Comics I Bought: September 12, 2008

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got 2 new comics:

Ex Machina - 38

Love and Rockets "New Stories" - 1

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

Conan Volume 5 "Rogues in the House and Other Stories" by Tim Truman and Cary Nord

This is the final volume of Dark Horse's tales from Conan's youth. After this they start up the tales of Conan's adulthood. So this volume is the last of Conan the thief before he becomes Conan the warrior.

I think this may be the weakest volume of Dark Horse's Conan revival. The story starts out slow and kind of dull. It picks up and gets better as the book goes on but the beginning may put people off. Once we get to the "Conan getting revenge" part things start to happen but even the beginning of that part is predictable.

The main problem I have with this volume is the art. The penciler, Cory Nord, looks like he was rushed or tired of doing Conan. His art is nowhere near as lush as it was in previous volumes. He hardly drew a background throughout this whole book. There is page after page of Conan and friends in front of blank walls. There is hardly any setting of the scene.

The colorist/digital painter, Richard Isanove, is doing his best to bring the artwork to life and, at times, pulls it off well but there is not always a lot to work with. I've liked Cary Nord's work in the other volumes but there is obviously something wrong here. It's not horrible just thin at creating time and place.

The end of the book when we get into the "Rogues" story is the best and most interesting part. If the rest were this good I would be much happier with this volume. All in all if you are a Conan fan there is no reason not to pick this up but if you are a casual fan one of the other volumes might do you better. Volume 0 "Born on the Battlefield" is my favorite.