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Post by johnnypt on Aug 9, 2020 6:59:52 GMT -5
That was probably the main idea, try to do something to ramp up interest. When they couldn't sustain that, they swung the other direction. The numbers were up for a little while and the accolades were unanimous across the 'net. Then the readers gave their final opinion when sales plummeted and never really recovered. Damn shame the title took a nose-dive; Dark Horse were producing some of the best Conan comics with Blood In His Wake and The Devil In Iron, i really don't understand why those runs didn't pull the comic out of it's plummeting sales. They were good but not good enough to bring anyone other than us die hards back. You had a year of Road of Kings which was so so. Then two years of Wood's run, then two years of Conan the Avenger where you had a good artist in Brian Ching not doing his best work despite Van Lente's writing back on solid ground. By the time you get to Conan the Slayer where both writing and art were back in a good place, it was way too late. The main title wasn't selling, the Marvel era trades weren't selling like they used to, it was practically inevitable the only thing to revive the character was a return to Marvel.
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Post by danieljames495 on Aug 9, 2020 22:16:56 GMT -5
I've said this before, Brian Ching has exceptional talent but his work on Conan the Avenger left lot to be desired. Most of his characters looked like stick figures and hardly any effort was put into facial expressions. I absolutely loved Van Lente's writing and Ching's atmosphere was exceptional but his overall art quality on that specific title wasn't up to par.
DH got the writing together with Conan the Avenger and got both writing and art back by Conan the slayer but everything after Truman and Giorello's Iron Shadows adaptation couldn't, in my opinion, live up to the expectations Conan the Cimmerian created.
That being said, being a Conan fan, having gaps in my collection is very unsatisfying and although I may criticize, I'd still buy these comics but with consideration of my money. But should Truman and Giorello do even just a one-shot I'd buy it without hesitating. There were a few adaptations that I'm pretty sure DH would've done a phenomenal job on but they just didn't get to it.
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Post by theironshadow on Aug 12, 2020 5:20:07 GMT -5
Brian Ching's work on Conan is arguably his worst i have seen in his portfolio; it really looked like named artist Ian Gibson on his absolutely worst day; i've been re-reading A Witch Shall Be Born and the book is made worse by having Jose Luis and Andy Owens art grace the tale in the second issue to show how poor Ching's 'chicken scratching work' really is.
Sometimes (as someone who works in Post Production) i'm as equally about the process of a creative endeavor as much as the actual source itself, and i wonder why Ching was allowed to produce art that was so poor. Perhaps Dark Horse offered him a fee, he submitted some of his most basic stuff, and DH accepted...
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Post by danieljames495 on Aug 12, 2020 12:20:34 GMT -5
Brian Ching's work on Conan is arguably his worst i have seen in his portfolio; it really looked like named artist Ian Gibson on his absolutely worst day; i've been re-reading A Witch Shall Be Born and the book is made worse by having Jose Luis and Andy Owens art grace the tale in the second issue to show how poor Ching's 'chicken scratching work' really is. Sometimes (as someone who works in Post Production) i'm as equally about the process of a creative endeavor as much as the actual source itself, and i wonder why Ching was allowed to produce art that was so poor. Perhaps Dark Horse offered him a fee, he submitted some of his most basic stuff, and DH accepted... I feel so too. I think Ching's art was a reflection of what he was being paid. Conan's face was just lines and scratches and he basically had one expression throughout the entire run (Well, those issues that Brian Ching drew). The only thing that kept me reading would be Van Lente's writing (Also maybe the fact that I wanted to complete reading my Dark Horse Conan run).
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Post by theironshadow on Aug 13, 2020 5:14:12 GMT -5
Brian Ching's work on Conan is arguably his worst i have seen in his portfolio; it really looked like named artist Ian Gibson on his absolutely worst day; i've been re-reading A Witch Shall Be Born and the book is made worse by having Jose Luis and Andy Owens art grace the tale in the second issue to show how poor Ching's 'chicken scratching work' really is. Sometimes (as someone who works in Post Production) i'm as equally about the process of a creative endeavor as much as the actual source itself, and i wonder why Ching was allowed to produce art that was so poor. Perhaps Dark Horse offered him a fee, he submitted some of his most basic stuff, and DH accepted... I feel so too. I think Ching's art was a reflection of what he was being paid. Conan's face was just lines and scratches and he basically had one expression throughout the entire run (Well, those issues that Brian Ching drew). The only thing that kept me reading would be Van Lente's writing (Also maybe the fact that I wanted to complete reading my Dark Horse Conan run). If Dark Horse were satisfied with what Ching was producing, and those issues contributed to the cancellation of the title, then that blame rests squarely at the feet of DH. I can see where Dark Horse tried to pull the comic out of it's nose dive, namely with Blood In His Wake etc, and i'm not going to knock Sergio Davila, his art was quite excellent.
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Post by boboldman on Jul 26, 2021 15:10:15 GMT -5
I just wanted to dig this thread up to say what an absolute chore it was trying to get thru the end of the Dark Horse "Queen of the Black Coast" adaptation. I had stopped getting it at issue 15, and it's taken me years to get around to collecting the rest of the series. I'm sure it has been dissected and analyzed by far more eloquent commentators, but this series was awful! It completely turned me off of Dark Horse's Conan. I got the most of the King Conan mini series and "People of the Black Circle", but that was it. My interest in Conan comics was dead until the license went back to Marvel. I've heard the writing gets better in "Avenger", but I can't get past the chicken-scratch art style.
