Customer Reviews

The Chronicles of Conan, Vol. 2: Rogues in the House and Other Stories (v. 2)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I must agree with many other reviewers: it was a mistake on the part of the digital colorists to attempt to add volume to the images. Smith himself, when he colors his work, goes for a more subdued approach... His colors try to subtly enhance his gorgeous line work, not drown it in computerized gradient effects. And drowning is exactly what we see here, especially in the "Rogues in the house" segment. That piece actually looked much better in black and white than it does here in colour form.

The choice of colors itself was sometimes dubious; the ethereal veil of Atali, daughter of the Frost Giant Ymir, is here coloured a heavy green; that makes it appear like rough wool rather than like "a fabric so fine no human hand could have woven it".

Despite this unfortunate problem, this collection is certainly a worthy addition to any fan of the classic series. It just could have been better had the colors been as in the original comic, or handled by the same studio that recolored volume one.

With "Rogues in the House and Other Stories," the second volume of Dark Horse Comic's reprint of Marvel's "Conan the Barbarian" comic series, the team of writer Roy Thomas and artist Barry Windsor Smith finally hit their stride, and begin producing not only the finest Conan adaptation, but also some of the finest traditional comic stories ever to see print. They were both talented professionals, and knew and loved the character that they were working with.

At their best when adapting authentic Robert E. Howard stories, this collection contains "Rogues in the House, " and the perfect "The Frost Giant's Daughter." Another story, "Garden of Fear" is a Howard adaptation from a different character, but suits Conan fine. The original stories, as well as new characters such as the faithless Jenna, add context and flow to the adaptations, seating them in a definite time-line that Howard never attended to.

Barry Windsor Smith's art in this volume is leaps and bounds above his derivative work in Chronicles of Conan vol. 1, "Tower of the Elephant and Other Stories." He is closer to the style that would make him famous, and elevate him above mere comic book artist.

Unfortunately, this trade paperback edition is not without it's flaws, mainly being the lack of original covers and some unnecessary modern coloring effects. The covers are noticeable absent, as Roy Thomas often mentions them in his "Behind the Swords" commentary at the back of the volume.

For Conan traveling along mountainous Corinthia along the Road of Kings, life stunk. Fortunes would be lost, betrayals endured, and eternity glimpsed in the mad embrace of a homicidal gorilla. Conan had his complaints; not so fans of the Conan Marvel comic books.

This second volume of the "Chronicles Of Conan" series, collecting issues published in 1971-72, finds Conan writer Roy Thomas and artist Barry Windsor-Smith at an early zenith. Gone are the cruder line drawings and sillier prose of the issues collected in Volume 1. Here you get some terrific, visceral excitement with engaging back stories dripping with political intrigue and characters worth remembering for more than the way they stomached a Cimmerian scimitar, like Murilo the deceptively tough-nosed fop, Jenna the deceiver, and Burgun the noble thief.

All three show up for the three-part adaptation of Conan creator Robert E. Howard's "Rogues In The House", a stand out of the entire comic series for its weaving of diverse storylines both sordid and surreal. You see from reading this and Vol. 1 how well Thomas set things up, introducing Jenna and Burgun in earlier issues in such a way "Rogues" reads like a continuation of Conan's busy life, not a detached episode as Howard wrote it. Thomas even finds a way to flesh out a single paragraph of Howard's "Rogues" to fill an entire issue, showcasing his deep-drilling imagination for not the last time.

As "Rogues" develops, Conan is pressed by Murilo to help him kill a mysterious priest who lives, like so many Conan villains, in a vast fortress dwelling barbed with deadly traps. Howard gave this story a lot of strange twists that exposes much about the skullduggery of both the priest and Murilo, who observes Conan, a mere thief, is the "most honest" of the three.

An abruptly-scripted conclusion (which appears the same way in the Howard original) and Windsor-Smith's occasional difficulty at penciling faces are but the most minor speed bumps in this white-knuckle adrenalin ride.

The rest of the book is not nearly as good, the nadir being another Howard adaptation, "The Frost Giant's Daughter", which involves Conan chasing a laughing woman through the snows, hoping to catch and rape her. Yucky, yes, but it could have been transgressively interesting if it wasn't so threadbare, and disconnected from everything else here, being the only story set far from Corinthia. The digitalized color work of this recent publication only makes matters worse, cementing the piece's awkward reality.

