Reading

So, I failed to make yesterday's mart. I woke up late, looked at the mountains of unread back issues surrounding me, and decided that I REALLY didn't need to be buying any more tat. There's always next month, eh?

Instead of traipsing down to the Royal National, I relaxed with my latest ebay purchase, Annihilation. I've been meaning to read it for a couple of years now, and finally scored the trades for a very low price. Just finished up the first installment, and it's different gravy. Abnett & Lanning get massive props for their work on Marvel's cosmic line, and I enjoyed their Nova issues a lot. But for me, the shining star of that first volume is Keith Giffen. The Drax The Destroyer story is off the hook! Alien desperadoes pitching up in a smalltown America and terrorising the good folk therein. A lone, flawed hero coming to the rescue. This was classic Western stuff set to a cosmic beat. The ending was a bit of a let-down, but you can't blame Giffen for that, he had to tie the mini into the wider Annihilation story so we were never going to get a completely satisfactory resolution. Still, overall this was top stuff and I expect I'll gobble up the remaining two trades in super quick time.

Other than that, I enjoyed Darrick Robertson's Conan one-shot The Weight of the Crown quite a bit. It was an interesting look at the flaws in Conan's character, (basically he's into birds, booze and fighting to the detriment of everything else), with some lovely looking battle scenes to geek out over. I'll always pick up Conan comics, cos I love a bit of the old barbarian action, so I do. But I still really, really want to see Conan drawn as Arnie. I think it would work, sort of along the same lines as Gary Frank who draws Superman as Christopher Reeve. For me Arnie is as much Conan as Reeve is Superman. Someone make it happen.

Briefly

Hey-ho imaginary web chums! Been doing tons of reading and not much 'putering. There's also lots of family stuff going on so, you know, writing streams of unimportant bilge about men in leotards has had to take a back seat for a few days.

Real life eh? Wank isn't it?

Hopefully I'll get a bit of time to write some stuff tomorrow. In the meantime here's a picture of Conan saying bollocks...

Magic!

Scan from Conan The Cimmerian #16 (November 2009)

Sometimes...

...I just HAVE to listen to the extended version of The Anvil of Crom

What is best in life?

I really like this blog

Good on that man!

Contact lenses of the stars

London Loves Comics has already brought you Swastika contacts...

and Green Lantern contacts...

Now be the envy of all your chums with these fabulous new Conan contacts...

THEY CALL ME MR CROMTASTIC!

It's Monday!

Let Conan's grandad ease you into the start of the working week...

This depressing reminder was brought to you by His Imperial Majesty Richard Corben and can be enjoyed in context within the pages of Conan The Cimmerian #5

Quick stuff

• Why isn't EC Archives Weird Science vol 3 available on Amazon or The Book Depository? It's been in the comic shops for a few weeks but no sign online. Please don't tell me that the big e book sellers have given up on Gemstone! I can't be paying full price for my EC Archives.
• Conan the Cimmerian #1 is a fantastic comic. Not only has it got a variant cover by Joe Kubert (drawing Conan for the first time by the way) it's got interiors by the legendary Richard Corben, who draws a fantastic story about Conan's bad-ass grandad! My favourite single issue in ages. Well worth a look.
• IFanboy have a decent little promotion going on with Emusic.com. Simply follow THIS LINK sign up and get 50 free downloads. You have to give your credit/debit card details, but you can cancel your subscription as soon as you've downloaded your 50 freebies. The site doesn't have the most extensive of catalogues, but there's enough on there to keep most people happy. You don't have to download the Ifanboy playlist by the way.
  

Sex and violence

If nothing else the title of this post should guarantee a few more hits for this blog. I'll need them if I'm to review Method Man's exciting new comic!

The rapper's publicist contacted LLC to see if I'd give the book a look. Naturally I said I'd love to. Method's PA then asked me,

"Would you happen to know your site's monthly uniques?"

To which I replied,

"Err, I think my mum looks from time to time. Then there's my friend Ben and the bloke who works at my local comic shop. Will that do?"

I haven't heard back. But I'm confident that the former Wu Tang Clan man will be blessing me with his sequential debut very soon. In the meantime I'm planning on inserting random words like blowjob and pissflaps into my posts to boost hits!

LLC ain't nothing to fuck with!

While I wait for my review copy of Method's opus, I've been contenting myself with more conventional spandex based shenanigans. Finished Bullet Points, which was totally worth it for the climactic battle with Galactus. That Tommy Lee Edwards feller can draw the bejiminy out of superheroes. His art makes Bullet Points worth a look, although the Staczynski story feels overly contrived.

I'm having similar thoughts about Wonder Woman at the moment. The latest arc has left me cold story wise, but Aaron Lopresti's art is top drawer. Usually I'm a story first art second sort of person, but sometimes the pictures are so good that they make up for an average script. Having said that, I've enjoyed Simone's previous couple of WW stories, so I'm not about to desert the title just because the last one was a bit of a duffer.

