A Couple More Comic Books (or, A Little Bit of Elric & A little Bit of Conan)…

A couple of weeks ago, while I was on leave, I took my girls into Forbidden Planet as part of a little trip into London. I’m not feeling too guilty by the way ;o) My eldest loves a bit of Manga (loads of that in FP) while youngest found a shelf full of ‘Greek Myth’ books. True to form, we ended up having a little conversation about why ‘The Palace of Eros’ might not be the most appropriate book for a ten year old… You should have seen how quickly she put the book down after I let her read the blurb… Anyway, I’m digressing… While they were off doing their thing, I had a little mooch along the shelves and found a couple of comic books that I liked the look of. It took me a while to get round to reading them but in the end, a weekend of house sitting ended up being exactly right time to do just that. Quick thoughts then on the following…


‘Elric the Necromancer #2’ – Blondel, Cano, Secher (Titan Comics)

It’s funny how things work… I wasn’t too keen on the last instalment and its focus on themes rather than plot. This time round though, with a little forewarning, I actually got into it a lot more. It also helped that there was more of a focus on actual events this time with ‘The Singing Citadel’ getting its time on the page.

Back to those themes though, well just the one theme. Blondel and Cano are bringing some interesting stuff to the surface regarding the relationship between Elric and his sword and after two issues, there’s enough going on to make me want to follow this tale to its end. And it goes without saying that Secher’s work is as gorgeous as it was the last time round. Can you tell that I’m a little happier this time round…? ;o)


‘Conan the Barbarian #13’ – Zub, Braithwaite, Rodriguez (Titan Comics)

I did have an agreement with myself that I’d be sticking to the trades with this title but I saw the cover art (which I love) and thought why not? And I’m glad I did (even though I would say that, it’s ‘Conan’). Now, I’ve got no idea of what happened in #12 (like I said, I’ve been waiting on the trades) but it looks like what we have here is one of this ‘in between one offs’ where not a lot actually happens in terms of plot but instead, we get an intriguing little glimpse of just who Conan is and why he does what he does. This also ties into a little bit of theology as we get a little bit more of Crom than just a ‘he sits on his mountain and doesn’t really care about you’. There’s a lot to think about here then and unless I’m mistaken, it’s all gearing up for a recounting of ‘The Frost Giant’s Daughter’, maybe… I hope so.

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