Of the other stories, "Garden Of Fear", "Dweller In The Dark", and "Web Of The Spider-God" make arresting use of diversely exotic locales within the greater Corinthian area, but also suffer from the series' Achilles heel: Throwing a random monster into the action whenever a big finish was needed. You still get two strong tales, and a third ("Dweller") which is something more, casting Conan as the kept man of a haughty queen, but the predictability grates, and would grate more over time.

The word "great" seems more apt here, though, especially with the sublime handling of "Rogues Of The House", which showcases how cleverly Thomas and Windsor-Smith could mesh adult sensibilities in a kid's medium. Howard's original stories were nearly 40 years old when they got the Marvel treatment; now it's nearly 40 years later and the Conan comics seem just as enduring.

It is a shame that in reprinting the seminal run of artist Barry Windsor-Smith on Marvel's "Conan the Barbarian" Dark Horse Comics has neglected to include the cover art as well. But that is the only major complaint a fan can have against "Rouges in the House & Other Stories," the second of four books in the Chronicles of Conan series. The minor complaint would be that in covering these six particular issues--which includes the two "big" comics when Marvel had its two month experiment of increasing the price from 15 cents to 25 cents while also increasing the size so that the monthly comics were suddenly the same size as an annual--Book 2 ends in the middle of the 2-part saga where Roy Thomas has Michael Moorcock's Elric show up to cross swords with Robert E. Howard's Conan. However, these trifles are outweighed by the fact that these comics are being reprinted so that I can enjoy them without taking my originals out of their sacred plastic bags and by the gorgeous job of re-coloring each comic that makes them look much better than ever before. The coloring alone makes these worth having, it is that stunning.

Included in this collection are the following issues of "Conan the Barbarian": #9 "The Garden of Fear," based on Howard's story of that name, where Conan encounters a winged demon in a tower; #10 "Beware the Wrath of Anu" where Conan joins forces with another thief in a Corithian city. When his partner is betrayed (and executed by hanging on a memorable page drawn by Windsor-Smith), Conan goes after the Red Priest himself for revenge and ends up taking on a giant bull; #11 "Rouges in the House" is also based on a Howard short story, is a 34-page epic in which Conan is betrayed by Jenna and released from prison to help with a little intrigue and ends up taking on a giant ape (notice a theme developing here?); #12 "The Dweller in Dark" is only 16-pages long and has Conan taking on a giant octopus (really); #13 "Web of the Spider-God" was plotted by John Jakes, the creator of "Brak the Barbarian," and has Conan taking on a giant spider; #14 "A Sword Called Stormbringer" was plotted by Elric of Melibone creator Michael Moorcock and James Cawthorn, and has Conan hooking up with Zukala's daughter (from issue #5) before clashing with Elric. The two band together to fight a common foe, setting up their encounter in the next issue with the Green Empress. Most of these issues are inked by Sal Buscema, although he is not listed for #12, which may or may not indicate that Windsor-Smith did the inking as well on that one.

"Rogues in the House" is indeed the best of the bunch and the overall focus is on Conan as primarily a thief at this point in his career, who keeps finding new monsters to fight each issue. But you can see why "Conan the Barbarian" was such a critical success and you can also see how Windsor-Smith's art improves with ever issue as he becomes more and more stylized. While Thomas is inviting other noted sword & sorcery writers to provide plots, he is also continuing to mine the Howard oeuvre for stories and embellishing what he finds with much more of a sense of character than in the original pulp fiction yards from the 1930s.

The other two tradepaperback collection will be "Chronicles of Conan Volume 3: The Monster of the Monoliths and Other Stories," which reprints #14-#15 and #17-#21, and "Chronicles of Conan Volume 4: Red Nails and Other Stories," which issues #23-#26, and material from the second and third issues of Savage Tales, including the Thomas and Windsor-Smith masterpiece "Red Nails." This answers my invocation to Crom from my review of volume one and I have already downloaded the splash page as wallpaper from the Dark Horse site.

These reprints of the early Marvel Comics Conan series are essential for any fan of comics in general and Conan in particular. As has been noted, the only drawbacks are the absence of the original covers and digital color that virtually crushes Barry Smith's art. That's a shame because these stories could have been greatly enhanced by digital color in the right hands. We can only hope that Dark Horse will correct the problem before they get around to reprinting "Red Nails" which I understand is part of the plan.

