For a lot of people their first encounter with Sword and Sorcery was Marvel’s Conan comics. This was not mine. I first encountered S&S reading Fritz Leiber’s novella Ill Met Lankhmar. (Though I may have seen the ‘80s Conan the Barbarian movie on TV before then.)

However, it is clear that Marvel’s Conan meant a lot to many people. I’ve read a little of it in trade paperback, but not much. I also need to read more of Kurt Busiek’s run when the comic was at Dark Horse. Since then, the comic has gone back to Marvel and now to Titan comics. At the same time Ablaze has released the French adaptation under the title The Cimmerian.

The latter may be the best Conan comic I have read and the one I would recommend most to Howard purists. It is a straight adaptation of Howard’s stories with wonderful art.

Jim Zub’s Conan comics on the other hand are new stories. That’s fine since they mostly capture the flavor of Howard’s stories. Not perfectly since Howard was such a unique writer. The art is reminiscent of the original Marvel Conan run which has delighted fans of the original comics.

As I said, it mostly captures the flavor of Howard’s stories. The first story arc deals with Conan fighting a zombie plague. This isn’t really a Howardian plot, but it’s not a bad one. It involves Conan teaming up with Pict warrior woman to stop the zombies. There are some people who complain about Conan, a Cimmerian, allying himself with a Pict because in Howard’s world they were hereditary enemies. I see their point, but many of Howard’s stories involved enemies becoming allies. In “The Gods of Bal Sagoth,” Turlogh O’Brien allies with a Viking raider despite his hatred of the same. Several of Howard’s Crusader stories involve a Crusader allying with a Moslem warrior. I tend to think it is completely appropriate for Conan to ally with a Pict. Conan and the Pict ally a bit too swiftly and smoothly but it is a four issue comic arc.

There are some people who complain about the Pict being a warrior woman. In our current cultural climate it probably is mandatory to have a warrior woman in a Conan comic. However, it is also has precedent in Howard’s work. If it bothers you maybe don’t read the comic or “Red Nails” or Sword Woman or “The Shadow of the Vulture.” (To be fair, Howard’s warrior women always seemed more nuanced then what you get in Hollywood today.)

The second arc, which is still on going as I write this, follows Conan after the death of Bêlit. He’s understandably in one of his “gigantic melancholies” and working as a thief in order to buy drinking money. He’s hired to steal an item from the temple. Things make an interesting turn when the item turns out to be related to the zombie plague of the first arc.

Titan also has reestablished The Savage Sword of Conan. While only the first issue is out it is off to a promising start. It contains two comic stories. The first by John Arcudi involves Conan working as a mercenary. There’s a mandatory warrior-woman in it, but what’s interesting about her is that she is hired for her ability to build siege engines. You don’t see many siege engines in Sword and Sorcery. Or weirdly in Epic Fantasy, despite them playing an important part in ancient and medieval warfare. Also it has Conan fighting dinosaurs.

It is followed by a Conan text piece and the first part of a Solomon Kane story. I will be picking up the second issue.

Not Conan, but undoubtedly influenced by Howard is the comic Barbaric by Michael Moreci. It follows the barbarian Owen who is under a geas to fight evil wherever he comes upon it despite not really wanting to. Owen wields a cursed axe that talks to him. He soon teams with a young sorceress to battle vampires. Later stories introduce more characters and an ongoing plot which might move it more Epic Fantasy directions. The series has very modern dialogue (with a lot of f-bombs) but this is used to comic effect. It is a parody, but one with serious storylines and surprising good characterization. It’s a romp.