Vital, Vicious and Visceral: Starve #1 (a review)

W: Brian Wood A: Danijel Žeželj C: Dave Stewart

How do you like your dog?

For those familiar with (or hungry for) Brian Wood’s agitprop storytelling there is much to feast upon in Starve: a near-apocalyptic NYC, the populist rhetoric of ‘Us vs. Them,’ the cultural bankruptcy of celebrity, gross consumerism and, a near-fetishistic environmentalism—call it, Wood du jour. Yes, in much of its ‘stuff’ Starve dovetails Wood’s oeuvre from as far back as Channel Zero, Supermarket and DMZ to more recent work like Mara and The Massive.

Nearly two decades into Wood’s career as a comic book creator, when his peers have either split or are content to act as slaves to their own machinery, Starve proves Wood remains, yes, hungry. Each of those Wood-isms (see above) receives a check in its respective box and yet there is also a further brashness, an attitude, an urgency—Starve snarls, a vital, vicious and visceral beast.

The main ingredient here is Gavin Cruikshank, a (former) celebrity chef—number one with a bullet on 2015’s list for best new characters—who is estranged from his wife, Greer, and his daughter, Angie. For the last three years Cruikshank has been on a drunk of debauchery and local cuisine. A compelling and complex character, Cruikshank is world weary and cheeky with a pinch of pretentiousness that's more charming than obnoxious.  

Wood’s one misstep is to mention Cruikshank is gay or as he calls himself, “a queer dad.” His ex-wife says she was “twenty-two when we were married and when you came out of the closet? I was forty.” Wood never goes further with how or if Cruikshank’s sexuality [1] either informed his choice to go on his self-imposed exile or to return. Cruikshank contains multitudes, for sure, but why introduce his sexuality and then do nothing to develop it? Here's hoping Wood goes further with this aspect of Cruikshank's character.

The rest of the ingredients are these: world markets are crashing and global warming (isn’t it ‘climate change’ now?) has caused Jamaica Bay to rise twelve inches and swamp Queens and JFK. Fortunately, broadcast television has fared much better in the encroaching biblical reckoning. The number one show is ‘Starve.’ Created by Cruikshank as an Anthony Bourdain-like ‘No Reservations.’ In his absence, however, his creation has put on weight to become a cutthroat reality TV cooking competition. During Cruikshank’s truancy, Greer has had him declared dead and has taken full control of all the show’s assets and fiduciary concerns i.e. Angie. In order to (maybe) recoup some of his filthy lucre, Cruikshank must compete in (and win) an eight episode season of Starve.

This is Wood drawing from a deeper well. Starve is more than its bespoke urban rot and populist politics. Wood collaborates with artist Danijel Žeželj and colorist Dave Stewart, all three are listed as co-owners on the title. To nitpick Stewart’s approach to color on Starve sounds hypocritical like arguing hitting with Ted Williams or tugging on Superman’s cape, caveat dumbass. It’s all well and good to draw from the Crayola box of Armageddon shades and tones, but perhaps there’s more to this world than sepia and ocher, gunmetal and sage. Is it too much to ask any artist, let alone an undisputed authority like Stewart, to imagine (rethink) a pre-apocalypse and therefore break from the accepted language of the genre? Perhaps. Stewart knows blood and so when it’s time for this cooking competition to get on to the real ‘meat work,’ Stewart will surely bring his trademark bloody and sinuous reds.

Few illustrators or cartoonists equal Žeželj for style, emotion or amount of ink per page. His art occupies some liminal space between woodcuts and stenciled graffiti as if Albrecht Dürer and Banksy had a baby. In those viscous lines Žeželj wrings out exhaustion, ennui and joy in equal measure in the faces and frames of his characters with an unmatched poignancy. As he does in stories set in derelict urban settings -- Luna Park comes to mind -- Žeželj’s printmaker’s precision for background details in Starve creates images so suffuse with girders, illegal wiring and bodies, bodies, bodies it feels the opposite of industrial, organic and not manufactured. So fastidious is Žeželj’s line even tiny minutiae like tattoos and logos pop in all that ink. And when it comes to tousled hair, Žeželj’s tangles are matched only by other Wood collaborators like Becky Cloonan and Ryan Kelly.

