Chronicles of Conan Volume 1: Tower of the Elephant and Other Stories

These comics really bring back some great memories to me. The great stories, notably REH embellished by Roy Thomas are great. But largely, it is the line artwork which is just terrific. Conan, as written then, was slightly amoral, no superhero, he fought to survive in his brutal world. I notice that there are some comments on the flat colours in this reprint. I never saw a complete set of these before and don't have the earlier comics for comparison. But just taking this volume as it is, it is absolutely entertaining.

Yes, this was an earlier book called Conan Chronicles. A nice compilation of Conan, Conan of Cimmeria, and Conan the Freebooter. The first three Lancer Conan paperbacks put together by de Camp and Carter. A little bit higher quality I think, and the maps look better. This edition is from Sphere. Conan This compilation contains :- Howard's Letter to Miller The Hyborian Age This is not a story as such, but an account of the fictional history of Howard's world through the ages, to the time of Kull and Atlantis down to the entitled time when Conan ran amok. Quite nicely done. 4 out of 5 The Thing in the Crypt A young Conan has been fighting wolves, and they are still after him. He finds a door in a rock wall, but it leads him to an encounter with a skeletal mummy thing. He learns why DnD clerics use maces against the undead, and manages to get out of there. 3 out of 5 The Tower of the Elephant Conan is in thieving mode here. In a tavern, he is asking the assembled crowd of nogoodniks why no-one has stolen a famous jewel from this tower. They tell him because it is guarded by some very nasty things. He, of course, investigates, and meets a master thief attempting the same thing. Humans, animals, a giant spider and a wizard are to be encountered, not to mention an alien. 3.5 out of 5 The Hall of the Dead De Camp completed this from an outline of Howard's that was found. Conan has left Shadrizar to look for the treasure of Larsha, and a squad of soldiers, out to arrest him for other larceny are on his trail. He deals with most of them, but the leader, Nestor is not dead and follows him into the city, meeting him in the treasure room after he deals with a giant slug. They leave, quickly, when mummified warriors come to life and the building starts collapsing. Their loot is not too stable, and not enjoyed for long. 3 out of 5 The God in the Bowl Conan is indulging in a bit of thievery and is busted by the local constabulary, right near a dead body. Conan proclaims his innocence, which they find hard to believe, but are not going to fight him over it. Some digging reveals a local wastrel nobel is involved, up to ears in debt, but he ends up with a few problems with the God In the Bowl, of the mortal kind. When he orders Conan restrained, the constabulary lose a few body parts, and others more than that. 3 out of 5 Rogues in the House Conan is yet again in trouble because of drinking and wenching. A crime has gone wrong, and a woman he was with has betrayed him to the authorities. He is offered a way out, if he will kill a man. This man is Nabonidus, The Red Priest. The only problems involve breaking in, a huge hulking ape-man servant, and then The Red Priest himself and his powers. 3.5 out of 5 The Hand of Nergal Another story fleshed out from an outline. Conan is fighting as Turanian irregular cavalry when large mystical bat creatures attack the force he is fighting with. Their morale breaks, leav

For many years, there has been a push to return Robert E. Howard's Conan to his roots; meaning, get rid of all the modified tales from L. Sprague deCamp and others that were incorporated into the Lancer and Ace paperback Conan series, leaving us only with the original REH Conan. By doing this, however, we are left with only a handful of stories and fragments of questionable quality. Let's be honest: while REH was innovative and had an extremely active imagination, he was not the literary talent that many would have us believe. Plus, as there have been countless characters to imitate Conan, I feel that the involvement of other creators to flesh out this archetypal barbarian can only help Howard's legacy and should not be ignored. I grew up on the modified Conan stories, and I feel that they certainly help to present Conan as a more complete and accessible character. Others must have felt this way as well, for as a result, Conan and other REH characters were propelled into paperbacks and other media, including comics.What I'm getting at is, by pretending that the modifications never happened, everything inspired by them stands a good chance of never being reprinted. I was quite suprised and happy, therefore, upon hearing that Dark Horse Comics received the rights to reprint Roy Thomas' & Barry Smith's Conan tales, originally done for Marvel in the '70s. This is some beautiful work from both creators. Be warned, however, that the artwork contained within is faux-Kirby from plain old "Barry Smith", not the pre-raphaelite renderings of "Barry WINDSOR Smith". You won't see BWS' artistic transition until the last couple of issues, to be reprinted in the third Dark Horse volume. There are a few REH tales here, plus some pastiches, but all serve to present Conan as an individual instead of just another brute with a sword. This first volume reprints #1-8 in full color on bright glossy paper, with restored and recolored art. It is unfortunate that more issues couldn't be included in this volume, but for Smith's art, I would prefer to spend more money for less stories in color than a black-and-white reprint ala Marvel's Essentials.

Barry Windsor-Smith is my favorite comic book artist. Even though I have been selling off a lot of my old Marvel comic books, if Windsor-Smith drew the issue or just the cover, then that comic is a keeper. The irony is that when he drew his first comic book for Marvel comics, literally drawing his pages on park benches in Central Park, we all though he was the worst artist in the history of the world. But as you can see in "Tower of the Elephant and Other Stories," the first volume in "The Chronicles of Conan," in which Dark Horse reprints the first eight issues of Marvel's "Conan the Barbarian," Barry Windsor-Smith was quickly developing one of the most distinctive drawing styles in the history of comic books. The key in these first eight issues of "Conan the Barbarian" are when Thomas and Windsor-Smith work from some of Robert E. Howard's original stories. Issue #4, "Tower of the Elephant" is prominent in the title of this collection because it is the first classic "Conan" comic book, but the adaptations of "The Grey God Passes" (#3), the poem "Zuakal's Hour" (#5), "The God in the Bowl" (#7), and a synopsis by Howard that Thomas uncovered (#8), were all crucial in helping the team find their voice and look in these comics. Just as the writing by Thomas becomes more than standard comic book fare, so does the artwork by Windsor-Smith because more stylized. Sal Buscema's inking of Windsor-Smith's pencils clearly defines this period, but I like the pages done by Dan Atkins a little better. Frank Giacoia's inks were just too different, but the final story, inked by Tom Sutton and Tom Palmer, hints at what we would see when Windsor-Smith would ink himself (did I mention I have the splash page of issue #8 as a black light poster?).I have been happy to pick up the Marvel black and white reprint collections in the Essential series, but Conan is the exception to the rule. I do not want to take my comic books out of their bags, but with the remastered color of these comic books these reprints look a whole lot better than the originals. With its exotic locales, strange creatures, and gaudily dressed characters, "Conan" is a comic that especially benefits from remastered color. The results are extremely impressive.Both Thomas and Windsor-Smith continue to make great improvements over the next dozen issues of "Conan the Barbarian," so I look forward to Volume 2 of "the Chronicles of Conan." Hopefully Dark Horse can reprint Thomas and Windsor-Smith's black and white Conan stories that they did in "The Savage Sword of Conan," especially "Red Nails," the splash page of which I had blown up on a giant poster board and colored in myself. I treasure that almost as much as the Windsor-Smith print we have in our bedroom that is signed and enscribed with our names and the date we got married.

This book covers the first 8 stories by Roy Thomas and Barry Smith. There's a total of three books with all the "Conan - The Barbarian" 24 issues. The three volumes cover all the Barry Smith era with an EXCELLENT artwork. This book is a must have for every Conan fan.