Conan the Barbarian #10:The Death

Navigating love from infatuation to a mature devotion reveals itself trickier than plundering the port-side docks of Argos.

Conan the Barbarian issue 10 begins a new story arc beneath the pen (or keyboard, depending on how the author composes) and kinder arms than Crom’s welcome the artwork of Declan Shalvey. This story, entitled "The Death," takes place after Bêlit and Conan’s return from Cimmeria. A terse overview is provided of life aboard ship, a deck party is thrown, an oracle consulted, fornication transpires, a ship with a lone sailor spotted, and the issue ends with the aforementioned lone sailor dead and bloody upon the deck of his ship. Despite slaughter, pirating, and sailing, all tehse factors seem McGuffins to stronger pulse of the story, an exploration of the evolving love between Conan and Bêlit. Issue #5 exposed readers to the concerns and worry of Conan with his regards to Bêlit. Now, issue #10 lets readers peek upon Bêlit’s concerns regarding Conan.

“Devotion” is the first word the narrator casts to the reader. A concept explored, at least in some part…or actively ignored, by those even brushing love marginally. At the outskirts of ennui Bêlit gives a partial response upon her devotion to the sea and Conan: “N’Yaga, I am bored. And, I fear Conan grows restless.” This prompt, this unappreciated contentment, leads Bêlit to consult the counsel of whatever forces N’Yaga congresses, and churns up The Death.

Bêlit’s boredom involves a reputation so fierce that most ships, spying the Tigress, surrender without a fight. She has a fit sailing vessel, a loyal crew, a strong and sympathetic lover, and she’s not in Cimmeria (always a cause for joy), but atop the waves of tropical climates. In a certain aspect she has a piratical life of piratical heaven, perfection. But anyone who has ever read Book 3 of Paradise Lost, knows that perfection, heaven, is rather dull, and starts longing for a return to the flames that cast darkness and the fiery revolutionary defiant liberty-laden speeches of Satan in Book 2. Bêlit, like Milton (if Blake is to be believed) is also of the Devil’s party. Boredom burgeons her longing for strife, conflict, for something interesting to happen.

“And, I fear Conan grows restless.”

While longing for action, Bêlit also still longs for Conan and tries, inaccurately, to read the mind of her lover (how many of us, oh dear readers, have acted in a similar manner?). It’s not only her boredom she fears, but Conan’s boredom as well. Why would Bêlit, who has been so strong and confident and fatalistic ever since she first appeared, suddenly begin to concern herself with such the restlessness of Conan? And if so, why wouldn’t she just ask Conan if he is restless? Such straightforward questions doesn’t always provide truthful answers, whether from deceit or a fear of harming feelings. The narrator notes “Bêlit’s fears were largely unfounded. Conan the Cimmerian was a happy man. The novelty of a seafarer’s life had not left him, and neither had the repetition—both of action and of diet—worn him down.”

Bêlit, as she has been for most of the story arc, is a ship’s length ahead of Conan. Novelty turns to familiarity, and a diet, no matter how tasty, eventually becomes ashen. Bêlit knows what is coming Conan, for she herself has reached it, and she seeks to push beyond that place where all of one’s dreams have come true. For while seductive, Bêlit knows that such stasis slays one’s soul.

Thus The Death is stirred.

The Death.

Perhaps Wood’s story isn’t just applicable to human love, but the love readers possess for Conan tales. How many times can one read an adaptation of a REH story before becoming bored? How many extrapolations can one read about a reaver, a slayer full of gigantic mirth and gigantic melancholy before becoming restless? Why does almost every interpretation of Conan seem the same as each previous interpretation?

The Death?

In his series, Wood seems to be attempting to give readers some different focus on Conan (certainly Wood isn’t unique in this attempt). Conan, like his franchise, is strong, and primal and can carry multiple interpretation and variations and contradiction is his legends. And what if the Conan continuity should contradict itself? Very well then, it contradicts itself. And still, the character survives.