Žeželj is not a nine panel kind of artist. Almost all of the pages in Starve are composed so panels act as satellites around a central image. Žeželj often layers panels to create a kind of consistent present rather than the sense events take place moment to moment or frame to frame like in a movie. Not only is this technique ‘pure comics’ it acts like the needle of a compass pointing the way through the chaos to tell the story where everything happens all at once. With apologies to Wood and to letterer Steve Wands, Starve doesn’t need narration or dialogue, everything the reader needs to know comes across in Žeželj’s art and that is something too many readers are starved for.

As to the dog in this first issue … it’s going to be a bridge too far for many readers. It’s dark, unsettling and daring … which is the point. Exploitation works to shock, to demand the audience pay attention, the meaning is self-evident and not to be dismissed as purposelessness. The point is to be insulting without insult and to challenge conventions. There is an (over) abundance of testosterone in Starve—which would fit with male-centric reality TV cooking competitions. It’s perhaps an overreach, but Starve (almost) feels like what David Mamet would do in a similar situation and the dog is symbolic of delivering on this chest-thumping male bravado.

The machismo on display fits with Cruikshank’s character -- the wildest of the wild bunch, the cagiest of vets in for one more job, one more score, the old dog brought back to show the young pups what for -- and it fits for Wood as well. Starve is a statement about men, fatherhood and most importantly, redemption. Cruikshank is looking for redemption and not to put too fine a point on it, so is Brian Wood.

On the final page of Starve #1, Cruikshank narrates, Wood writes, “But I won’t play the game they want me to play. This is my fucking show. I’m going to do my eight episodes and burn this whole place to the ground. Watch.” These words nest within full page image of Cruikshank from the chest up. Žeželj draws a skein of raw meat as it curls out from below Cruikshank’s top teeth and bottom lip like a serpent’s forked tongue. Blood drips from the meat onto his chef’s whites, he looks vampiric … he looks awesome. Wood’s words are a promise, tenacious and immediate, Gavin Cruikshank like Brian Wood means to reclaim his vigor and prove his worth. Watch.

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[1] In a later issue, Angie mentions her father’s workaholic nature which may explain why he lacks a partner or the time for to pursue a sexual or romantic relationship.

Review: Conan #8

Interpretation all the way down

 

Eight issues in and Brian Wood's watch on Conan the Barbarian continues to be about something else. This 'elseworld' that Wood crafts is less an alternate reality and more a loose constructionist's take on a well-worn (and well-loved) character. Wood wants to examine the psychology (pathology?) of the barbarian, to overlay a scrim of reality on the fantasy. In Wood's interpretation Conan the Barbarian is a story in which actions get subsumed by motivations -- not a 'what if,' but a why and a how.

 

The narrative voice contained within its now familiar, torn and ragged dialogue boxes talks about Conan's ''bad feelings,'' and concerns that he is ''loathe to admit'' to himself about the distance that continues to grow between he and Bêlit as the two lovers trek across the wastelands of the north; Cimmeria, it's a relationship killer.

 

When Conan does talk it's to teach Bêlit about the ''fatalism'' of the North and how its people ''struggle'' and are ''resigned'' to hardship and to death -- call it the Zen of the Cimmerian or a kōan for Conan. Navel-gazing aside, Wood's interpretation of Conan is not an attempt to turn this warrior into a worrier, which has become an irritation for those inclined to a more adventurous and less brooding barbarian. This 'Conan crucible' that Wood has constructed presents the facts and challenges readers to figure out the how and the why for themselves. Perhaps Wood is taking a page from the director Ernst Lubitsch, who said, ''Let the audience add up two plus two. They’ll love you forever.'' To put Conan 'on the couch' so to speak is to examine what is implicit in his actions, what underlies the overt and what to infer from what is left unsaid, heady stuff, indeed.

 

Like a couple of grim Marlows in search of their Kurtz, Conan and Bêlit slog through devastation and deprivation as they track a killer (an imposter) calling himself Conan of Canach. In a snowy forest glade they are ambushed (if you call three arrows an ambush). On Conan's command, Bêlit flings dagger into the surrounding canopy and brings down the brigand. The rear-guard is able to croak out ''… waiting for ... you …'' before he … well, croaks. Now, for two characters so out of their depth, so hounded by the black dog of depression that each regrets the others presence they remain far from fatalistic or resigned to their miseries. If nothing else, Conan and Bêlit are born survivors.

