Regular marked price: $17.95Discount Price: $12.21
Cost Savings: $5.74 (32%)Price fluctuation possible.
How soon does it ship: Normal ship time within one day
Shipping? Absolutely FREE if you qualify for Super Saver Shipping.
Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 741
EAN num: 9781595821782
ISBN number: 1595821783
Label: Dark Horse
Manufacturer: Dark Horse
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 152
Printing Date: October 01, 2008
Publishing house: Dark Horse
Sale Popularity Level: 77199
Studio: Dark Horse
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
This latest collection in Dark Horse's smart, innovative Conan series finds the cunning Cimmerian chased by both unfinished business from his past and a strange novice magician who seeks to deliver a dire warning to the wandering barbarian. Fleshing out Robert E. Howard's unfinished 'Hand of Nergal' tale, Timothy Truman weaves several plot threads together in an ambitious culmination of ideas, and his skill at characterization is apparent in both his handling of Howard's beloved, iconic hero and a colorful supporting cast of thieves, royalty, seasoned soldiers, and magicians both good and evil. A great evil from Conan's past moves ever closer while unfathomable terrors awaken and come into view. Conan is, of course, eager to meet both head on!
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
-
I was apprehensive about buying this volume... after the fiasco of Rogues in the House, which I gave a 1-star review along with several others, I was loathe to go into the comic shop to pick up the copy of volume 6 I had pre-ordered. At first, looking at it, I was encouraged that the Art had improved greatly. The story, however, fared nowhere near as well.
Perhaps Tim Truman just doesn't have the magic touch that Kurt Busiek does. One must admit, Busiek can write, and he'd certainly be a hard act to follow. Truman doesn't even seem to try, though. The writing, while better than Rogues in the House, is standard fare. There is little or no distinction between the villain Nergal, supposedly the Mesopotamian god of pestilence and death, and any nameless tentacled blob. Nary a line of dialogue is spoken by Conan, and though much is made of his friend Nestor being cursed, it only manifests in a half-hearted back-from-the-dead-to-kill-you scenario. Lots of potential for intrigue, character development, or at least adventure, but really what we get is just a standard hack & slash followed by a battle royale reminiscent of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
To put it in a nutshell, there's no way I would have bought this if I hadn't made the mistake of pre-ordering it before reading it or the preceding volume, and I presume no other self-respecting Conan fan would either.
Rated by buyers -
The biggest question a reader will have after reading this latest story arc from Dark Horse may be "How did this series get so bad?".
After four outstanding story arcs from Kurt Busiek and Cary Nord, Conan hit a major bump in the road with Volume five; "Rogues in the House", which was obviously rushed to meet impending deadlines and plagued by creative team strife. The outcome of that volume was some bad fill-in art by Thomas Giorello and a botched coloring job half way through the book by Richard Isanov.
In The Hand of Nergal, Dark Horse promotes Tomas Giorello to regular artist and straddles him with another round of poor coloring. Giorello, who is obviously not ready for such a prestigeous assignment, also ruins his own pencil work with some heavy handed inking. Judging by the sketches in the back pages of the book, Tomas can do much better than what we see throughout the story, but he has yet to fully master perspective and some of his figures are very blocky and rigid. His creatures also look quite clumsy in places. With all the artists who have contributed to the Conan relaunch, he is by far the poorest.
Tim Truman, who I think is very talented as both a writer and artist, has yet to impress with either of his two adaptations so far. Former writer Kurt Busiek was much better at adapting Robert E. Howard's work to the comic book medium seamlessly, as well as building a framework of original stories around each adaptation. I feel Tim's approach is not quite as reverent or in keeping with the tone of the original work. Some of his added dialogue sticks out from the rest of the work, and while Busiek took minor stories from the Conan canon and built an epic around them, such as with "Frost Giant's Daughter" and "Bowl", Truman appears to go the opposite direction, diminishing the impact of Howard's fragment. His conclusion of the "Nestor saga", building since the Hall of the Dead storyline, is very anticlimatic, and his conclusion of that subplot is handled as an afterthought.
This is the last collection of work from the current Dark Horse comic book series, ending the stories of Conan's career as a thief. Dark Horse recently relaunched the book as Conan of Cimmeria with the same creative team, but with the awful results of this volume, I doubt I will be back for more. Tragic.
Rated by buyers 
-
I've really enjoyed this series, because the authors have tried to be faithful to Howard's creation, and they've done a fine job. Savage Sword and the Dark Horse series are the two best comic titles I've ever read. The King Conan series is good too. Hopefully Dark Horse will publish it once they finish the regular Conan title.
Find other books like this one:
