Review: KING CONAN: The Hour of the Dragon #1

KING CONAN: THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON #1 (#9 in the series)
DARK HORSE COMICS – @DarkHorseComics

WRITER: Timothy Truman
ART: Tomás Giorello
COLORS: José Villarrubia
LETTERS: Richard Starkings & Comicraft
COVER: Gerald Parel
VARIANT COVER: Sanjulián
EDITOR: Philip R. Simon
28pp, Colors, $3.50 U.S. (May 2013)

The Hour of the Dragon is the only novel featuring Conan the Cimmerian (or Barbarian) written by author Robert E. Howard, Conan’s creator. The novel originally ran as a serial in the pulp magazine, Weird Tales, from 1935 through 1936. The novel was first published in book from as Conan the Conqueror (1950, Gnome Press).

Dark Horse Comics is producing a comic book adaptation of the novel as two six-issue miniseries. The first series, King Conan: The Hour of the Dragon, will be released to comic book stores this week (as of this writing). The second miniseries will be titled King Conan: The Conqueror.

King Conan: The Hour of the Dragon is written by Timothy Truman and drawn by Tomás Giorello, already acclaimed for the Conan comics they have produced over the last several years. They are joined by their stellar collaborators, José Villarrubia on colors and Richard Starkings & Comicraft on letters.

King Conan: The Hour of the Dragon #1 opens in Tarantia, capital city of the kingdom of Aquilonia. King Conan is visiting the burial chambers of his late Queen, Zenobia. It is there that a young scribe, Pramis, meets the king and begins recording the tale King Conan tells him – the story of how he met Zenobia.

The story begins in remote Nemedia, on the eve of the Year of the Dragon. In another crypt, a group of malcontents and conspirators, seeking help to capture the thrones of kingdoms they covet, summon a wizard dead for three thousand. Now, King Conan must face a traitorous alliance backed by the resurrected sorcerer, Xaltotun.

I was ecstatic upon hearing that Dark Horse Comics was going to adapt into comics, Robert E. Howard’s sword-and-sorcery novel, The Hour of the Dragon, one of my all-time favorite books. I think that the novel has only been turned into comics once before, in the early to mid-1970s by Marvel Comics.

I am happy with the resulting first issue of King Conan: The Hour of the Dragon. Tim Truman seems to have absorbed the essence of the novel, while relocating the best of Howard’s prose into comics. The novel does have some rough patches, in which the story meanders, so I wonder if this will show over the course of a 12-issue adaptation.

Personally, I’m ready to put Tomás Giorello’s name next to the great Conan comic book artists, Barry Windsor-Smith and John Buscema. Giorello’s art has the pen and ink texture of book illustration and a graphic style that captures the bizarre sensibilities of pulp fantasy tales. José Villarrubia’s colors complete the illusion that the art belongs to a bygone pre-World War II era of fantastic fiction. However, there is no mistaking King Conan: The Hour of the Dragon for a pastiche. This is real-deal Conan.

A

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux

07-Ghost: The Bishop's Exam

I read 07-GHOST, Vol. 4

I posted a review at the ComicBookBin (which has free smart phone apps and comics).

Book Review: THE BARBED CROWN

THE BARBED CROWN
HARPERCOLLINS – @HarperCollins

AUTHOR: William Dietrich
ISBN: 978-0-06-219407-7; hardcover (May 7, 2013)
368pp, B&W, $26.99 U.S.

William Dietrich is a novelist and non-fiction author. Before he was a novelist, Dietrich was a journalist. In 1990, along with reporters Ross Anderson, Mary Ann Gwinn, and Eric Nalder, Dietrich won the “Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting” at The Seattle Times “for coverage of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and its aftermath.” As an author, Dietrich is known for a series of novels, “the Ethan Gage Adventures,” which began with Napoleon's Pyramids (2007).

Dietrich’s latest is The Barbed Crown, a recently released adventure novel. The Barbed Crown is “An Ethan Gage Adventure,” the sixth novel in the series that stars spy, adventurer, and treasure hunter, Ethan Gage, and is set during the Napoleonic wars.