 

The Queen may be far from her Black Coast, but she still calls the shots. She tells Conan to go off ahead of her to the ice fields in search of his quarry -- later the narrator will describe Bêlit's call to arms as ''the gift of freedom she had given him.'' As the lovers embrace, Bêlit, on the tips of her toes, says, ''The things I know, barbarian could fill this world and many more. Postpone your departure for a while longer, and come back to bed.'' It's here where the story gets weird, but with sexy results.

 

What follows is a sequence of a nude Bêlit as she rides bareback on a black horse across desert plains to the sea. Colorist Dave Stewart bathes Bêlit in tangerine and muted honey tones. At first this seems like a tasteful and un-Chaykin like way to show a sex scene, except that it isn't a sex scene or a metaphor, sort of. It's a dream or a memory (maybe) or a memory of a dream that Bêlit has been having. Wood has been playing with dreams (mostly Conan's ) from the jump, but this is the first time the reader looks in on Bêlit's interior life. Like N'Yaga's prophecies and Conan's motivations, these dreams are another aspect that Wood asks his reader to explain -- it's interpretation all the way down.

 

Not to mix my sports with my comics, but like Conan, I too am resigned when I admit: Becky Cloonan is not walking through that door. The 'sexy people' drawn by previous artists Cloonan and James Harren have been sawn off and become weedy, spindly and crimped. Artist Vasilis Lolos is not helped by the fact that due to the cold Cimmerian climate, Conan and Bêlit have to spend much of their time cloaked and under cover. Even if that's 'what the script called for,' why draw them like unmade beds with hair that looks like an inversion of the 'iron throne' from Game of Thrones? Lolos looks to have the potential to bring sexy back -- his interpretation of Bêlit's dream is very sensual -- and his hard-edge style works for wolves as well as a way to meet Cimmeria on its own terms and yet, it falls far short of the standard set by Cloonan and Harren.

 

There's been more frustration and little fury in this latest tripartite tale, the wolves and the last panel in issue #8 hint at a ferocious reckoning, but not yet. Some readers may find that this second act of Border Fury leaves them … umm … well, furious. Others, however, should take a page from those hard-won denizens of the north, from Cimmeria itself: don't give up, instead, inquire within for the answers to questions that writer Brian Wood continues to ask.

Review: Conan the Barbarian #6

Bloody Romantic

Pigeons have flown their arcs, shortened their circuits around ''the glittering jewel of Messantia'' and decided to get their boney bird-asses back home. Smoke chokes the tiered and tiled city, bodies slump in alleys, a head recently separated from its body lays idle, now an obstacle to panicked passers-by -- legs stretched to their limits, feet barely touching the ground -- sprinting across courtyards, boats, ablaze in the harbor, bear witness to the bedlam and the devastation. ''So much destruction … so much chaos … for a robbery?'' says the sword-toting, shackle-free Conan. His interlocutor, the seer, N'Yaga replies: ''This is Bêlit.'' To which the Cimmerian, his face spiculated and swathed in wide veins of blood (not all his own), smiles and says ''Crom. So it is.''

  'The Argos Deception' ends as it began with a ship asea. Artist James Harren and colorist Dave Stewart set the Tigress, laden (presumably) with riches, on a stolid ocean in contrast to a dreamy cloud-streaked sky[1]. The closure that this image provides its arc is apt, a mirrored bookend to a tale in which little happens and almost all is left to the imagination. Writer Brian Wood uses the concept of closure to join up the loose ends of this story, while at the same time, Wood knots this arc with the previous one by using the cords of Conan's budding psyche and lashes them to the most powerful tie that binds: love.  

