Conan The Barbarian #7

Latitudes and Departures

There's an importance to being earnest; a gravity to identity. You can take the northern boy out of Cimmeria or the ''desert flower'' out of Shem, but 'place' burrows deep, it gets in under the fingernails -- local is for life.  

Conan the Barbarian #7 begins a new arc, 'Border Fury.' As has been his want since this series began, writer Brian Wood teases the reader with a prelude of the overture to come: Bêlit is blind, temporarily, and she and Conan have gone north to Cimmeria. Seems that while Conan was out stealing horses, bedding a pirate Queen and being a party to a ruse, some sociopath began to run amok in Cimmeria razing, pillaging and killing the in the name of Conan -- it's identity theft for the Hyborian Age.

When Conan and Bêlit had their meet cute in issue #2, Bêlit was blind to the cold reality of Cimmeria. For her, the land of Conan's fathers was mere ''myth and children's stories'' until she took ''this hardest of men,'' this man ''cut from stone'' as her lover. Now, her alabaster skin competes with the snows of the north, roles reverse and now the Shemite and not the Cimmerian is the stranger in a strange land. If this story took place in the modern age, one imagines Bêlit's tweets would read: Cimmeria, I am in you.

It does not go well for this child of ''arid dunes'' and ''azure skies.'' It is here that a less lazy reviewer would not lean on a cliché that calls Bêlit a 'fish out of water,' or that this latest arc acts as a 'meet the parents' type situation, but there it is. Is it 'too soon' for Cimmeria, for its dark satanic forests and its howling winds; too soon on the tour to play to the hometown crowd? Wood is again at play in the fields of identity as he casts Conan and Bêlit into a plot in which each will learn who the other is both home and away -- in the city and in the country. Bêlit remains the captain and in command. Even sightless, she continues to call the shots. ''Be my eyes,'' she tells Conan. She urges him to trust her. She promises to prove to him ''that this land has not gotten the better of me.'' The setting may change in latitude, in distance, yes, but not in the freedom to choose, to define oneself; as N’Yaga says in the previous issue: ''This is Bêlit.'' This is the importance of being earnest and what Conan must learn as he continues to sail by Bêlit's side.       

Conan the Barbarian #7 marks another return and another departure as artist Becky Cloonan brings her indelible inky mark back to this latest (and perhaps her last) issue. As Wood said in late May, Vasilis Lolos will take over the art for the remainder of this arc[*]. I am no seer, no N’Yaga. I hope, in time, if Crom wills it, Cloonan will return to this story. She (as much as Wood) has created a Conan for the ages and her imagining of Bêlit is the criterion for any artist from now on, for hers is the Ur-Bêlit.

Cloonan creates a real imagined woman who looks and acts as if she indeed does possess ''the blood of ancient kings in her veins.'' The range of emotions that Cloonan draws out of Bêlit is remarkable. From the childlike amazement when Bêlit sees snow for the first time to how she seethes when this daughter of Shem is shamed by Conan's mother and the other women of the village. And then there is that tender moment at the end when Conan tells Bêlit that he can't carry out his task and clear his name (establish his identity) without her. Bêlit's eyes are closed, her hair is entwined with Conan's; her lips -- made crimson by the king of color himself, Dave Stewart -- are the slightest bit apart, the reader knows she is in love and it's the kind of love to kill for and to die for. In this moment Becky Cloonan is peerless.

Issue #7 ends in a dream/nightmare. Unlike previous noctural imagnings (so far, Wood has had Conan dream in each of the first issue in each story arc) Conan was Bêlit-less, now he lies awake with his lover's arm across his chest. Bêlit sleeps earnest and safe in the knowledge of who she is, where she is, and why she is with this barbarian. Here's hoping Becky Cloonan's Bêlit, the Bêlit, will wake again. Perchance to dream …  

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[*] This is confirmed by Assistant Editor, Brendon Wright at the close of the letters column.

Review: Conan the Barbarian #3

The Lay of Conan and Bêlit

  Conan the Barbarian: Queen of the Black Coast Part 3 is all about the lay. Be it Germanic (and long) like The Song of the Nibelung or short and sweet like the Celtic, French or English equivalents, a lay lasts -- its stamina a result of its inherent potency -- because it sings of love and adventure. People, let's face it, love a good lay. For the final chapter of this first arc, writer Brian Wood, penciler Becky Cloonan and colorist Dave Stewart embroider a story that -- 'lay' is also appropriate here (in part) because it is means any movable part of a loom -- like the BayeuxTapestry (another bit of narrative art), contains details only understood when seen as a whole. Come for the lay, stay for the multi-layered thesis on how to mate reputation to identity and subvert the lay-person's expectations.

