'The Cimmerian Volume 2: People of the Black Circle & The Frost Giant's Daughter' – Runberg, Park, Ooshima, Sienty, Recht' (Ablaze)


And Robert E. Howard of course!

In a turnaround that I never saw happening, not this week anyway, I've only actually gone and read something! :o) I was looking after my kids tonight and they were sat there reading so I thought it would be rude not to join in. Plus if I hadn't, I would have fallen asleep... But anyway.

I've got a sweet little pile of unread comic books so I thought I'd start chipping away at that pile and Conan is always good for a read. I'd enjoyed Volume 1 as well as the adaptation of 'Beyond The Black River' so I figured this volume would be a safe bet as well. And you know what...? Of course it was.

Apologies if you've read these stories before but for those of you who haven't, here's some blurb for you...

In The People of the Black Circle, the king has just died in the kingdom of Vendhya, struck down by the spells of the black prophets of Yimsha. The king’s sister, Yasmina, decides to avenge him…and contacts Conan, then chief of the Afghuli tribe. But several of Conan’s warriors have just been killed by the men of the kingdom of Vendhya, further complicating the matter. The princess thought she could use the Cimmerian, but rather it is she who will serve his interests...

In The Frost-Giant's Daughter, Conan, the only survivor of a ferocious battle, sits in the midst of a bloodstained snow field. When the fight is over, the Cimmerian suddenly finds himself overcome with deep weariness and disgust. Until the moment he meets a redheaded woman of supernatural beauty, blinding like the glow of the sun on the snow. Moved by a burning desire, Conan decides to follow her but finds himself caught in a trap, attacked by two titans. In his ardor, he was not suspicious…he did not imagine for a second that his bride was none other than Ymir's own daughter: the frost-giant! 

I love what Ablaze have done with Conan, so far, and you can't help but think that somewhere, Robert E. Howard is reading his complementary copies and thinking to himself, 'they nailed it.' It was no surprise to me then when Volume 2 of 'The Cimmerian' picked up from where Volume 1 left off and carried on doing all the good stuff. You'd think this would be a fairly easy thing to do, given that the source material was written by Robert E. Howard, and I guess there's some mileage in that. It must be pretty hard to screw up a Robert E. Howard adaptation, if you're having trouble with the writing just go with what he wrote and you're onto a winner ;o)

Having said all that though, both Runberg and Recht prove very capable of adapting Conan to the comic book format, knowing what to take out (and leave in) to keep the story flowing but still in that distinctive shape. Things can even change, just a little bit. Recht in particular did some good work with 'The Frost Giant's Daughter', broadening the sexual tension and to be quite frank, making Conan less of a sexual predator than he was (to me anyway) in the original story. There's a sense that they're both after it this time and that makes the story crackle with the aforementioned tension as well as leaving me a little less uncomfortable about following the story to its conclusion. 'The People of the Black Circle' was a fine read but it was 'The Frost Giant's Daughter' that really stood out for me, for those reasons.

And the artwork... This is one of the things that I enjoy about 'Conan' comics the most but at the same time, my limited 'art vocabulary' leaves me grasping to explain just why. Here goes...

Park's artwork really works to expand Conan's world, giving us a fresh look and feel. That's one of the things that I'm starting to love about this series, it's stepping away from 'tried and trusted' art to really make Conan's world vibrant again. And that's why Recht's art won out for me in this book. It's just beautiful and really sets the scene for the story. The sense of wide open space is used to great affect as well, really making us focus on what is happening on the page.

'The Cimmerian Volume 2' is a welcome sign that Ablaze really know what they're doing with the 'Conan Property' and they've got the resources on hand to really pull it off. Volume 3 is lurking around somewhere, I must go and find it.

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