  In Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud hangs his blue check shirt in the gutter, that space between the panels that transforms images into ideas (the seen and the unseen) and makes us all complicit in the crime and the craft. Comics kids! McCloud draws his definition like so: ''This phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole has a name. It’s called closure'' (63). Four pages later, an clear McCloud states: ''Comics IS closure.'' The kind of closure, McCloud seeks is from panel to panel, the whole sequential art thing. McCloud ends the chapter emphasizing that closure is (only) the result; the act (the work) must come from the 'faith' and the 'imagination' of the reader.
  Conan and Bêlit's Messantian vacation (escape?) centers on a raid. Sure, Conan 'could' have been executed, but that's a minor detail and Bêlit (and the REH estate) wasn't going to let that happen. Like a practiced pickpocket, Wood has light fingers as he masks the lift and hides the heist. If nobody sees you take it, is it really stealing? In Conan the Barbarian #6, Wood achieves closure with closure. Plans and plot points resolve themselves in the gutter. So why all the friggin' around? Why all this deception? Are N'Yaga's words, ''This is Bêlit,'' the Hyborian Age equivalent of 'it is what it is?' Wood wants this Cimmerian shaggy-dog story to provide more than mere closure; it desires belief and requires trust on both the part of Conan and the reader.     

   The only clue that the crew of the Tigress was successful comes when Conan and N'Yaga arrive dockside. Each notices that the ship has yet to cast off, N'Yaga says: ''See how low in the water she sits. The hold is full of treasure.'' Mission accomplished, sort of. The Tigress's lack of departure signals that something is off, the queen remains afoot. To close out this story, Conan takes off like a speeding bullet, with locomotive might his sword severs heads left and right, and he is able to leap from quay to quay in a single bound. The race to find and rescue Bêlit is all a call-back to the first issue when Conan took his first leap of faith onto the Argus. Bêlit has been belayed by some of Messantia's finest. How this happened (who cares!) is left to closure and the imagination.

  Harren gets his final whacks in showing Conan as he gashes, beheads and impales his foes with a respective 'Whhikkkttt,' 'Slllkkkk' and 'Thukk' and oh the blood doth flow as if from a hydrant. Stewart selects a gooey shade of red as blood bursts from bodies and aprons off the blade of Conan's sword. Harren slashes the page with ferocious speed lines capturing momentum and the precise and precious moment that Conan makes widows of soldier's wives. In the penultimate splash page, Conan embraces his beloved and in what could be called an 80's action-movie-moment, the two gaze into each other's viscera flecked faces, as Bêlit says, ''Conan, you doubted me? When will you learn?'' And scene.

  Six issues in, Wood's adaptation of Howard's ''Queen of the Black Coast'' is as much about sword and sandal adventures as it is a story about boy meets girl. It's a love story, yes, and in some crazy way it's damn near a romantic comedy. Wood appears (desires?) to be interested in the process, the how's and why's that occur to form this relationship between Conan and Bêlit[2]. For some, the early stages of a relationship are fraught with doubts and profound conflict of all kinds. We are all (supposedly) free and can walk away, none beholden to any other. So why stay? What ties one to his or her Tigress?
   As N'Yaga and Conan make their mad dash to the docks, N'Yaga offers some sage relationship advice when it comes to taming or changing Bêlit: don't. Instead, N'Yaga tells Conan, ''you can understand her. And in that, perhaps she will understand you too.'' Ah, yes, understanding, relationship bedrock. If this scene occurred not at breakneck speed while on horseback, though the cobblestone streets of a burning city between a barbarian and his white haired wizened bro, but instead took place at a comfortable bar between the Seth Rogen character and the Paul Rudd character, would it smell as sweet? Good advice is good advice, you take it where and when and from whom you get it. Don't tame. Don't change. Understand. Understand?

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[1] I'm guessing, since the next arc takes place (thanks to the requisite keeper of the letter column, assistant editor, Brendan Wright) in ''the frozen plains of Cimmeria!'' one could add to the end of this sentence: 'And the ship sails on, back to the north / Through the fog and ice … ' but there's no need to force and Iron Maiden reference into every review I write. Right?

[2] So far, the anatomy of this relationship has been one-sided. Perhaps, Wood will plumb the depths of Bêlit's motivations instead of making her only the object of Conan's desires. I, for one, look forward to the Bêlit and N'Gora shopping montage where at the end Bêlit tells N'Gora how much she loves Conan and why. In this scenario, of course, N'Gora is gay.   

