‘Conan: The Hall of the Dead and other Stories’ – Kurt Busiek, Mike Mignola, Timothy Truman & Cary Nord (Dark Horse Books)

I’ll come straight out and say that my plans to read the Fantasy Masterworks editions of ‘Conan’ have rather hit a brick wall in the last few weeks (ok, ever since I said I was going to read them...) You’re not interested in all the details, trust me on this, lets just say that the whole ‘Conan’ reading project is still very much a work in progress... Thank Crom then for the Dark Horse collections! They may only be based on the original works but I’ve always thought that Conan was well suited to the comic book format and I’ve seen nothing to disprove that yet.

‘The Hall of the Dead’ made for some delicious holiday reading last week and will tide me over nicely until I get my act together and crack open the books themselves...

As a young man, Conan proved his worth as a thief in the narrow alleyways and tall towers of the City of Thieves. The one thing that he never learnt though was to curb his excesses and this led to him bringing unwanted attention both upon himself and the other thieves looking to make a living without being noticed...

Now Conan must escape the attentions of the City Guard as well as his fellow thieves. It looks like sanctuary might lie within a ruined temple just outside the city but Conan will find that this is where the true danger really lies...

Dark Horse have built up a more than decent reputation as purveyors of some gorgeous looking ‘Conan’ comics and ‘The Hall of the Dead’ does nothing but ensure that this reputation remains intact. Cary Nord’s artwork is such that I could spend ages looking at it before I remembered that there was a story to go with it. His backdrops are superb, carrying a dreamlike quality that cements this fantasy setting. When things kick off though, Nord shows that he is more than able to keep up with the pace, delivering action scenes that really capture what Conan is all about – derring do and a willingness to take on superior numbers armed with nothing but a sword and a whole load of attitude.

This all looks good on the page but what you can’t get away from is how simplistic the plot is. Conan constantly bounces from one danger to another and doesn’t do much else than that. In one sense that is the whole point of Conan I guess, the guy is a force of nature and will solve his problems in that manner. It’s worth mentioning though that while you can really immerse yourself in the setting, Conan himself doesn’t have that same depth to him. Depends what you want out of the story as a whole I guess.

earing this in mind then, how do the writers rise to the challenge of telling a story where the main character perhaps doesn’t carry the plot in all the ways that would really benefit the book as a whole? In the words of Mike Mignola (from the introduction)...

‘Robert E. Howard wrote only a two-page outline for ‘The Hall of the Dead’ but all the big stuff (ambush, lost city, living skeletons, snake in a bag) was already there. I just had to fill in the weird atmosphere and throw in some frogs.’

Howard has given the contributing writers the bones upon which to flesh the story out and they all do a fine job of filling in the gaps. Mignola’s take on ‘The Hall of the Dead’ is the stand out effort here; a great exercise in weirdness with a fearsome frog monster for Conan to take on. Nord’s artwork shows off the fight in the best possible way but it was Mignola who took Conan right into the belly of the beast and going off on that kind of tangent is what makes the story work so well.

Busiek’s opening chapters capture the spirit of Conan without necessarily expanding on it.; it’s all in keeping with the character himself but I couldn’t help but wonder if there was more tale to be told. Truman, on the other hand, delivers an exciting dose of action by taking the simple approach of filling in any gaps with more foes for Conan to vanquish. It may be a simple approach but is certainly effective.

Despite the odd niggle ‘The Hall of the Dead’ has a lot going for it and was a great way to idle away a few hours last week. Now, onto the books themselves...
Eight and a Half out of Ten