Free Comic Book Day 2019

Free Comic Book Day - Saturday 4th May 2019

Time flies...Free Comic Book Day is here again, and this year it coincides with Star Wars Day. The cosplayers were out in force (pardon the pun) and the day had the makings of a great one, despite the inclement weather.

I tried to do my usual this year but with a couple of minor changes due to littlun wanting to come and do some drawing. Usually I head to Orbital first to grab a hand-picked selection of comics, followed by GOSH and then Forbidden Planet as they usually have some kind of 2000AD related signing event.

This year though, the first port of call was GOSH for the kids' comic drawing event. There were three or four professional comics artists and writers on hand to guide the youngsters through creating their own five or six frame story. All the kids seemed to have great fun and the artsists were great as they let the children's imaginations run riot but guided them on how to present their ideas on the page. It was a good 45 minutes session for my son. Unfortunately to get some free comics we had to return outside to the queue with the rest of the fans. Time was getting on by now and I was worried that we would miss out on some of my first choices; I was right, I was only able to pick up two from my list of sixteen here at GOSH, but at least my son got all the kids' choices for himself and his sisters, so all was not lost.

We then moved onto Forbidden Planet for the 2000AD Villains' Special signing. There were four artists and writers at the store, which made the visit worthwhile but, again, a long queue led to me not being able to get any free comics. However, I did pick up three copies of the special edition comic (which were paid for, so not part of the Free Comic Book Day selections - see rant below) and got two of them signed - one of them personally addressed to my son, which made his day; meeting and greeting the people (Greg Staples, Robo Keef, Pye and Matt Smith) involved with creating a comic and geting them to sign a special edition for him.

The final port of call was Orbital but, alas, all of their free comics were gone by the time we got there too. This is the first year I have been and not got the majority of what I wanted to try. However, I did ask the comic assistant at Orbital why all the comics were gone whereas over the last few years there were still plenty left at around the same time and he mentioned that deliveries were down this year, but seemingly demand was up - the perfect storm to stop many fans getting what they required.

This now brings me back to a scene outside of GOSH between the drawing session and free comic collection. Whilst in the queue one of the comics assistants kept coming down the queue with a list of comics available - every 20 minutes or so, three or four more were crossed off the available list. This ordinarily would not have annoyed me too much as I was there a little later than normal, but two young lads in the queue in front of us happened to have three or four Forbidden Planet bags in their holdalls full of free comics, and they were talking of going back there for more after they had finished at GOSH. Now, I can understand wanting to try to collect all the ones you want to read and maybe a couple of extras from your unsure list, but both of them had in excess of 50 comics each and still wanted more! The cynic in me thought they were doing it to flog them at a profit on eBay. I just hope they will dish the extras out to their friends to share the love of comics and maybe get a few more people involved in the niche but growing comics scene.

Tolkien - the film (some spoilers)

I happened to catch sight of an advert for this film on the side of a bus as I was driving my youngest to his child minder last Tuesday morning. On a whim, I decided to take the littluns to the cinema to see it this afternoon/evening as it was only a 12a certificate and they know I love the books and films.

I was not sure what to expect to be honest as the Tolkien estate have not given their consent to it and the only review I have read so far panned it (and the reviewer hadn't even seen the film!); well, more like they panned the writing and directing team due to the nature of their prior works.

I watched it with an open mind in the hope that I might learn something about the life of professor Tolkien. The film mostly concentrated on his childhood, the love he had for his wife, and how he worked his way through school where he met his friends and gained a place at university. The story is mostly told as flashbacks from his time in the trenches.

Of the many things I really liked about the film was the imagery in the background. I am aware that Tolkien once said that none of his stories were allegorical, but the film writers put in many references for those who know his works. It was subtly done in most places and ramped up when required. It worked for me.

The film makers obviously thought a lot about the close friendship he had with three of his school chums; it kept coming back to what they got up to through their formative years, including stealing a bus together, until Tolkien's return from the trenches,

I recommend going to see this film if you are a Tolkien fan. It tugs at the heart strings in places and strengthens sympathies for those poor young men who lost their lives in the Great War. The film ends at the beginning of his popular literary career, with him writing the first line of The Hobbit.

To misquote a line or two from the film; it is a film about friendship... no, fellowship.

King Conan

Following on from the post a couple of days ago, here is my collection of King Conan comics related stuff. Again, like with the Conan, Kull and Solomon Kane collections, these are the items released by Dark Horse when they held the franchise for Robert E Howard's stable of comic characters.

Dark Horse were nothing if not thorough with their release schedules for the characters they held the rights for over the last ten years or so. King Conan was well represented and had more released for him, even though the tales were spin-offs from the main Conan storylines etc., than either Solomon or Kull.

As per the Conan blog entry, first up are the Marvel reprints...

The Chronicles of King Conan : 11 volumes

Unusually for King Conan, as a character, there were no Savage Sword of or Saga of series that I am aware of, so I can only report on the Chronicles of King Conan reprints that were collected into the colour trades. There were eleven volumes (which surprised me a bit as I didn't think there were that many) of King Conan's story that were treated to Dark Horse's release schedule.