Review: Conan the Barbarian #5

Bird Is the Word 

What's with the pigeon?[*] Perhaps this is a case of a cigar standing for a cigar; perhaps not. Since the latter invites conversation that the former eschews, one sees fit to indulge. Under writer Brian Wood, artists James Harren and Becky Cloonan and colorist Dave Stewart, Conan the Barbarian seeks to play with the idea of identity. This series sets Conan as novitiate -- the education of the barbarian -- a student at the alabaster feet of Bêlit, his teacher and lover. It's Conan as he learns to be Conan. In the opening story arc, Conan discovers that appearances deceive and that truth and fiction are seldom the same. In this second arc, 'The Argos Deception,' identity is a con as Bêlit, Conan and the crew of the Tigress use a ruse as a weapon and if their plan is to work, they'll need that pigeon.
  Conan the Barbarian #5 opens on a moneyed Messantian as he tends to his birds. The omniscient narrator's voice speaks of the ''glittering city of Messantia,'' ''favorable tax laws,'' and the ''assumption of freedom.'' On its face, it looks as if Wood is reaching into Conan's world to ascribe a percentage to the haves and have-nots of this port city and maybe he is, but to what end? An artist or writer's partialities or personal politics are bound to find agency in their work, and yet, those biases should serve the work.  Wood has worn his politics on his sleeve before (Channel Zero and DMZ) and if he is doing so again with Conan the Barbarian -- as is so often said on this blog -- so what? A writer of Wood's stripe doesn't force his opinions for their own sake, so what is he trying to say? If longtime Robert E. Howard fans blanch at Wood taking Conan off script how will the base feel as the politics of today occupy the Hyborian age?

  Veterans of Conan campaigns past and raw recruits can agree on one thing: this has to be the most gentle, the most peaceful start to a Conan comic … ever. Stewart bathes Messantia in early morning shades of heliotrope and tangerine as the city slowly stirs. The man tenderly takes a bird (a pigeon) from its cage and with palms upturned offers it into the air, a holy act. Harren's talent for depth and dimension shows in this scene as the smallness of the man and the bird are set off against the high-walled canyons of the city. Stewart paints the bird white to add a layer of peacefulness and tranquility. Few acts are as symbolic as the release of a bird; even if that bird has been domesticated and trained to return to its home, its cage. For now, however, it alights into the sky sans shackles. This scene of quiescent dawn ends in ragged shadow as the sun stands stunted against the wall of Conan's cage in the prison fortress. 

  So what? So some 'Richie Rich' releases a bird! Big deal. But it's a pigeon. Words and symbolism cut both ways. A pigeon is another word for a dupe, a fool, a mark. Wood uses this very subtle sign to set up the deception that will take place later in the issue with the sudden entrance of the woman [†]in white. In a twenty-two page comic with a ten page fight scene and another single page where Bêlit is masked in arterial spray, Wood takes two-and-a-half pages to show a man setting a pigeon aloft.

Why? Sure this 'free bird' juxtaposes Conan backed up against the wall of his prison cell, but even that is too pat, too on-the-nose. The pigeon counts because it symbolizes a city that can be had, it's world-building by swindle. From the jump, Conan the Barbarian has been about subverting expectations through pledge, turn and prestige -- a magic trick in tripartite arcs. Wood has taken an ordinary commodity, Conan the Barbarian, and turned him (and it) into something extraordinary.

In Messantia, money talks and a pretty face (and an arcane tradition) can overturn blind justice. Conan is kept from the hangman's noose only to be tossed into the arena against an opponent Harren draws as an upside down triangle, a bare-chested, bullet-headed bruiser with a face that looks like it was cut by a jigsaw[‡]. The champion cast to clash with Conan is from a class ''little more than court pets, warriors in retirement.'' Messantians like their fighters like their birds, kept. N'Yaga, the seer, free from the hold makes an appearance in the tumult to offer Conan a blade and sharp words about the fates. The fight finishes in a bloody ''are-you-not-entertained'' splash-page. It's the one image (besides the Massimo Carnevale cover) that misses its target. Harren ends strong with a street-level view of a Messantian boulevard buttressed by two buildings as tendrils of rosy smoke stream heavenward. The image smolders with anticipation of the story arc's conclusion in the next issue as its perspective eerily invokes the attacks of September eleventh.