It is a shame that in reprinting the seminal run of artist Barry Windsor-Smith on Marvel's "Conan the Barbarian" Dark Horse Comics has neglected to include the cover art as well. But that is the only major complaint a fan can have against "Rouges in the House & Other Stories," the second of four books in the Chronicles of Conan series. The minor complaint would be that in covering these six particular issues--which includes the two "big" comics when Marvel had its two month experiment of increasing the price from 15 cents to 25 cents while also increasing the size so that the monthly comics were suddenly the same size as an annual--Book 2 ends in the middle of the 2-part saga where Roy Thomas has Michael Moorcock's Elric show up to cross swords with Robert E. Howard's Conan. However, these trifles are outweighed by the fact that these comics are being reprinted so that I can enjoy them without taking my originals out of their sacred plastic bags and by the gorgeous job of re-coloring each comic that makes them look much better than ever before. The coloring alone makes these worth having, it is that stunning.

Included in this collection are the following issues of "Conan the Barbarian": #9 "The Garden of Fear," based on Howard's story of that name, where Conan encounters a winged demon in a tower; #10 "Beware the Wrath of Anu" where Conan joins forces with another thief in a Corithian city. When his partner is betrayed (and executed by hanging on a memorable page drawn by Windsor-Smith), Conan goes after the Red Priest himself for revenge and ends up taking on a giant bull; #11 "Rouges in the House" is also based on a Howard short story, is a 34-page epic in which Conan is betrayed by Jenna and released from prison to help with a little intrigue and ends up taking on a giant ape (notice a theme developing here?); #12 "The Dweller in Dark" is only 16-pages long and has Conan taking on a giant octopus (really); #13 "Web of the Spider-God" was plotted by John Jakes, the creator of "Brak the Barbarian," and has Conan taking on a giant spider; #14 "A Sword Called Stormbringer" was plotted by Elric of Melibone creator Michael Moorcock and James Cawthorn, and has Conan hooking up with Zukala's daughter (from issue #5) before clashing with Elric. The two band together to fight a common foe, setting up their encounter in the next issue with the Green Empress. Most of these issues are inked by Sal Buscema, although he is not listed for #12, which may or may not indicate that Windsor-Smith did the inking as well on that one.

"Rogues in the House" is indeed the best of the bunch and the overall focus is on Conan as primarily a thief at this point in his career, who keeps finding new monsters to fight each issue. But you can see why "Conan the Barbarian" was such a critical success and you can also see how Windsor-Smith's art improves with ever issue as he becomes more and more stylized. While Thomas is inviting other noted sword & sorcery writers to provide plots, he is also continuing to mine the Howard oeuvre for stories and embellishing what he finds with much more of a sense of character than in the original pulp fiction yards from the 1930s. The next two tradepaperback in this series are "Chronicles of Conan Volume 3: The Monster of the Monoliths and Other Stories," which reprints #14-#15 and #17-#21 of "Conan the Barbarian," and "Chronicles of Conan Volume 4: Red Nails and Other Stories," with issues #23-#26, and material from the second and third issues of Savage Tales, including the Thomas and Windsor-Smith masterpiece "Red Nails."

For some reason issues #14 and 15 of Conan The Barbarian are omitted from this volume - my guess is for stylistic reasons - but this is yet another wonderful collection of these graphic Hyborean classics.

Like the first volume, the digital recoloring is absolutely gorgeous and renders the breathtaking artwork with stunning clarity. The original comics were printed on newsprint, which as most comic coinnoseurs know, does not render the images with the utmost fidelity. These volumes give these stories the treatment they deserve, with good white paper and care taken in the art restoration.

In the afterword, Roy Thomas (the writer who adapted Conan into comics) promises that issues #14 and #15 will be in volume three, so fear not at the omission of the stories featuring Michael Moorcock's Elric. Simply read and savor the golden age of the comic-book Conan.

I'm just now discovering the CONAN comics from the 70s through these collected volumes and they deliver a very consistent dose of Cimmarian action! Very enjoyable stories. The updated coloring was a huge mistake, I really wish they hadn't gone down that path but it rarely distracts from the storytelling. I will be continuing to read more from this series.

These were the classic Conan comics that got me hooked onto the Sword and Sorcery genre. There are a couple of issues that I had never seen before. All are terrific. I know that some other reviewers are disappointed with the colouring in these reprints. Just looking at these, they are really not bad and some are quite good. The great plotlines and artwork really drive these stories and at least, I have the whole continuity in my hands.

Another nicely put together collection of the Thomas and Smith Conan stories. The adaptation of Howard's Rogues in the House is actually pretty decent, with a very well done man-ape guy.

Conan has more problems than that, though, including a rather large Spider-God. Problems in the desert, problems in city. Again, the afterword by Thomas is interesting.