Customer Reviews

Conan: Book Of Thoth (Conan (Dark Horse Unnumbered))

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

 

 

Imagine...A Conan book where are favorite Barbarian is no where to be seen...It's no joke, but is indeed what you get with Conan The Book of Thoth. This volume reprints the four issue series from Dark Horse comics and lifts the veil on Conan's arch-foe, the black wizard Thoth-Amon of Stygia. It's interesting to note that while Thoth may be considered Conan's greatest foe, he actually only appeared in just one story written by Conan creator Robert E. Howard, "The Phoenix on the Sword" which first appeared in Weird Tales in 1932. It was really in the Marvel Comics' series that Thoth-Amon would become Conan's greatest enemy.

Thoth's origins were always shrouded in mystery and Kurt Busiek, who has been writing Conan's adventures at Dark Horse, along with long-time comic scribe Len Wein, tell the story of his background. Now it's hard to imagine Thoth as a boy but that's exactly how they start the story. Thoth is a street urchin, stealing what he can to appease his abusive father. Fate shines on him one day when his friend Amon, saves the life of Kharantus, the High Priest of the Ibis. The benevolent priest invites the boy to become an Acolyte at the temple. Thoth sees his opportunity, killing his friend and assuming his identity.

Thoth now finds himself in a great power and is soon seeking out the dark arts and comes across scrolls referring to the ancient, and long destroyed city of Acheron, home to great wizards and great evil. Now here's where things get a bit dicey...Thoth mentions that Acheron was home to a thousand centuries of black magic and diabolism, an archaic tradition of evil." This comment is lifted nearly word for word from the Conan story "The Hour of the Dragon" which was uttered by the priest Orastes speaking about the resurrected Acheron wizard Xaltotun. I'm not even sure Howard knew what he was writing as a thousand centuries, or 100,000 years places Acheron about 85,000 years before the Pre-Cataclysmic era of King Kull.

Okay, I got a bit side-tracked on that detail. At any rate, Thoth eventually finds the Ring of Set, the serpent God which gives him incredible power to overthrow the priests of Ibis and usher in the era of Set as Stygia's primary deity. The story takes places over several years as we see Thoth grow both in stature and power as he weaves insidious plots to gain control of Stygia.

The story is somewhat on the slow-moving side. There's only a sliver of the kind of action you expect in the typical Conan story. This is a story about more than swordplay. It's about intrigue and an insatiable quest for power. The story humanizes Thoth and I'm not sure if that's really such a good thing or not. In some ways it diminishes his stature as perhaps the ultimate force for evil in Conan's time. Still, it was interesting to see this take on Thoth's history.

While I will give moderate approval to the story, the art of Kelley Jones gets an unquestionable standing ovation from me. Jones has always been one of my favorites for his angular figures and expressive eyes of his characters. Few artists use light and shadow as well as Jones does.

Reviewed by Tim Janson

This is supposed to be for reviews of the Book of Thoth, not the regular Conan serie.
So, having cleared that, I must say that this is one of the most true to Howard's vision comic book stories ever; from the rich narrative to the magnificent images & the surprising conclusion (at least fro Thoth-Amon who had quite a shock from the reward he was expecting) The Kelley Jones art is magnificent (but I miss John Beatty's inking) and it fits the story well. All in all a great book for Conan fans, which can be appreciated by comic book readers or diehard book fans.

My understanding is that Thoth-Amon had only one real appearance in the Conan series, where Conan assisted Khalantees of Ibis in a quest to destroy an evil object. However, somehow Thoth-Amon has been made to be a lifetime enemy of Conan and writers have found ways to give him cameos.

I personally found the story of Thoth-Amon very interesting and fairly sensible, but I have to warn that in many ways I also felt a bit disappointed as well - personally theorizing where Thoth-Amon had come from and reading his story partially damaged my image of him as this ancient all powerful magician. Still, it was good to read that he was basically bad from the beginning.

My only possible quirk would be the drawings. The Conan comics in general are well known for their utmost art qualit, very detailed pictures with utter mature material. This comic's drawns was rather basic in comparison, but still good enough to convey the emotions of the characters within.

This book is about the life of Thothamon who is one of the scary and well built characters in Conan comics. It's about how Thoth became one of the strongest wisard of his time. I think the story line was built perfectly. Great art, a great and long neglected story part of Conan series. I loved it.

I've loved every Kurt Busiek Conan GN, except this one. Maybe it's because Conan isn't in the story. But even so, Thoth's story is very predictable. In other Busiek stories, an element of sci-fi species/culture discovery is incorporated that raises philosophical questions that really carry Conan's desire for exploration. This is a flat story with mostly flat characters.

The personal history of the greatest Priest/Sorcerer of the Hyborian Age. Very well written and a wonderful look at Stygia prior to the ressurection of the Cult of Set. The similarities between a Stygia ruled by Thoth-Amon and set and the various dictatorhips of our own century (Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany, Tojo Japan, Pol Pot Kampuchea) are shocking. Its saddening there are so many real world horrors to sample from when creating a book like this.

Very nice art, worth to see Kelly Jones in one more book! You should see it.

Wow this really sucked the big one!

Terrible art, terrible colouring but with art this bad could you colour it well? Hmm...

Kelly Jones - where do I start. He can't draw people, can't draw buildings, can't draw landscapes, doesn't understand perspective and makes up architectural details. He should go buy a book on ancient buildings or something and i don't want to hear rubbish about mythical lands that don't have an established architectural history. Please that's just an excuse for being lazy! Perhaps he has drawn better elsewhere but here his art is really sub standard, according to me anyway.

As for the story it's all over the place and I didn't really care about any of the characters. With a good book I will read it several times just enjoying the skill and detail - not this one. I struggled to the end and never wanted to look at it again.

In a word terrible. Do your self a favour and look at the previews before you buy. Follow your instincts, i wish I had.