  At the start of the contest, the narrator says: ''Since he was six years old, Conan has fought bigger opponents.'' It's a sentence that resonates beyond the plot or the page. Conan is totemic and at the same time open to interpretation. Brian Wood brings a novel quality to Conan the Barbarian that shows this character is more than muscle and more than a sword and sandal cliché. The narrative is drum tight. The smallest details (the littlest birds) in the art embellish overt themes and ideas of the story. To dismiss Conan the Barbarian as solely another Conan yarn is like saying the Odyssey is 'only' about a guy trying to go home or that Ulysses is 'only' about a guy who can't get laid. Conan endures.           

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[*] In an inspired (read insane) bit of chutzpah I tweeted to Mr. Wood to ask: ''pigeon or dove?''. Wood responded that the script said pigeon.

[†] Little Wilke Collins reference for you English Majors out there. You’re welcome.

[‡] Old-school Mike Zeck era Punisher shout-out for those of you old enough to remember.

Review: Conan the Barbarian #4

Trust Exercises

  The images of splendid isolation that bookend Conan the Barbarian #4 present a poeticism that epitomize the themes of identity and belief that have been inherent in the series so far. Artist James Harren announces his presence with authority as he draws a 'Crom's eye view' of seagulls awhirl on thermals above as below the Tigress plies the waters of the Western Ocean. Harren invests this ship asea with a primal and indomitable quality as it cuts its briny wake. The image is made more resolute by colorist Dave Stewart[1] who affects a painted ship upon a painted ocean of grays and greens. In the issue's final image, Harren and Stewart change perspective and ratchet up the majesty as they call attention to starry skies and cloudy climes that dwarf a lone sentry atop a parapet. What chance does a barbarian from the north, his influential queen and their stalwart crew stand when set against the vastness of the ocean or the immensity of space? Who is on their side? ¶ Existentialism sets no sail and pulls no weight upon the deck of the Tigress. Harren's barbarian is an uncarved block, an object of pure potential. Gone is the boyish charm that Cloonan had conferred on Conan in the story's first arc. Harren hatchets[2] the Cimmerian into a sinuous cast with a wide grin that slips into awe (and awwww) when his Queen -- ''the she-panther of the Western Ocean'' -- Bêlit blots out the sun. She is his world. In Harren's hands, Bêlit becomes elfin with big doe eyes and while she still retains Cloonan's wide-hipped and long-legged design, Harren's Bêlit has become less seductress and more softened; her time with the ''grey wolf from the North,'' it seems, has taken off the edge.

  The plot of issue #4 is a customary caper in which Bêlit by proxy of N'Gora turns Conan in for a bounty (he is an escaped criminal after all) and while the good and law-abiding people and magistrates of Messantia celebrate the capture and fit out the gallows, Bêlit and the gang rob the place blind. N'Gora says, ''what else would pirates like us do, safely docked in the richest port in the land.'' 'Nuff said. In order, however, to pull off the ol' 'Wookie to cell block 1138' ruse the faux felon must believe that his friends will bust him out. Bêlit, in confidence with Conan, says, ''give me your trust.'' Conan hesitates and does not answer. Bêlit tells Conan that an army could not keep her from his side, she asks him again, point blank: ''Do you trust me?'' Conan remains silent. Conan is a work in progress at this point. Sure, he's got the girl and adventure is on the horizon, but Conan is a sole proprietorship. Conan answers only to Conan. The next stage of his apprenticeship aboard the Tigress will be to see how well he can crew.

  The port authorities take the bait (shocker!) and Conan, bound and broken, spends a dark night of the soul in a prison cell. Conan dreams -- in what's becoming a trend, Conan always dreams in the first-part of a three-part-arc -- he is out in the cold and on thin ice. He hosts a pity party, calls himself a ''fool,'' ''stupid'' and ''doomed'' for throwing in his lot with ''criminals, murderers and strangers.'' One night apart from Bêlit and Conan becomes a forlorn and lovesick naïf, ah the vagaries of the infatuate.