Bêlit and Conan face a new challenge, one unwelcome, even though sought. It is a challenge of plague and trust and command and survival. It will grow and strengthen their relation, give them another plateau from which to launch their love to a different place in order to preserve it. As for the ultimate success of this series...well, readers are encouraged to consult the seer N'Yaga....

Double Creature Feature

Prophet #30 and the 2012 Swamp Thing Annual conclude October's single comic-book page examination. From a month of focusing on a page per review, the largest realization turned out to be how color functioned to move the eye through the left-to-right reading pattern. In the two books under examination this week, red continues this tradition and ushers the eye from panel to panel.

Prophet #30, has a dark palette splashed with an arresting swatch of red. While unsure of the actual division of labor, story credits go to Brandon Graham with Iannis Milonogiannis and Simon Roy; art credits go to Giannis Milonogiannis and Brandon Graham; and color credits go to Joseph Bergin III, Giannis Milonogiannis and Brandon Graham.

The page is divided into three rectangular panels, the first two of equal size and the third of equal height, but the right wall of the rectangle stretches to the edge of the page. Each of the three larger panels contains smaller rectangular insets. The insets of the first two panels hover near the right margin of the page (with the first inset having a barb that snags the reader’s eye from the swimming Kakcrik and yanks it to the right of the panel). The next two insets (in the second panel) are stacked on top of one another, with the lower one skewed to the right, like a stair for the eye to descend to the third rectangle of panel three. The third panel’s inset is perched on the top left and breaks into the left margin, balancing out the break of its parent panel breaking the right margin. The inset in the third panel is the first of three steps; two text boxes complete the leading of the eye to the bottom of the page. The inset panels, although small and shifty, help guide the eye from the top to the bottom and contain enough variation in placement and shape to contribute to the narrative’s advancement. 

The crimson head of Rein-East commands primary attention for this page. The red is softly muted by the illuminated tan background, (ironic that the interior of the Kakcrik serves as the brightest environment on the page) and the slices of red on the back of Rein-East’s hands along with a maroon eye stone move the eye from left to right and down. This bright panel snuggles between the two darker panels, which maintains the page’s balance, as well as giving a dramatic introduction of the orphan assassin Rein-East.

The second, but by no means lesser creature, of our double feature is page 15 of the 2012 Swamp Thing Annual written by Scott Snyder and Scott Tuft, art by Becky Cloonan, framing sequences by Andy Belanger (pencils) and Karl Kerschl (inks) while Tony Avina colored the pages. 

Page 15 holds three rectangular panels set atop the background showing Alec Holland introducing himself to Abigail Arcane, with each of their respective avatars (the green and the rot) showing in the background…a vine meets bone motif that is woven into the panel. Red, as in Prophet #30, guides the eye in a right-to-left crescent by the red of Abigail’s shirt that appears in the first and second panel and the bottom half of the page. 

In this coming together of opposites, Cloonan always keeps Alec Holland on the left and Abigail Arcane on the right (I don’t believe this placement involves any kind of political commentary) for the whole page. And while the page is balanced, nothing is perfectly centered, which causes the eye to never stall or become lodged in a rut or dead zone. 

In the first panel Alec stands to the far left, and Abigail stands just to the right of center. Panel two has Alec in the foreground and Abigail in the background. Panel three has Alec’s hand lower with Abigail’s hand raised. Not only does Cloonan keep the contents of panels from perfectly centered, but she keeps shifting the focus as well, zooming in and out.

The bottom section of the page synthesizes the top three panels. Here, Alec and Abigail are shaking hands (with nothing resting firmly on the pages central vertical axis). Alec’s hand remains closer to his waist, while Abigail’s arm is stretched out further. The demarcation line in the skull's nose cavity where vine meets bone is to the right of Alec and Abigail’s entwined hands. In the lowest section of the page, the hands of vines and bones grasp one another, but they’re to the right of Abigail and Alec’s hands in the panel above. The page balances well as the panels have been woven together resulting in finely designed and active comic book page.