Thursday, 25 October 2012

Dark Horse Animates "Queen of the Black Coast"



This series just isn't for me. If it wasn't already clear in comic form, then it's clear as day in animated form, with its extremely young sounding Conan (my 13-year-old cousin has a deeper bass than whoever they got for this, and Conan's supposed to be in his 20s in this story) and somehow hearing Wood's prose and dialogue being spoken aloud makes it even more jarring considering how memorable Howard's actual opening was. And I'll never get over that ludicrous pier hop. For Crom's sake, guys.

On the plus side, if you keep drumming in that this is the equivalent of a Teen Romance version of Conan, it's not that bad. This is to Howard what Clueless was to Jane Austen, Cruel Intentions to Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, or Easy A to Nathaniel Hawthorne, though at least Wood didn't set it in a Hyborian Age High School. For some reason that makes it a lot more palateable to me.

Which, again, cuts into the main thing: this isn't REH's Conan, it's Brian Wood's Conan, just as Conan the Barbarian was John Milius' Conan. Treat it as such, and you'll probably enjoy it more.
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5 comments:

  1. M. D. Jackson25 October 2012 at 14:37

    Christ, I could take that Conan even without a boatload of scurvy sailors to back me up.

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  2. Anonymous25 October 2012 at 15:59

    Is Dark Horse trying to drive me away entirely?

    I will not buy into this abomination they are masquerading as Queen of the Back Coast, but I was planning to buy the Phoenix on the Sword Trade and would have gotten the Hour of the Dragon but now I really just want to walk away from Dark Horse entirely. I may still buy the good stuff, but they are really making me think twice about it.

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  3. Andy25 October 2012 at 18:25

    I don't think Dark Horse at this point has much if any interest in being accurate to Howard's work. They're very much in a "play against type" phase, which is presumably why we're they're serving this boy-toy Conan to "casual" fans that probably were proudly ignorant of the character beforehand.

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  4. Anonymous25 October 2012 at 19:46

    A very appropriate video.

    I will not buy this as I don't like it. Although I wouldn't mind if some the actual adaptations would get their motion comic versions. When it comes to comics I'm mostly now anxiously waiting for the coming THotD adaption by Truman/Giorello.

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  5. Michal26 October 2012 at 00:19

    My God, that voice. That's supposed to be CONAN'S voice?

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