epic Collection

Thanks to this blog’s readers, I was reunited this year with one of my all-time favorite comic book runs: the first fifty issues of the Conan series by Dark Horse. These stories have been reprinted in so many formats and mini-collections that you might want to throw up your hands in despair rather than try to collect them all in chronological order. But before you give up hope, the Conan Chronicles comes to the rescue.

Despite the Marvel banner across the top, the first three volumes are high-quality reproductions of the Dark Horse series, complete with the original covers, variant covers, sketchbook pages from the artists, and the original forewords and introductions by authors and artists from the collections. There’s a fourth volume to the series, too. It continues into the next phase, when the title changed from Conan to Conan the Cimmerian after issue fifty.

These editions also include pages that reproduce the unique wrap-around covers from the various mini-collections. That’s a thoughtful bonus, even if the original cover size did get reduced to fit on one page. It would have been fun to also see the comic strips about the life of young Robert Howard that appeared on the original letters pages, but that’s a minor nitpick in a flawless and beautifully designed collection.

Also, these reprints do not include the recalled cover that showed full frontal female nudity. The only bare boobs you will see in this collection are Conan’s, since he rarely wears more than a loin cloth and a pair of moccasins while decapitating and dismembering his way through brutal, blood-soaked battles on every other page.

Conan is like the male flipside to the hyper-sexualization of women in mainstream superhero comics. He flexes and poses through the most insane adventures, nearly naked the entire time, and he’s got a totally ripped, massively muscular body it would take a regular guy 100 lifetimes of body-building, cosmetic surgery, and laser hair removal to come close to matching.

That’s part of the fun of the character. Everything about Conan is over the top and larger than life, from his physique, intellect, and attitude, to the landscapes and enemies he encounters. There’s nothing small or timid about this hero. He isn’t your average dork with tedious concerns trying to live a normal life. He starts off as an all-around bad-ass who wants to see the world and plunder her cities, and he charges headlong into trouble just because he likes a fight. Though he often succeeds or at least survives, his arrogant attitude constantly trips him up.

Throughout the stories in the first three volumes of the Conan Chronicles, he learns many lessons the hard way. By the end of those volumes, Conan has matured from a careless, hot-headed youth into the kind of man who can unite and lead a kingdom. Along the way, he kicks the most ass I’ve ever seen kicked in a single series—from demons and wizards to hordes of undead soldiers and anyone who ever messed with him in a tavern.

Collector’s Guide: Conan Chronicles; Marvel Epic Collection, 2019. 

Although these volumes reprint the Dark Horse series, they were published by Marvel, continuing the back-and-forth publishing deals the two companies have had with Conan licensing for many years. Note: Don’t confuse this series with The Chronicles of Conan, which was Dark Horse reprinting the 1970s series by Marvel!

Big Box of Comics Part 2: Conan in Queen of the Black Coast

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Bêlit, becky cloonan, big box of comics, Brian Wood, comic books, Conan, Dark Horse, queen of the black coast, review

This post is part of a series about what was inside this month’s big box of free comics.

I really wanted to like this story, which is split across the fifth and sixth Conan Omnibuses. I hoped the negative reviews were simply cynical. But I couldn’t even read the whole thing. In the interest of expanding Robert E. Howard’s original tale, this version adds characters I didn’t need, adventures I didn’t care about, and questionable depictions of Conan and his pirate queen. Least believable is how Conan allows himself to be beaten, chained, and imprisoned in a ludicrous subterfuge to plunder a town. This goes against everything we know about Conan’s forceful character. Cloonan, whose artwork I usually love, chose to portray Conan with a slimmer, more realistic anatomy—something more like Steve Rude’s Nexus than your typical comic-book he-man—but that doesn’t fit Conan either. Conan is larger than life, and if there was ever a character who should appear large, intimidating, and insanely muscular, it’s Conan.

Just as troubling was the treatment of Bêlit. She has a crew of strong, skilled sailors who worship her like a goddess, but she lacks the fighting ability we would expect from a battle-hardened pirate. Instead, she gained leadership of the crew by leading them on a somewhat cunning mission in which her main contribution was planning. While I like the idea of Bêlit using her brains and not just her brawn, this approach gives us zero reason to believe her pirate crew would revere her so devoutly. She appears to have a hypnotic sexuality, but it takes more than being sexy to command a pirate crew. She comes across as a horny waif, not a total bad-ass, and that does her a disservice.