Gage had fought beside Napoleon Bonaparte in Egypt and was Bonaparte’s agent in Italy. Now, Gage blames the ruler of France for the death of his wife, Astiza. Leaving his only son, four-year-old Horus (Harry), in England, Gage heads to France to join a royalist conspiracy trying to unseat Napoleon and restore the Bourbon monarchy to power.

Gage’s adventure includes a motley cast of characters. There is Comtesse Catherine Marceau, a royalist sympathizer, and the smuggler Tom Johnstone, who helps Gage and Marceau get to France. He meets inventors and technology pioneers, Robert Fulton and Sir William Congreave. And, of course, there is Napoleon Bonaparte himself. As Great Britain and France prepare for war, Gage finds himself caught between two empires, both determined to use him as a pawn, but he really just wants to save his life and his family.

In the “Historical Notes” at the back of The Barbed Crown, William Dietrich writes that “History is life: complex, confusing, and inclusive,” but he doesn’t let that stop him from turning history into a great romantic adventure in the vein of 19th century novels. In the same paragraph, Dietrich also writes of history, “Problems drag, personalities linger, careers meander, and love sometimes goes unconsummated.” Of course, a skilled writer can turn that into juicy storytelling, which Dietrich does.

Ethan Gage is an attractive character, not because he is so smart and resourceful; so many characters in fiction are too smart, perfect, and live mostly trouble-free lives. Gage is never trouble-free. If the world is a stormy sea, Gage’s life is small boat tossed about by relentless waves and choppy waters, and that’s a good thing. The sense of peril and danger and the significance of the conflict are heightened, so we come to believe of Gage that “this dude ain’t gonna make it!” His troubles made me hold onto the likeable Gage even harder.

The Barbed Crown deserves to be described as “a good read,” because it is a darn good read. It is filled with colorful characters, is set in a Paris that is both glittery and squalid, and there is always a backroom, corner, or hideaway where people are hatching conspiracies. The epic confrontation on the high seas that dominates the last act is like a second novel added onto the adventures in Paris. With its surprising ending, The Barbed Crown will have you anticipating the seventh entry in the Ethan Gage series.

B+

www.williamdietrich.com

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux

Review: STAR WARS: Legacy Volume 2 #3

STAR WARS: LEGACY VOLUME 2 #3
DARK HORSE COMICS – @DarkHorseComics

["Star Wars Central" review page is here.]

SCRIPT: Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman
ART: Gabriel Hardman
COLORS: Rachelle Rosenberg
LETTERS: Michael Heisler
COVER: Dave Wilkins
EDITOR: Randy Stradley
28pp, Color, $2.99 U.S. (May 2013)

Prisoner of the Floating World Part Three

Star Wars: Legacy Volume 2 is a new Star Wars comic book series from Dark Horse Comics and writer Corrina Bechko and writer-artist Gabriel Hardman. The events depicted in this Star Wars comic book take place “approximately 138 years after the events in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.”

Legacy Volume 2 focuses on the character, Ania Solo, the great-great granddaughter of Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo. Young Miss Solo, the owner of a junkyard, is on the run after inadvertently stumbling onto a conspiracy involving the Carreras System. It begins when she finds a lost lightsaber.

As Star Wars: Legacy Volume 2 #3 opens, young Imperial Knight, Jao Assam, is deep inside the Surd Nebula, as he continues his search for Imperial Knight Yalta Val. Elsewhere, in the Carreras System, Ania and her friend, Sauk (a refugee from Mon Calamari), and the assassin droid, AG-37, are aboard the droid’s ship, trying to escape pursuing snub fighters.

Meanwhile, the Sith continue to manipulate the construction of a communications array in the Surd Nebula. Perhaps, Jao Assam and Solo and company need to find common ground… or space.

Brian Wood and Carlos D’Anda’s new eponymous Star Wars comic book series recalls both the original Star Wars films and Marvel Comics’ Star Wars comic book series (1970s-80s). It is about re-imagining classic Star Wars. The second new Star Wars comic book series, Star Wars: Darth Vader and the Ninth Assassin, is fun just because it puts Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine in mortal danger.

Star Wars: Legacy Volume 2 is as “real Star Wars” as a Star Wars comic book can get, as far as I’m concerned. Star Wars: Legacy Volume 2 artists, penciller-inker Gabriel Hardman and colorist Rachelle Rosenberg, are doing their best impersonation of Al Williamson, a quintessential Star Wars comic book and comic strip artist, without it being a mere copy or pastiche. So, when I read this well-written series, I look at Hardman and Rosenberg’s art and think that I’m seeing Star Wars personally guided by George Lucas and Al Williamson, even if Star Wars: Legacy Volume 2 really isn’t.