Dark Horse went from publishing some of the best Conan comics to some of the absolute worst. I was not sad when they lost the license.
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Post by lordyam on Sept 19, 2021 17:54:47 GMT -5
Conan the Avenger and Conan the Slayer were good. The problem was it was a little too late.
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Post by danieljames495 on Sept 19, 2021 18:46:34 GMT -5
I was excited when I heard Marvel was getting the license to Conan again, I guess it's because I preferred the way they handled the character in the past. I was definitely hoping for a black and white title.
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Post by robp on Sept 20, 2021 6:13:43 GMT -5
I just wanted to dig this thread up to say what an absolute chore it was trying to get thru the end of the Dark Horse "Queen of the Black Coast" adaptation. I had stopped getting it at issue 15, and it's taken me years to get around to collecting the rest of the series. I'm sure it has been dissected and analyzed by far more eloquent commentators, but this series was awful! It completely turned me off of Dark Horse's Conan. I got the most of the King Conan mini series and "People of the Black Circle", but that was it. My interest in Conan comics was dead until the license went back to Marvel. I've heard the writing gets better in "Avenger", but I can't get past the chicken-scratch art style. Dark Horse went from publishing some of the best Conan comics to some of the absolute worst. I was not sad when they lost the license. Same here. The QOTBC was the perfect storm of dreadful art and dreadful stories. What were DH thinking? It's as thouhg, after those great early issues, they stopped caring. Were sales low, is that why they changed course? TBH the artwork in the new Marvel comics does little for me either, I don't think it stands comparisons even to some of the worse SSOC issues
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Post by danieljames495 on Sept 20, 2021 7:11:43 GMT -5
There were ups and downs in the QOTBC arc. They switched artists practically every 3 issues so it was inconsistent. To be fair some of the stories were like standard Conan but the bad stories were really bad.
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Post by terryallenuk on Sept 20, 2021 7:46:42 GMT -5
I just wanted to dig this thread up to say what an absolute chore it was trying to get thru the end of the Dark Horse "Queen of the Black Coast" adaptation. I had stopped getting it at issue 15, and it's taken me years to get around to collecting the rest of the series. I'm sure it has been dissected and analyzed by far more eloquent commentators, but this series was awful! It completely turned me off of Dark Horse's Conan. I got the most of the King Conan mini series and "People of the Black Circle", but that was it. My interest in Conan comics was dead until the license went back to Marvel. I've heard the writing gets better in "Avenger", but I can't get past the chicken-scratch art style. Dark Horse went from publishing some of the best Conan comics to some of the absolute worst. I was not sad when they lost the license. Same here. The QOTBC was the perfect storm of dreadful art and dreadful stories. What were DH thinking? It's as thouhg, after those great early issues, they stopped caring. Were sales low, is that why they changed course? TBH the artwork in the new Marvel comics does little for me either, I don't think it stands comparisons even to some of the worse SSOC issues The last issue prior to Woods , Conan Road of Kings , sold 10,727 copies.The first Wood issue of CtB sold 20,569 , the final issue #25 sold 10,736. So pretty well back to where it was when Roy's run ended.
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Post by johnnypt on Sept 20, 2021 8:19:13 GMT -5
What was even worse was low sales were the possible reason Tim & Tomas were moved over to King Conan. We ended up getting a great series of stories over there but it was at the price of the main series, can't see it any other way.
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Post by robp on Sept 20, 2021 8:25:15 GMT -5
The last issue prior to Woods , Conan Road of Kings , sold 10,727 copies.The first Wood issue of CtB sold 20,569 , the final issue #25 sold 10,736. So pretty well back to where it was when Roy's run ended. Thanks Terry. So were some Wood fans pulled into buying that run? If so, looks like they didn't stay long
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Post by terryallenuk on Sept 20, 2021 8:43:42 GMT -5
The last issue prior to Woods , Conan Road of Kings , sold 10,727 copies.The first Wood issue of CtB sold 20,569 , the final issue #25 sold 10,736. So pretty well back to where it was when Roy's run ended. Thanks Terry. So were some Wood fans pulled into buying that run? If so, looks like they didn't stay long Possibly , I was impressed with the first trade of Northlanders I borrowed from the library and thought he'd be a good fit but sadly I was wrong.
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Post by johnnypt on Sept 20, 2021 8:46:27 GMT -5
The last issue prior to Woods , Conan Road of Kings , sold 10,727 copies.The first Wood issue of CtB sold 20,569 , the final issue #25 sold 10,736. So pretty well back to where it was when Roy's run ended. Thanks Terry. So were some Wood fans pulled into buying that run? If so, looks like they didn't stay long The was the big excitement back then, they got a big name who thanks to his prior work, people thought would be a good fit (I typed this right as Terry was posting these very words!) Deuce's ill-fated offer of good will sent up red flags almost immediately. It became clear pretty soon that Wood fans and Conan fans were generally not the same.
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