The visual depiction of her is even more troubling than that of Conan. Bêlit looks like a raving psycho with madness in her eyes, a slender goth sexpot on the verge of a breakdown instead of a conquering queen of the seas. Though she’s drawn with a nice enough figure, her face could only inspire fear, not love. What exactly does Conan see in her? To make matters worse, the colorists usually make her skin a stark white. She isn’t simply “pale” with “milky skin” as described in the text. She’s been painted bright white like she’s auditioning for Marilyn Manson or the Misfits. (Oddly, her skin is given a normal flesh tone in some scenes or issues, and this just makes the pasty white look seem even more out of place.) The color of Bêlit’s skin is one thing this adaptation should have changed from the original text, because it never made sense to have a sailor with milky white skin. Unless she was a sailor in Arctic seas, she would have been quite tan from exposure to the sun on the deck of her ship. Instead, she is someone’s goth-rock fantasy girl, and Conan is her long-haired boyfriend who listens to Joy Division, and it’s doubtful these two could command a ship, much less conquer many of them.

The story expansion also screws up the final, poignant scene from the original story. Bêlit’s fiery burial at sea is spliced in chunks with an unnecessary scene from after the funeral, where Conan is talking to someone in a tavern, someone who can see what an emotional wreck Conan is. If this scene was entirely cut from the story so we could simply witness the burial, we would know Conan was wrecked because we would be wrecked with him. Instead, we keep getting pulled out of the moment to visit the uninteresting tavern.

That’s just a few of the problems in this adaptation, and despite my enthusiasm about female pirates in general and the original Queen of the Black Coast specifically, I cannot recommend it.

Buyer’s Guide:

Conan Omnibus #5: Piracy and Passion.
Conan Omnibus #6: Savagery and Sorcery.

library of female pirates 10: bêlit

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Bêlit, Conan, library of female pirates, pyrates, queen of the black coast, robert e howard

The Library of Female Pirates has thus far focused on historical accounts of real people. But today, let’s have a look at one of my favorite pirate stories: Queen of the Black Coast, by Robert E. Howard, featuring Conan’s brief and ill-fated romance with Bêlit.

The following pages are excerpted from The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, Random House 2002, compiled by Patrice Louinet, editor, and illustrated by Mark Schultz. It presents the first thirteen Conan stories in their original versions, in the order Howard wrote them. My only criticism is the exceedingly small font size for the text, with letters so thin they practically disappear into the page. The book’s completeness and Schultz’s beautiful artwork make this a worthy paperback anyway, and I suppose you could buy the Kindle version instead of investing in a magnifying glass for the print edition.

In his Foreword, Schultz calls Queen of the Black Coast one of the “indisputable classics of fantastic short fiction, richly deserving recognition and appreciation outside the genre.” You can also appreciate it outside the printed page by listening to a reading of the entire tale, free of charge, at Librivox: Conan and the Queen of the Black Coast. (You have the options to either stream it or download the audio files so you have your own copy.)

Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan have taken on a modern comic book adaptation of Queen of the Black Coast for Dark Horse in recent years. It is not the tale’s first appearance in comics, either. The good folks at Longbox Graveyard have reviewed the Marvel Comics adaptation at Queen of the Black Coast. The review includes covers and panels like this glorious Buscema rendering of the final, tragic scene:

What is it about this story that has earned such widespread admiration? Howard’s prose certainly deserves the credit. With a plot that could easily be presented as pulp silliness, Queen of the Black Coast sings like a literary masterpiece under Howard’s pen. The world of masculine power fantasy and adventure take on an urgent, brutal, and even philosophic reality through the author’s use of language.

But what of the character of Bêlit? She is as full of the drive for savage conquest as Conan, and does not fall into the “damsel in distress” role. She is tough, and she is in charge, and her dialogue reveals a sharp mind. This makes the scene of her mating dance a bit hard to swallow, where this incredibly powerful woman suddenly throws herself at Conan’s feet and begs him to take her. This may be the one out-of-tune note in an otherwise brilliantly composed symphony of female piracy.

But Bêlit is no shrinking violet who tumbles passively into the barbarian’s arms. After an all-too brief narration summarizing what must have been an epic season of seafaring mayhem for them, she takes her brawny adventurer on a truly suicidal mission. “We fear nothing,” she says to him boldly. “Let us go and sack that city.” It’s easy to see why Conan loves her!

Other reviewers of this tale have pointed out that Bêlit is a Shemite, which is Howard’s version of Semite, and that Howard borders on ethnic stereotyping by having a Jewish character whose main love is riches and jewels. But I find this avarice very much in character with what we would expect from a pirate, regardless of ethnicity, and we should keep in mind that Howard used all kinds of warrior races as models for his imaginary civilizations. It seems far more odd that Bêlit is described as having pure white skin, despite spending her life in the blazing sun on the decks of her ships!

Bêlit has a dialogue with Conan in which they discuss their philosophies, and she makes her pledge that she would come back from the grave to save him, so powerful is their love. Along with her dance, these are her major character scenes. After a scene in which she directs her crew in the plunder of some hidden jewels, even heartlessly sacrificing a few of them to do it, Bêlit meets a tragic end off-camera. She dies while the reader joins Conan in the jungle getting his psychedelic trip on thanks to the touch of a nasty plant called the black lotus. That Bêlit should become such a memorable character and bear so much narrative expansion in later adaptations is a testament to the way she commands attention in her brief but intense screen time.

Conan’s final scene is poignant. The sea means nothing to him without her. It only mattered to him because it mattered to her, and its music is no longer a siren song for him but a lonely requiem. Not even jewels mean anything to him, as he evidences by including them on her boat with her body, which he sends out to the ocean in a blaze. Howard writes it believably, but the depth of Conan’s emotion tells us that he and his pirate love had bonded with an intensity that perhaps the short story did not have the time to fully explore. Still, it is a beautiful monument to the passion and romance female pirates can stir within us, and the loss we feel when they must take that final, fiery voyage back to the seas they loved so much.

Fair winds and following seas, Bêlit.

Conan Frank Frazetta Cover Series by Dark Horse

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Conan, Conan the Barbarian, Dark Horse, Dark Horse Comics, Frank Frazetta, Frazetta Cover Series, Indie Comics, King Conan

Frank Frazetta became the definitive Conan artist on the strength of his painted book covers. Dark Horse reprinted some of the stories from its modern Conan series with several well-known Frazetta paintings as covers.

This high-quality production with painterly art from the regular series collects complete tales. The trade paperback reprints give readers the complete series, but this Frazetta limited series captures many of the best.

Omnibus collectors can find the first 50 issues collected in a single binding as the Colossal Conan Hardcover. At a whopping 1,264 pages, it usually costs between $120 and $150.

Let’s have a look at these great Frazetta covers and some of the interior artwork.


Conan fans may recognize several of these stories from earlier Marvel versions. Some of them – like Rogues in the House and Black Colossus – enjoyed an oversize printing as Marvel Treasury Editions. You can easily find those earlier Marvel gems reprinted in paperback form as the Chronicles of Conan, recolored, by Dark Horse Comics. Dark Horse continued their Marvel reprints in another set of paperbacks, the Chronicles of King Conan.

Marvel Treasury Edition: Conan the Barbarian

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Barry Windsor Smith, Conan, Conan the Barbarian, Marvel Comics, marvel treasury edition, Red Sonja, Roy Thomas

Conan’s larger-than-life personality works wonderfully in the first two Marvel Treasury Editions that feature him. These over-sized editions also spotlight the artistic talents of Barry Windsor-Smith. #15 features the Song of Red Sonja, and Smith’s Sonja artwork rocks at Treasury size. Conan would conquer four different Treasury Editions (#4, 15, 19, 23) from 1975 to 1979. Let’s have a look inside the first two!

Before we open them up, dig these back covers. Wow, that Smith one would make a killer poster!

On the inside covers, writer and Editor Roy Thomas gives us a fun history of how he and Smith got started doing a Conan series for Marvel in the first place. Smith contributes some new artwork on a Robert E. Howard memorial page.


Cool! Let’s have a look at these splash pages and stunning interior art.





Dark Horse collected these tales in their recent Chronicles of Conan collections, giving the coloring and paper quality an upgrade from these 1970s editions. But, you really can’t beat reading Black Colossus at colossal size. We also get several bonus pages of Red Sonja being awesome in chain mail underwear.

Dan-Thing Archives: Conan the Barbarian #13

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Barry Smith, Barry Windsor Smith, Chronicles of Conan, Conan, Conan the Barbarian, giant spiders, Marvel Comics, Roy Thomas, Sal Buscema, spider, web of the spider god

Up from the primordial muck slithers… the Dan-Thing! In his oozing fist he clutches a time capsule: Marvel comic books from 1972! Our muck-stomping friend the Dan-Thing asked that we share these bronze age beauties with you for education and inspiration.

Dan-Thing’s archival copy of Web of the Spider-God came without a cover but is otherwise intact. In fact, it kicks major ass! We didn’t expect much from a beat up old copy of Conan. Fitting, because Conan gets beat up pretty badly at the opening of this story. But, we were admittedly just as wrong as Conan’s foes who thought him defeated. This story rose up to rock and roll with the best of them, coming out on top as perhaps our favorite of the famous Roy Thomas / Barry Windsor-Smith classics.

Although we have seen Conan in the excessively awesome Marvel Treasury format, he seems just as much larger than life on these regular pages. We admit a preference for the first 50 issues of Dark Horse’s recent Conan series, especially with that amazing Cary Nord painted look. But the more we discover the classic Marvel series, the more we find to like.

And now – into the pit of the giant spiders! YES!

Collector’s Guide:
– From Conan the Barbarian #13; Marvel, 1972.
– Reprinted in Chronicles of Conan #2; Dark Horse, 2003.