Enjoyed Conan The Cimmerian #0 so I'll be picking up number #1 this week. I read most of the previous Dark Horse series as it came out. Good stuff which did a stand-up job of adapting Howard's stories. I'm all for that and everything, but it would be nice to see a bit more of the Arnie spirit in the new run. Conan was on the telly last night, hadn't seen it for a while and had forgotten what a fine film it is. This moment in particular deserves a comic book adaptation...



llama fucking followed by camel punching! Now that's what I want from my barbarian books!

Ask a stupid question...

Yes.

via Superdickery

What If? #43

While I was getting my week's stash I overheard two of the blokes at Orbital comics talking about some forthcoming Marvel/Dynamite team-up featuring Spider-Man and Red Sonja. They seemed to find the idea depressing, but super-hero/barbarian crossovers needn't necessarily be a bad thing. After all What If #43, which features a meeting between Conan and Captain America, is one of my favourite comics of all time.

Being the all-knowing comic shop staff that they are, the Orbital men were familiar with the tale and, even if they weren't wholly convinced by the sheer excellence of the story itself, they had to acknowledge that this Sienkiewicz cover is a barnstormer.

I reckon it's one of the greatest covers ever. Nevertheless it would be a mistake to think that this comic's appeal ends with the cover, because believe me, whatever anyone else says, the story inside is a beauty.

It's a sequel to What If #13, a comic in which Conan finds himself stranded in 1970's New York by an evil sorcerer. He meets a nice looking female cabbie, bones her and then makes his escape back to the Hyperborean age by waving some ancient artifact or other in front of a bolt of lightning that hits the roof of the Guggenheim museum.

All well and good, but...what if Conan was jumped by a bunch of cops BEFORE the lightning hit him?

That's where What If #43 comes in...


Thus a mere 30 issues after Conan made a Back to the Future style return to Hyperborea, we find ourselves in a world where the Cimmerian swaps his lightning bolt home for a prison cell.

Of course Conan doesn't hang around in police custody for long and, after escaping the fuzz, he does what any barbarian on the run would do and heads straight for the red light district...

where he settles into a life of crime, rising up the underworld ladder in a manner reminiscent of Scarface...


Loaded with money, he turns his mind to the honey. Yes, all that robbing has got our man throbbing. Keen for another ride from the cabbie he made it with in What If #13, he sets out to impress her with the trappings of his new found wealth.

It's at this moment that we are presented with THE most incredible costume change in the HISTORY of Marvel comics...

Yes true believers that is Conan. Conan the pimpbarian to you.

Yes he's got a pink leopard on the end of that lead.

And yes, that does indeed make him the motherfucking BOMB!

Or at least I think so. Sadly his beeatch is less than impressed...

Say what?

Look again Ho...

The man's a player and a slayer.

And he's got a pink leopard.

But she doesn't want him, and in a sad move Conan ditches the threads (and the leopard) to concentrate on building his empire of crime. His first step is to get a crew together. Not just any crew either. He goes straight to the baddest gang leader in NYC.


Being a fair minded man, Conan offers his rival the chance to hand over the keys to his kingdom and take on a role as his number two. It's an offer that doesn't go down well...


"The strength of Africa" is no match for the "Fear from Ymir" though...



and soon Conan is commanding his very own awesome army...

Tough looking gang - apart from the blokes at either end who appear to have modelled their outfits on these two...

But I digress. This phase in Conan's life is almost as cool as his pink leopard period. He steals stuff, beats people up, gets a protection racket going and drinks lots of beer. It's a good living, but Conan wants MORE and sets up a daring raid on a museum.

To cut a long story short, the raid is going fine until a hitherto unseen and frankly rather camp member of Conan's gang accidentally smashes a display case with his scabbard...

...which sets off an alarm wired directly to Avengers Mansion thus alerting none other than...


Dropping his Cup 'o' Cap the Sentinel of Liberty hurries to the scene of the crime. And this is where What If provides the proof that barbarian/super hero crossovers can be cool. How? With a five page fight scene of course! And what a fight it is. A fight where Cap punches


and kicks Conan


until the barbarian's head "rings like an iron bell"


BUT HE STANDS!

And he punches back, and when the punching doesn't work, he grabs a fucking huge sword and hacks off Cap's arm!

Well OK, he doesn't actually hack it off but he does make a bloody great mess of it. That's enough to end the fight and allow Conan and his gang to escape the museum leaving the wounded Cap to deal with some uncomfortable stirrings.


Conan can't get their testosterone fueled romp out of his head either and is soon sending word that he wants another tussle with the now healed Cap. Everything seems set for round two...

Sadly the cops and Conan's gang both show up unannounced and in the ensuing melee Conan's number two gets shot


The cop pulls the trigger, but...


Wait! Did Captain America just ask Conan to join the Avengers? I think he did. How fantastic would that be?

As far as I know it's a story yet to be told, but The Watcher (who handles these things) says he may tell it one day.

I say Marvel let him tell the tale! If they can do Spidey/Red Sonja then I don't see why they can't get the Avengers and Conan together. If it's half as good as What If #43 it's worth doing.