  As before, Conan's dreams summon Bêlit to his side. She arrives in disguise at his cell with a revised plan for escape; more than that, she gives him what he needs: solace and assurance. She confirms his thoughts and belies his fears, ''You are a fool'' says Bêlit, ''for thinking I would not shift this mountain off its base to find you again.'' What a woman. Conan still has much to learn about the power of love and that ''to become as one,'' as Bêlit says in issue #3, means more than sex, it means mating the physical (the self) to something larger, the spiritual -- love grows where Bêlit's Conan goes.

  There is an alternate and (perhaps) much more thought-provoking (and zany) reading of Conan the Barbarian #4 as a petition to long-time fans of the franchise from writer Brian Wood. Here goes: Wood is Bêlit; and the question that he asks is the same one she puts to Conan: ''Do you trust me?'' 'The Argos Deception' takes Wood off script which assistant editor Brendan Wright confirms in the letters column: ''Chapter 2 [of the source material] begins with an account of the Tigress's growing infamy … beginning in this issue Brian is creating new stories set during those years.'' When it comes to the work of Robert E. Howard, 'The Queen of the Black Coast' is a canonical text, so taking the story off course can be, as is said in Wood's native New England, tough sledding. The plot of this issue is a bit old hat, a barbarous retelling of the Trojan Horse, the Trojan Conan(?). Wood works as well with themes (see DMZ and Local) as with characters, so it would follow that this stopover in Messantia means more than a chance for fortune and glory. Longtime Conan readers refer to Wood's adaptation of the Cimmerian as unconventional[3] [my emphasis]. How an artist adapts source material is a highly personal choice as is the audience's reaction to that adaptation. A further investigation into a Conan's psyche (his identity) and his anxieties about trusting someone as powerful and influential as Bêlit -- not to mention that she is his lover and a more experienced one at that -- would seem to be a valid tact and consistent with the story so far. DMZ and Local are both bildungsromans. Is Wood, perhaps, attempting to do something similar with Conan? Or is Wood playing it safe by making Conan fit his style?

  Bêlit needs only a couple of minutes to convince Conan that her aims are true. How long will it take Wood to do the same? The question remains: Do you trust him?

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[1] It seems like every week I read at least one book in which Stewart is listed as colorist: Fatale, B.P.R.D and Conan the Barbarian to name a few. The man either requires very little sleep or is the pseudonym for a collective.

[2] Harren also hacks up N'Gora's face by carving deep fissures into his skull.

[3] In his review on Comics Bulletin, Zack Davisson writes, ''Wood is showing us a side of Conan rarely seen in comics … It was hard to grasp at first, because I am unused to this side of Conan. Most writers would give Conan a paragraph or two at best of brooding, and then have him shake such doubts from his head, realizing they won't help the situation.''

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.

Review: Conan the Barbarian #2

Myth Metes Myth

  In its first two issues, Conan the Barbarian's Queen of the Black Coast flirts with questions of identity, perception and muscle. Conan is an established character, literally, a known commodity. In the hands of writer Brian Wood and artist Becky Cloonan, however, this iteration of Conan appears more lithe, impressionable and subversive. It's the subversion that this creative team has brought to Conan that makes him more approachable, less legendary and heroic, cocksure, sure, but at the same time, new. Ah, youth. The ostensible queen, Bêlit, on the other hand, materializes in dreams; she is a fiction, a myth, an unknown. Bêlit is notorious among sailors and traders who work the waters of the Western Ocean along the coastline of Kush; her infamy earned as much by her presence as by her absence -- the fear, the mystery, she elicits is a product (a commodity), an agency of her own scarcity.  In both the characters of Bêlit and Conan, Wood, Cloonan and colorist Dave Stewart manage to pour new wine from old vessels.