  Reputation is perception; it presupposes a gap in an outsider's (or other's) knowledge, only experience, belief or faith completes the circuit. One's reputation -- be he from a Northern race like a Cimmerian or from hardy stock found in northwestern Vermont -- can only precede him if it is known, it does not (necessarily) need to be experienced. Without belief, however, one's reputation cannot precede or for that matter, proceed. In issue #2, when Conan announces himself as a Cimmerian, Bêlit is in awe. She is not naïve, naiveté suggests ignorance, no, Bêlit knows of Cimmeria, she's heard the stories, she is a believer, which is why when a 'white warrior with ice-blue eyes' stands astride her deck, 'our daughter of Shem,' knows the word made flesh when she sees it. Belief curbs Bêlit, so too, does it stay the sword of Conan. Many live on reputation alone, but many more have died when their status finds no purchase. For Bêlit and for Conan, reputation is an invitation to identity, self-awareness and experience.
  Bêlit is a seer of sorts[1], she has perspective; she is perception personified. A post-coital Conan is told by Bêlit's first-mate, N'Gora, about how his mistress became a leader of men. N'Gora, a (former) captain -- a timber trader by trade -- and his crew were being pursued day and night by raiders when, ''Bêlit appeared on the third night, alone and in a native craft, offering assistance. She was … compelling.'' When Conan asks what help she could offer, N'Gora responds: ''Perspective. We were blinded and bound by value of our cargo. We were placing that above the lives of the crew.'' After telling Conan of the burning, pillaging, and looting that took place once Bêlit was in command (apparently perspective is relative), N'Gora ends his history lesson with the words of an adherent: ''She liberated us. She delivered us.'' No wonder the crew considers her a goddess.
  The scene between N'Gora and Conan takes place directly after Bêlit and Conan have, as Bêlit says,
''become as one.'' The placement of these two scenes echoes a similar coupling in issue #1 when Conan first learns of Bêlit's reputation from another sailor, Tito, the (former) captain of the Argus. At that time Bêlit was a fiction reputed to be fact. She appears to Conan in a dream, she is his projection, false, imaginary; reputation precedes experience. In issue #3, the story takes the exact opposite course; experience (in this case, sex) precedes real knowledge of a person. Bêlit becomes physical, flesh and blood and Conan sees her naked and as she is, fully-formed, a truth transformed from fiction. It's after this that N'Gora tells Conan what he knows of Bêlit, a better source, perhaps, and an eyewitness account, yes, but another sailor's story and not (one suspects) the whole truth. After all, a woman must have her secrets. Character exposition is seldom so subtle or economic.
  Conan the Barbarian and The Queen of the Black Coast have long-standing reputations to uphold and expectations to be met. They both bear official licenses, but in the hands of Wood and Cloonan those expectations are subverted. Like Bêlit, Brian Wood knows the reputation of ''the North.'' He knows the identities of these characters and what he is dealing with when it comes to the Cimmerian, in both perception and reputation. He chooses to adapt (to overcome) these expectancies by building them into the architecture of the story. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. It's a bit of authorial prestidigitation that speaks to an efficient and elegant way of storytelling, not to mention, damn clever. The reader is complicit in Conan's vision quest to find (and to know) Bêlit, but at this point in the character's development, Conan is also learning what it means to become Conan. As Cloonan's rendering of barbarian-on-queen action shows, neither character is a top or a bottom, but both; it is lovemaking, egalitarian-style. Cloonan matches Wood beat-for-beat. Her composition is always mindful of physical space; panel layouts and framing never call attention to themselves, but always in service to the story. Even when she's making a visual pun (showing swords being stroked and shined prior to the sex scene) it's all done in concert with the pulpiness of the dialogue. It will be interesting to see if James Harren can complement Wood as well as Cloonan has through this first arc. Hareen will be helped (no doubt) by Dave Stewart, who really shows himself off as a painter of light in part three of this story, bathing naked flesh in soft shades of scarlet and the florid flush of pink, washes of passion and the colors of sex.
  Through the first three issues, Conan the Barbarian: Queen of the Black Coast has established its reputation and forged its identity as an appointment title proving the metal of its creative team. Such is the lay, or as the narrator says, ''Such is the song of Bêlit.''     

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[1] The actual shaman (a Fedallah that Bêlit has kept tucked away) that appears in issue #3 provides much when it comes to sight. Perhaps, someone with the foresight and time to investigate this character's appearance will unlock that tale, for it is a deep well indeed.