Anyone who reads Star Wars comic books must read Star Wars: Legacy Volume 2.

A

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux

Jormungand: The Final Volume

I read Jormungand, Vol. 11

I posted a review at the ComicBookBin.

Review: AKANEIRO #1

AKANEIRO #1
DARK HORSE COMICS – @DarkHorseComics

STORY: Justin Aclin
ART: Vasilis Lolos
COLORS: Michael Atiyeh
LETTERS: Michael Heisler
COVER: Shu Yan
28pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (May 2013)

“The Path of Cloak and Wolf” Part 1 of 3

American McGee is a game designer perhaps best known as the designer of American McGee's Alice and for Spicy Horse, his Shanghai-based independent video game developer. McGee and Spicy Horse’s latest game is Akaneiro: Demon Hunters, a re-envisioning of Red Riding Hood set in the world of Japanese folklore.

Dark Horse Comics is producing a comic book adaptation of Akaneiro: Demon Hunters, entitled Akaneiro. The series is written by Justin Aclin and drawn by Vasilis Lolos.

Akaneiro #1 opens on Yomi Island, the home of the Ainu people, who were the first to settle Nippon. The island is beset by yokai, who will destroy humanity if too many enter the world. The Red Hunters of the Order of Akane hunt and kill yokai, maintaining a balance, but the Ainu and Red Hunters, at best, only tolerate each other.

Kani is a half-Ainu girl (on her late mother’s side) who lives with her father, a shabby ronin. Her lineage makes her an outcast to the Ainu, but an Ainu ceremony, the Iomante, will change Kani’s life.

I can’t tell how much Little Red Riding Hood is in Akaneiro, but the influences of feudal Japan-set fiction, as well as Japanese folklore and mythology are clear. Honestly, I did not find Akaneiro interesting at first, but once Kani begins her journey, the story takes a nice, wicked turn. At that turning point, it seems as if the Japanese folklore aspect lessens. Now, Akaneiro has a Sam Raimi-Army of Darkness vibe.

Two things to keep me coming back are, first, artist Vasilis Lolos’ peculiar, but compelling drawing style. The second thing is that the part of the story that begins in the last seven pages is just too good to be left hanging.

B+

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux

Cemetery Dance Announces Stephen King's "The Dark Man"

From Cemetery Dance:

Cemetery Dance Publications is pleased to announce our World's First Hardcover Edition of THE DARK MAN by Stephen King, which will be available in bookstores and libraries across America on July 30th.

The Dark Man has never seen the light of day beyond a few hardcore collectors of King's college work, but many people consider it to be a prequel to King's epic end of the world novel, THE STAND, because it stars the first appearance of Randall Flagg, one of King's greatest villains.

This is a unique addition to the King canon, an eighty-eight page poem featuring extraordinarily detailed Glenn Chadbourne artwork on every page. We've taken this breathtaking poem and worked closely with acclaimed artist Chadbourne to bring King's chilling words to life in a unique way.

There was a very specific rhythm to the poem that we wanted to convey through the blending of the text and the artwork, and Chadbourne skillfully used his illustrations to create a new kind of mixed media story.

Feedback from early readers has been fantastic, with some saying they never expected a poem to make their heart race with terror and horror the way the ending of The Dark Man does.

We hope you enjoy this experimental project and we appreciate your consideration of this title.

Title: The Dark Man
Author: Stephen King
Artist: Glenn Chadbourne
Page Count: 88
Pub. Date: July 30, 2013
Trade Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-58767-421-1
Trade Hardcover Price: $25
Slipcased Trade Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-58767-425-9
Slipcased Trade Hardcover Price: $49.95

You can view the covers for our various editions and read more on our website: http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/king08

Please contact me if you have any questions or need more information. Thank you!

Best wishes,
Brian Freeman
Managing Editor

Cemetery Dance Publications
132-B Industry Lane, Unit #7
Forest Hill, MD 21050

410-588-5901 [phone]
410-588-5904 [fax]

http://www.cemeterydance.com