I am sure that Dark Horse missed many of Marvel's Conan and King Conan stories as there was such a huge amount released over the last four or five decades. Although I am a great fan of Conan in comic form (but the printed words of Robert E Howard is where he is truly represented), I am not that interested in spending too long hunting down every single story he ever appeared in. If they are collected into an easy to access format then I will pick it up, but I will not purchase a whole book of oft-repeated stuff just for that one tale.

Dark Horse Mini-series : 5 volumes & 1 omnibus edition

Moving onto what Dark Horse released for King Conan is relatively easy as there were just five mini-series that were subsequently released as collected trades and a huge omnibus edition with all those trades contained within.

And the Colossal King Conan edition that collects them all...

 
Again, I have all of these stories to look forward to reading and mining for adventure and scenario ideas. The next couple of years will see me reading a heck of a lot of comics and trades (mustn't forget I have 2015 (the year, not prog number) onwards of 2000AD and Judge Dredd Megazine still to go too) as well as listing anything I took away from those collections. Added to the prepping and painting of my gaming miniatures, I have several years' worth of hobby related stuff to get through.

To paraphrase the old saying: Gamers only die when they have finished painting the last miniature in their collection. This probably holds true for comic collectors too, as they always have some unread comics lying around. Hence, why so many of us hobbyists never complete everything in our collections - there will always be one small set of minatures for a particular game we had set our minds on recreating that will be in some box somewhere at the back of some cupboard that will never be painted, just in case the saying is true.

500th Post and 10 Years of Blogging

This post for today is a bit off topic but I thought it would be nice to say "Thank you" to my loyal readers and casual browsers for staying with me through the thick and thin of the last few years.

For me, it will also be an an aide de memoir for how my little blog has been going.

Used without permission, but with thanks to the Fortune 500 companies

Well, I am not sure how it got here, but it did. 500 posts over 10 years is quite an achievement when looked at in the cold light of day - approximately one update per week! I missed the tenth anniversary of this blog back on the 16th of April this year as I was so busy putting up new content I didn't think to look back to see when it all started; it is only this memorable blog count that drew my attention to it.

Well, not today but on the16th April 2019

My blogging started off in a bright and breezy fashion, updating semi-regularly and in an eclectic fashion, concentrating mainly on: painted miniatures from a variety of my collections, the play-by-email games I was involved in, and shows/exhibitions I attended that were gaming or comic related. It then moved onto mostly gaming reports (play-by-email games I ran and took part in, games at the local RPG club and tabletop games with a few opponents) as my backlog of old pre-slotta and new historical minis were now painted and based up ready for action.

The blog began to flounder a couple of years ago as certain events took hold and my life took a different path that stopped me thinking about gaming and all things hobby related. This phase now seems to be almost over, at long last, so now I have got back to blogging with a vengeance. Due to being currently out of work I have had the time to put fingers to keyboard and churn out stuff that in the past I would not have had the time to do. One day soon (hopefully), I will get back into work and my output will inevitably fall, but all this writing is useful to keep my mind active and imagination busy whilst I trundle through the days.

The future of this blog, as I see it at the moment, is to report more on my overall hobby related stuff rather than just solely gaming, but each post will need to have a gaming related theme. I also do a lot of running and watch rugby (after playing it for several years at a few local clubs), but I will probably not mention these activities too much on here.

Anyway, here's to another ten years of blogging and reporting on my little gaming hobby. I hope to keep it more regular than in the past but I know there will be phases when either my enthusiasm wanes or I am stymied by situations that mean I cannot do something hobby-related for a while (e.g. getting hold of hobby supplies, waiting on the weather etc.). I have many more figures to prep and paint, loads of comics to read and mine for adventure hooks, and I daresay other things will come along out of the blue and take my attention for a short while.

I will end this post by saying another big "Thank you" for the support you guys and girls out there have given me over the years.

Conan

Another early posting today as most of the work had already been done on this over the weekend.

The final Robert E Howard character I have a comic collection for is Conan. Actually, make that two collections as I have one for Conan and another for King Conan. I will list these separately, so this post is primarily just for the Conan series.

Like the Kull and Solomon Kane collected series, Dark Horse did the same with Conan; in fact  Conan was the precursor to the other two collections, so really I should have featured him first, but decided to save the best, in my opinion, until last. As per the other collections, I will read the colour Marvel reprints, followed by the Savage Sword black and whites, and then the Dark Horse written monthly runs, mini-series and one-shots. Hopefully I can remember to jot down the adventure hooks for possible future use.

First up are the Marvel reprints...

The Chronicles of Conan : 34 volumes

These volumes collect all of the Marvel monthly run comics plus a few other one-offs from Savage Tales and the Conan Annual. I didn't really read too many of these as a kid except for a small British  pocket digest sized limited run that were in black and white as I was more interested in the Savage Sword stuff - it was something about the way they were coloured that turned me off of them. However, these new reprints have been remastered (although I think later on as time on the franchise drew to a close they decided to stop with the recolouring just so that they could get them all released in time - I will check that as I read through them and report back on it in a later post).

