by Cliff Biggers

Dark Horse's reprinting of the Roy Thomas/Barry Windsor-Smith Conan is just the first wave in a Conan comic shop invasion that launches in 2003. The publisher is also launching a line of Conan mini-busts, to be followed up by-and here's the best news of all-a new Conan comic book series later this year.

Dark Horse's Conan sculpture line kicks off with Conan the Slayer, an 8" sculpt by Jeffery Scott depicting the Cimmerian warrior in his prime. "Jeffery really understood the essence of Conan," Dark Horse Comics' product development head David Scroggy said, "and was able to convey the almost feral sensibility that marks this character as a protagonist like no other. He is like the face of death-coiled like a wildcat and ready to spring!" Dark Horse plans to follow this September release with a full line of busts depicting the barbarian at other stages in his life.

And of course, following that will be the first issue of Dark Horse's new Conan series, written by Kurt Busiek with art by Cary Nord. Busiek offered up a few details of what readers will find in the new ongoing series. "We're starting off with the young Conan, just after he leaves Cimmeria and heads out to explore the civilized lands. We'll be following him through his varied and violent career, as a thief, a mercenary, a soldier, a pirate and more. With any luck, I'll be writing the series all the way until he becomes King of Aquilonia, and beyond.

"We'll be staying very faithful to Conan's 'history' as depicted by Robert E. Howard-adapting the Howard stories as we come to them in the progression of events, and building on the hints and references dropped in those stories to flesh out the adventures he has in between."

Busiek is certainly no stranger to fantasy, having done an acclaimed graphic novel with David Wenzel a few years ago, but this is his first venture into more visceral heroic fantasy. Is he finding the rules to be slightly different? "Sure," Busiek said. "A lot more fighting, for one! But I'm not real big on genre rules-I'm more interested in doing Conan right than in doing 'heroic fantasy' right. If I get the first one, the second will take care of itself."

While Marvel Comics' Conan the Barbarian was praised in its early years as one of the best comics of the era, the book's reputation slipped in later years, with some criticizing it for deteriorating into a "barbarian-versus-the-monster-of-the-month" approach. Busiek is aware of the reputation, but "I'd quibble with you that it did -- the last three years of Conan the Barbarian are by Roy Thomas, and are quite good, and not 'monster-of-the-month-y' at all. But between the two Thomas runs, there are some pretty awful periods, including some that could easily be described that way."

Busiek is confident that he knows how to avoid that repetitive plotline, though. "The answer's simple: You just don't do that. Conan won't run into a monster every month unless we write it that way. And since very few of the Howard stories have that kind of structure-indeed, while there's magic of some sort or other in all of them, the main story concerns are generally very human, with stories built around lust, greed, the struggle for power and other such things-I don't see any reason to even go down that road. A Conan story needs to be good and passionate and adventurous, but what monsters there are are just part of the fun, not the main point."

How much will Busiek draw from Robert E. Howard's original Conan canon? "As much as humanly possible. What I've been told by both the editors and the CEO of Conan Properties is, 'Be faithful, faithful, faithful. We want this to be as much like the real Conan, the true Conan, the original Conan as possible.' And since that's exactly what I want to do, we have no trouble there."

Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith managed to define the young Conan-and a model for heroic fantasy-in their run; what will define Busiek's tenure on Conan? "Ask me two years into the run. I'm just starting out, so I'll just do as good a job as I can as see what it comes out like."

Joining Busiek on the book will be artist Cary Nord, who has previously worked or Marvel, DC, WildStorm, and Dark Horse. "I have been a Conan fan for as long as I've been a Frazetta fan," Nord said. "I think I've finally found my niche!"

The first issue of the new Conan series is slated to debut in the last quarter of 2003.

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