Conan, Bran Mak Morn, El Borak and… Solomon Kane.
All my reading plans went south yesterday but on the other hand, I finally figured out the name of a movie that I’ve been trying to remember for about the last year. On that basis, I would normally put yesterday in the ‘Win Column’ but the movie was ‘Swamp Shark’ and after watching it, I was kind of nonplussed to be honest. It wasn’t bad, just not as awesome as my memory had tricked me into thinking. Oh well… :o)
Anyway…
The title is a bit of a giveaway but I did manage to make some time to catch up with some comic book reading. I’ll see if I can finish anything more substantial this week but for now, lets catch up with…
‘The Savage Sword of Conan #12’ – Ryall, Rodriguez, Zircher, Colak, Nicieza (Titan Comics, Heroic Signatures)
‘The Savage Sword of Conan Vol.2’ is still waiting to be read but I’m doing better with the single issues. This is probably how I’m going to collect the series going forwards.
#12 was a pretty good read although I wouldn’t have minded seeing ‘Conan: Heart of Darkness’ trimmed down a little and either having another short tale or a little bit extra added to ‘The Precipice’. Again, ‘Heart of Darkness’ wasn’t a bad read, Chris Ryall tells an exciting tale but it just felt a little ‘padded out’ here. I did enjoy seeing Conan’s mindset changing from ‘Lone Wolf’ to realising that being part of a ‘pack’ can be beneficial too. And I wouldn’t mind seeing more of Jorgus, that’s really unlikely though…
I really enjoyed Fabian Nicieza’s ‘The Precipice’, partly because Bran Mak Morn’s adventures are always fun but mostly because Nicieza adds a vicious twist, right at the end, that might make Bran think a little, before he acts, next time. It’s a sweet little bit of storytelling that resonates in the best way.
And ‘Curse of the Golden Calf’… I struggled, a bit, with the art (a little too ‘black and white’ and the detail suffers on occasion) but I liked where the plot went and while I never felt that El Borak was in any danger, it was still good to watch the supernatural bleed over into REH’s world.
‘Solomon Kane: The Serpent Ring’ – Patrick Zircher (Titan Comics, Heroic Signatures)
Solomon Kane, along with a mismatched group of companions including: an old scholar, his beautiful daughter, a disgraced Knight of Malta, an Italian rogue, and an African guide, search for the lost Serpent Ring of Thoth-Amon in the valley of the Serpent Men.
Legend says that the ring grants great power, and each of the treasure hunters, bar Kane himself, begin to be seduced and corrupted by the promise of that power.
But the ring is guarded by a sorceress, the Serpent Men, and the snake god itself, Yiggseth.
I never seem to manage to read as much ‘Solomon Kane’ as I’d like. In fact, I’ve just had a quick search on the blog and while I may have read some of the stories (maybe), I’ve only posted about the movie, and a brief mention of ‘Master of the Hunt’, here… I’ll have to do something about that.
When I saw that Titan Comics/Heroic Signatures were branching out into the rest of REH’s settings, I resolved to get into those too and that led me to ‘The Serpent Ring’. And again, another entertaining read, from this line, that does all sorts of good things. If you’re like me and after an introduction to the character of Solomon Kane, you’ll definitely get that here; Solomon Kane felt a little bit like Batman, to me, but you still get a really good idea of what drives him, and what he is prepared to sacrifice. If you’re after a good slice of ‘Sword & Sorcery’ at the same time, you won’t be disappointed. I wasn’t ;o) ‘The Serpent Ring’ is a thoroughly entertaining tale, in its own right, and Zircher does a great job of unobtrusively tying it into the ‘Serpent’ storyline that Conan is working through at the moment. I didn’t realise that Zircher was on ‘artwork duty’ as well as supplying the plotline, he does a bloody good job with both :o)
‘The Serpent Ring’ has definitely got me interested in going ‘back to the source’ and reading more of Solomon Kane’s adventures. Well played Mr. Zircher, well played…
Anyway…
The title is a bit of a giveaway but I did manage to make some time to catch up with some comic book reading. I’ll see if I can finish anything more substantial this week but for now, lets catch up with…
‘The Savage Sword of Conan #12’ – Ryall, Rodriguez, Zircher, Colak, Nicieza (Titan Comics, Heroic Signatures)
‘The Savage Sword of Conan Vol.2’ is still waiting to be read but I’m doing better with the single issues. This is probably how I’m going to collect the series going forwards.
#12 was a pretty good read although I wouldn’t have minded seeing ‘Conan: Heart of Darkness’ trimmed down a little and either having another short tale or a little bit extra added to ‘The Precipice’. Again, ‘Heart of Darkness’ wasn’t a bad read, Chris Ryall tells an exciting tale but it just felt a little ‘padded out’ here. I did enjoy seeing Conan’s mindset changing from ‘Lone Wolf’ to realising that being part of a ‘pack’ can be beneficial too. And I wouldn’t mind seeing more of Jorgus, that’s really unlikely though…
I really enjoyed Fabian Nicieza’s ‘The Precipice’, partly because Bran Mak Morn’s adventures are always fun but mostly because Nicieza adds a vicious twist, right at the end, that might make Bran think a little, before he acts, next time. It’s a sweet little bit of storytelling that resonates in the best way.
And ‘Curse of the Golden Calf’… I struggled, a bit, with the art (a little too ‘black and white’ and the detail suffers on occasion) but I liked where the plot went and while I never felt that El Borak was in any danger, it was still good to watch the supernatural bleed over into REH’s world.
‘Solomon Kane: The Serpent Ring’ – Patrick Zircher (Titan Comics, Heroic Signatures)
Solomon Kane, along with a mismatched group of companions including: an old scholar, his beautiful daughter, a disgraced Knight of Malta, an Italian rogue, and an African guide, search for the lost Serpent Ring of Thoth-Amon in the valley of the Serpent Men.
Legend says that the ring grants great power, and each of the treasure hunters, bar Kane himself, begin to be seduced and corrupted by the promise of that power.
But the ring is guarded by a sorceress, the Serpent Men, and the snake god itself, Yiggseth.
I never seem to manage to read as much ‘Solomon Kane’ as I’d like. In fact, I’ve just had a quick search on the blog and while I may have read some of the stories (maybe), I’ve only posted about the movie, and a brief mention of ‘Master of the Hunt’, here… I’ll have to do something about that.
When I saw that Titan Comics/Heroic Signatures were branching out into the rest of REH’s settings, I resolved to get into those too and that led me to ‘The Serpent Ring’. And again, another entertaining read, from this line, that does all sorts of good things. If you’re like me and after an introduction to the character of Solomon Kane, you’ll definitely get that here; Solomon Kane felt a little bit like Batman, to me, but you still get a really good idea of what drives him, and what he is prepared to sacrifice. If you’re after a good slice of ‘Sword & Sorcery’ at the same time, you won’t be disappointed. I wasn’t ;o) ‘The Serpent Ring’ is a thoroughly entertaining tale, in its own right, and Zircher does a great job of unobtrusively tying it into the ‘Serpent’ storyline that Conan is working through at the moment. I didn’t realise that Zircher was on ‘artwork duty’ as well as supplying the plotline, he does a bloody good job with both :o)
‘The Serpent Ring’ has definitely got me interested in going ‘back to the source’ and reading more of Solomon Kane’s adventures. Well played Mr. Zircher, well played…
Comments
Post a Comment