Posts tagged becky cloonan

Conan - Then and Now

Yesterday, one of my co-workers brought me a big pile of comic books he had when he was a kid. It was a bunch of stuff from the early eighties - which I loved! I’ve collected comics my entire life, but the early eighties are where it really came to life for me.

The pile was mostly a bunch of old Iron Man comics (and a couple comic adaptations of the Condor Man Movie!!??!!). But there, in the middle of the pile, was one issue of Marvel’s Conan The Barbarian series.

Talk about your unfortunately named antagonists…

I was never that into Conan. The only Conan books I ever remember owning were a few issues of Conan The King - and that was because he had these ninja bodyguards that I thought were cool when I was a teenager.

I just recently started buying Darkhorse’s Conan series, though, because it’s being written by Brian Wood and drawn by Becky Cloonan, two of my favorite creators. Their first story arc on the book is a retelling of the Robert E. Howard short story, Queen Of The Black Coast.

The series is two issues in so far, and it’s awesome.

Flipping through the old issue of Conan The Barbarian from the 80’s I noticed a page that basically recapped everything we’ve seen in Wood and Cloonan’s new series so far. It was a very weird experience to really only be aware of one Conan story - and to suddenly see it popping up in two different places at once.

When I got home, later that day, I pulled out the Wood and Cloonan issues and made a side by side comparison with the Marvel Conan book. Observe:

Conan fleeing local authorities:

Conan being attacked by pirates:

Belit taking Conan as a mate:

I find this really cool. Serendipity! You can even see a little nod to the 80’s issue in the costume Cloonan gave Conan in those first two panels!

No doubt there are some comic fans out there on the internet that would hold this up as the evils of decompression in comics - that would be stupid, though, because one is a quick recap in the middle of a larger story - and one is a straight re-telling. Two completely different things. Did I just build a straw man and knock it down? Yeah, but I spent the early 90’s arguing on the internet and I’m still kind of paranoid.

But I digress… Comics are awesome.

Heroes Con 2011

Last weekend I jumped in the car and drove six hours to Charlotte, North Carolina for a comic book convention called Heroes Con. I’ve been to a couple of comic book conventions, but not for several years, and never to Heroes Con.

I went, specifically, so I could mark one more name off my “People I Want To Meet” list; namely, comic book writer, Matt Fraction:

Fraction was really nice. We got to talk for a few minutes about Grant Morrison, Casanova, and The Mountain Goats. I asked if I could get a picture with him and he said, “Yeah. Okay, I’m gonna slurp on my coke and pretend to eyeball you.” Which he did. I got the kid in line behind me to take the picture. In hindsight, I should have given him a little tutorial on my camera first:

I also got Fraction to sign my Casanova: Luxuria hardcover:

I got a chance to do some other neat stuff while I was there. I bought a mini-comic from Becky Cloonan that’s only available at cons right now. I got to watch comics legend, Michael Golden, sketch a picture of Batman, and I got to basically walk around for four or five hours immersed in a hobby that I love.

My haul for the weekend included two of Stuart Immonen’s sketchbooks, a Paul Pope mini-comic, and the aforementioned Becky Cloonan book, Wolves:

When I wasn’t at the con, I got to try some different restaurants, my favorite of which was a braised pork cheek sandwich with pickled vegetables from a farm to table place called Blue Harvest Grille. I also had some good soul food at a place called Merts, and some mediocre sushi at a place I won’t name.

It was a good trip, but probably my last con for a long while.

Heroes Con

Assuming gas isn’t at $11 a gallon, I’m gonna nerd it up in June and drive to North Carolina for a comic book convention.

Please take a moment to point and laugh. I’ll wait.

All done?

I’m working on a to-do list for the convention. I’ll be posting it here in bits and pieces as new opportunities and interest present themselves.

Here’s what I have so far.

1. Kill all of my wife’s sexual attraction to me.

2. Shake this man’s hand and thank him for Casanova, probably making a total fool of myself in the process:

3. Buy a copy of this lovely looking book directly from Becky Cloonan:

4. Film a little.

Okay, that’s what I got so far. More to come as I peruse the Heroes Con website.