The Conan comics franchise has now returned to Marvel and it looks like they are reprinting them all again! I am not too certain exactly what is happening there though, so may look into things a bit more in the future, but the release of so much Conan stuff may be to tie in with a future Amazon Conan TV series I have heard rumours about. Added to the Amazon Lord of the Rings 2nd Age prequel series and the Judge Dredd series due for release over the next few years, I am going to be spoilt for choice as to what to watch and actually happy to switch the TV on for once (although, I will undoubtedly wait for each whole series to end and then watch them at my leisure like I currently do with Game of Thrones).

Next up are my favourite Marvel Conan tales in comic form. Perhaps, as mentioned above, I didn't get on with the colour ones and preferred the larger format black and white comics? It may also have been that my local corner shop only stocked the UK versions of these particular comics, so were more readily available? Either way, I used to spend many a rainy Sunday afternoon escaping to Hyboria to read of Conan's exploits.

The Savage Sword of Conan : 22 volumes

The paper quality of these reprints is almost pulpy; nowhere near as good as those on the coloured Chronicles. That said, to get this many TPBs out I can see why Dark Horse went down this avenue otherwise we would have seen several more volumes on a medium that is actually more suited to the glossy coloured versions and it would have cost a fortune to produce and therefore purchase.


And now the Dark Horse take on Conan's story...

Dark Horse Monthly Run : 6 story arcs - 21 volumes & 7 omnibus editions

In this collection written and distributed by Dark Horse are six major story arcs...

Conan (0-50)
Conan the Cimmerian (0-25)
Conan : The Road of Kings (1-12)
Conan the Barbarian (1-25)
Conan the Avenger (1-25)
Conan the Slayer (1-12)

It is strange that Dark Horse stopped producing the HC versions of these collections at volume 20 - to the end of the monthly run collection of Conan the Avenger. They were also all released as TPBs and I am certain the Conan the Slayer arc was too, but as Dark Horse have taken down all of the Conan stuff from their site I cannot check (a bit of Google-fu for later on I guess?). Presumably this was due to the usual supply and demand structures they have in place and I guess as time went on, interest in the franchise waned and HCs became too expensive to produce for the limited audience of collectors left? As these were on order for me, I would have received them automatically, but I only informed my comics dealer I wanted the HCs of the monthly runs, so if they did go to trades, then I would have missed them anyway. Oh well.

As with all collections, there are some places where different publications contain different stories. The Omnibus collections featured above contain the stories that were also in two other Conan collected trades that did not fit into the monthly run story lines (they were one-off filler tales).

These two volumes supplemented the original 21 volume HC collections of the monthly runs but some stories were later incorporated into the Omnibus editions. I think I have all of the stories released as I purchased the smaller HC versions of the collected works along with the two volumes above but, somewhere along the line, I may have missed a story or two though, so I will check these out when I get round to reading them in earnest. Volume #0 of the monthly run HCs contained the Conan background story that appeared every 8 or so issues. Volumes #1-20 contained the main story arcs.

Dark Horse Mini-series : 8 volumes

Alongside the monthly runs, there were several mini-series released to keep interest in the character going. These I have in both comic form and their collected trades.

I do like these one-off mini-series as they are a pleasant aside from the main monthly story arcs. Likewise, I also like the occasional one-shot story.

Dark Horse One-shots and Cross-Overs

I have the FCBD Star Wars/Conan comic but I am not sure about the Age of Conan comic - I have a small half-sized limited edition comic called The Sons of Bel, but until I can dig it out I cannot say for certain if it is a different version of the same comic. The Mask of Acheron is a comic book version of the Conan film.

As mentioned in previous posts, I am not a great fan of cross-overs but I was willing to make exceptions for other Robert E Howard characters. Red Sonja I am OK with but somehow the Groo one seemed right due to its comedic content. As I was unable to get hold of the Wonder Woman ones (even though I ordered them from my comics dealer) I cannot pass judgement on that story; I have a feeling it might have been OK though - something to hunt down when I have the spare cash maybe, just to complete the collection?

Dark Horse Miscellanea

Alongside the comics and their collected trades etc. Dark Horse also released a couple of supplementary hard cover books. I bought these (as well as a lunch pail for my eldest son when he was little for a bit of something different). These books fill in a few gaps of otherwise uncollected items and tell the story of Conan as a book, comic and film character. Both are well-worth getting hold of, as well as the Dorling Kinderley hard cover book by Roy Thomas called Conan : The Ultimate Guide.

The last book I threw into the mix as I bought it at the same time as when I collected the Dark Horse comics and books. I am well aware of the dozens of other books, tie-ins and other paraphernalia surrounding Conan from other publishers, but to add these would have been a step too far for this little blog post which was primarily concerned with my actual comics collection.

Tomorrow should see me completing my comics collection posts and then I have a few miscellaneous posts lined up (games played, places visited etc. if all goes well). If the weather sorts itself out after the weekend, I am hoping to get back onto finishing the preparation for my Lord of the Rings miniatures (the undercoating and gap-filling stages). I may then sort out my miscellaneous fantasy miniatures and get those prepped and ready for undercoating. Lots still to do and report on before I even get to painting and gaming with them.