  Two words bookend the battle-soaked bravado that comprises the bulk of Conan the Barbarian #2: ''Bêlit'' and ''queen.'' The former, a shout, ''Bêlit!'' emanates off-stage (page?) from an unseen caller.  The latter is the final word in issue’s ultimate sentence spoken to Conan by Bêlit herself, ''Make me your queen.'' Each sentence conveys an artful ambiguity and leaves both intent and meaning unmoored. The shout of Bêlit's name beckons, a call to arms that echoes across the waters of the Black Coast. Its intent, however, lies in question: is its tone one of fealty, as a subject to a queen, or is it a statement, a challenge to authority? Both?  Cloonan and Wood want it both ways and are unwilling to fix meaning upon these shifting seas of character development, settling only, for now, on an inclination, and invitation, to subversion.

  The opening page of issue #2 subverts the narrative before it's begun; a timeless moment that suits interpretation in order to undermine explanation. Bêlit toes the deck of her ship with authority and nerve, ''Do you believe you've beaten me barbarian? My lungs still draw air, my heart still beats, and I retain control of my ship. I am utterly unvanquished. You really must do better.'' Blood runs black, both bodies and boards are spiculated with arrows and spears smeared with gore lay idle, idle, perhaps, as that poetic painted ship upon a painted ocean. There is little information that places the hurly-burly lost or won. The enemy has been met, but Bêlit's words lead one to believe that the battle is far from done. Wood's decision to begin the second part of this story in medias res acts as both subversion and a statement about Bêlit as a character. She is, as Wood will later dub Conan: ''battle calm,'' a subversive phrase if ever there was one. This is a woman, a captain that lives beyond her legend. Cloonan and Stewart craft Bêlit as less vampiric than in the first issue, but no less wild-eyed, no less defiant.  She could still stand to spend some time in the sun -- her prison pallor a wash of off-whites and subtle purples.  Her color aside, this is a woman who runs hot, without restraints of any kind and one who commands unbidden. If so, why then, at the very end, does she say, ''Make me your queen.''? 

  Before making her closing statement, Bêlit asks Conan: ''Who are you?'', a question of both identity (what's your name?) and intent (what do you want?). Her question comes as the deck of her ship (the Tigress) drinks the blood of her crew, Conan stands defiant, triumphant, as moments before, Wood writes, Conan ''cleft,''  ''smashed,'' ''severed'' and ''ripped'' each and every one of his attackers. His response to his interlocutor's question is as straightforward as was his attack: ''My name is Conan. I am a Cimmerian.'' What Bêlit hears in Conan's response serves as the impetus to her final line, but the meaning, the intent, lies hidden. The omniscient narrator explains that, ''to one like the pirate queen of Shem Cimmeria is the land of myth and children's stories.'' It would appear that when myth meets myth and identity is born; life borne on black waves.
  Apropos of title (heraldry), of this tale if nothing else, why does Bêlit -- who is already known to Conan (and others) as ''Queen of Black of the Black Coast'' -- need to make such a request or issue such a command to be made a Queen in the first place? Conan wears no arms bears no crown, he states only who he is and where he comes from and neither he nor his words bear title or claim. So why those four words: ''Make me your queen.'' Subversion takes many forms -- ditto shortsightedness -- Bêlit like callow Conan (to this point in the tale) remains more myth than truth. Placing meaning in either character (or their words) is perhaps premature when neither character has fully formed. Authority is unchanged and unchallenged (look at the look on Conan's face in that last panel).  There are no Kings in this story and only one Queen and each character must now participate in a bit of role play before identities can be determined. Conan the Barbarian #2 signals that the dream is over, myth has met myth and been found … perfect.

Author's Note: If it is true that one never forgets one's first time -- precisely which first time, perhaps, should be left to the imagination -- than this series, Conan the Barbarian, will always hold a place in both my heart and mind. I was so impressed by the story Wood, Cloonan and Stewart were setting out to tell in issue #1 that I was compelled to write down my thoughts and then share them with the world -- at least that portion of the world that reads this blog, a dedicated and intelligent lot, no doubt. My goal is to write about each edition in this series (a proposed twenty-five issue arc) with a focus on identity. Who are these characters, Conan and Bêlit, and how they understand each other through the filter of their own identity, the self. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it is in this case, than I am very much 'borrowing' this idea from Justin Giampaoli's ''Brian WoodProject.'' I can only hope to match Mr. Giampaoli in dedication and artfulness for he has cornered the market on scope and wisdom when it comes to the work of writer Brian Wood.