talyseon's Full Review: Conan: Born on the Battlefield
Conan: Born on the Battlefield by Kurt Busiek, art by Greg Ruth. From the Works of Robert E. Howard.
This graphic novel tells the tale of Conan's early life and loves, and the lessons he learned on the battlefields of cruel Cimmeria.
The tale starts in the far future, where Conan exists only as history and legend, but the Sultan of the kingdom, intrigued with a statue of Conan, orders his vizier to research the legend and tell him the tale; this is the story the Vizier tells...
"Know, O Prince that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars....but the proudest kingdom in the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan the Cimmerian, black haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet."
The tale encompasses Conan's early loves, the politics and traditions that make life possible amongst the fractious and dangerous Cimmerians, and the forces that drew the future king form his cliff circled home, and out into the broader world.
The volume collects issues #8, 15, 23, 32, 45, and 46. This works well, since it puts the various chapters into a coherent order, and forms a more or less single story arch. Also, except for the original story of the Sultan and his vizier, the tale is told in the art of Greg Ruth. Ruth's art is like a series of water colours and rather good ones as well, with a pastel neutral pallet, realistically depicting the barren cool climes of Cimmeria, only deepening in colour as blood is spilled on the battle field. While more stylized than most of the art of the series, it still is deeply moving, realistic, and lovely art, and conveys the story well. One thing you can say about Dark Horse, they don't just throw the art at the first warm body that can hold a pen in their left foot; they tend to allow a writing and art team to work together, and this one works very well.
Kurt Busiek is the driving force behind the series; his writing style is a true pastiche of the late great Robert E. Howard, cleaned and polished to fit the art form of the graphic novel. He gets the scope and grandeur of the original work, wedded to the earthy grime, grease, and various bodily fluids that makes Howard a cut above other fantasy writers. His plots are tight, move with a lightly tripping speed, neither hide bound nor random, sprinkling in pitfalls and setbacks with a measured hand, making them logical, not random, but also not over working them, setting in too much back-story.
So read of days of high adventure.
Like Conan, this review is Lean-N-Mean weighing in at a fighting weight of 500 words.
Writer Kurt Busiek and artist Greg Ruth team up to give you the story of Conan s early life, from his birth on a Cimmerian battlefield to his coming-o...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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