The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: Conan the Barbarian
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Conan has another dalliance, this time as consort to a queen. It doesn’t turn out so well for him—well, he gets in trouble because of her fetching handmaid as well. At least in the queen’s perspective. To Conan, he’s getting weary of women. The sex is so obvious, I was a little surprised to see…
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Windsor-Smith has this amazing close-up of Conan during a fight with an ape (the ape has gone amok, the pet of Conan’s target). There’s still the significant nose problem, but the panel just looks so great it’s hard to believe Windsor-Smith didn’t think maybe drawing a reasonable nose was in order. Thomas continues the previous…
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Oh, the noses. Why, oh why, can’t Windsor-Smith get noses right? He didn’t start out having problems with them. It must have been some kind of weird creative decision to draw bad noses. I don’t see how any of the characters gets enough air to breath. Otherwise, he does a good job with the issue.…
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So, The Garden of Fear–Howard’s original story this issue is based on–did come out after Burroughs’s Out of Time’s Abyss. They feature a very similar evil winged race of men… though with different motives for kidnapping women. That possible “homage” of source material aside–and Windsor-Smith’s continually weak noses and prominent brows–this issue is excellent. It…
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How sweet, Conan ends the issue with a girl on his arm. Well, actually, they’re on horseback fleeing for their lives, but it’s the first time he’s gone off with anyone else and the first girl to be around for the last page. Windsor-Smith is doing something bad with the noses. It’s not the inkers.…
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The art this issue is a mess. Buscema and Adkins each hurriedly handled a half of the book. I assume Windsor-Smith was speeding along too because the result is people with huge eyes and minuscule noses. Sometimes it looks like Conan’s face is off-center on his head. It’s an ugly issue, which is too bad.…
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Thomas is really bad about following a story with something very similar but not exactly alike. This issue Conan has to rescue a girl from a tower, a tower where there’s something mysterious going on. Thomas doesn’t come up with anything awesome like a flying elephant from outer space, just a giant bat. Sure, it’s…
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This issue’s based on a Howard poem; it’s hard to say how much Thomas added on his own without reading the poem. It seems like he includes it at one point and, if he does, he added a lot. Thomas’s approach is a little different than before–five issues in, the series doesn’t have a consistent…
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Well, Thomas avoids falling into the trap of predictable plot developments this issue. He’s adapting Howard’s The Tower of the Elephant, which gives the issue a somewhat different Conan than usual. As opposed to being a really active force in the story, Conan’s more an explorer here. Yes, at the end he’s responsible for bringing…
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Thomas runs into a not insignificant problem this issue. Though the details are different, he has a lot of the same dramatics he used in the previous issue, especially when it comes to Conan’s friend and Conan’s friend’s wife. Having the same plot point in both issues… Thomas isn’t just making the series predictable, he’s…
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It’s another issue where Thomas has a short present action (here a couple days) and makes it a full read. Well, actually, a couple days is only a short present action in the seventies and eighties. Anyway… this issue Conan gets taken into bondage by some giants. Windsor-Smith draws them sort of as abominable snowmen.…
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Thomas and Windsor-Smith are off to a great start. Windsor-Smith’s art is, of course, not as finished as he’s become, but he does have some amazing panels. Oddly, when he’s at his lesser, he resembles an unintentional Mike Ploog (especially in the faces—but sharp compared to Ploog’s roundedness). It’s very strange. The story introduces Conan…
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John Milius takes Conan the Barbarian very seriously. The occasional use of slow motion and the endlessness of Basil Poledouris’s cheesy score signal Milius’s dedication. So do the long and frequent sequences of shirtless Arnold Schwarzenegger playing with big swords. At the beginning of the film, when it’s the prologue and Milius strange approach actually…
The Stop Button 