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Conan: The Ultimate Guide to the World's Most Savage Barbarian by Todd McFarlane, Roy Thomas
lunchlander's review against another edition
4.0
After the strong showing of DK Publishing on the DC Encyclopedia, I had high expectations for their similarly all-encompassing guide to the world of Robert E. Howard’s barbarian. I wasn’t disappointed. This oversized hardcover tome, with a heft and thickness worthy of the Cimmerian it represents, is a treasure trove for Conan fans old and new. It expertly mixes artwork from Conan’s appearances in older Marvel Comics, new Dark Horse Comics and of course plenty of pinups, prints and book covers by fantasy legends to create a beautifully illustrated and masterfully designed look at Conan’s birth, life and death. And on the writing and information side of things, the whole thing is guided by the man who has probably written more Conan than anyone save REH himself, Roy Thomas. How’s that for a pedigree?
Conan: The Ultimate Guide to the World’s Most Savage Barbarian is a mostly chronological look at the barbarian, from his days as a young boy in Cimmeria all the way up through his time of king, his journeys to other continents and even a page on what happened to civilization after he passed on. The Ultimate Guide draws from many sources in telling the tales of Conan, from the books to the comics adaptations, and in so doing reveals the rich history that the character has had. Thomas also takes advantage of the different adaptations to give Conan’s stories a mythic spin, making them out as more universal tales of a real figure that have been interpreted different ways in different stories. Conan is presented, quite credibly, as a legendary figure on the level of Robin Hood or King Arthur. Curiously, the death of Conan is never spelled out, but rather left shrouded in mystery, which I found an interesting twist on legendary figures like these, whose death is usually as epic and important as their life itself. Robert E. Howard’s life was cut short, and thus he probably never tired of his character like an Arthur Conan Doyle and decided to kill him off, and I suppose that the writers who followed didn’t want to definitively end a character that they saw as someone else’s.
Interior pages from Conan Ultimate GuideIt wasn’t until I started reading the Dark Horse Conan series that I realized that the character was so much more than a simple muscle-bound sword swinger, and the Ultimate Guide further reinforces the depth of the character. The chapter titles reveal Conan’s life to have gone through transitions, from young barbarian to canny thief, from mercenary to pirate, from rebel to king, among others. Memorable adventures are given one or two-page write-ups decorated with beautiful artwork that evoke all the mystery and danger in Conan’s life. Thomas’s writing style is straightforward, like that found in, well, an encyclopedia, rather than the flowery prose of the Nemedian Chronicles, but it’s a style that works. The sense given in reading the Ultimate guide is reading an archaeologist’s treatise on a legendary find, but like all the narrators of Conan’s tales, this hypothetical archaeologist gets somewhat caught up in the adventure and free spirited nature of Conan.
If you’re like me, a reader whose exposure to Conan is mostly limited to Dark Horse’s new comic series and Marvel reprints, you needn’t worry that reading the sourcebook will spoil future comic stories for you. Like the best kind of sourcebooks, the Ultimate guide’s write-ups usually leave the reader with the urge to see the full version told, rather than a feeling that every bit of life has been wrung out of the stories. This is not to say Thomas’s write-ups are inadequate, but rather that dry words can never quite capture the adventures of Conan the way Howard’s more elaborate prose or the words and pictures of the comics can.
Interior pages from Conan Ultimate GuideAs much as choosing the right writer for the project is key, so too is the proper selection of art, and here again the DK Publishing team proves their worth. The art selection ranges from the black and white work in Savage Sword of Conan to fantasy art by legends like Frank Frazetta to the newest work by Cary Nord and Tim Truman. It all coexists side by side in perfect layouts, so that the black and white, often fading into sepia background tones, never looks out of place, and the old school Marvel art and flashy new colored Dark Horse art looks just fine side by side. There are occasional moments in the layout, mostly in Todd McFarlane’s foreword, when the background images overwhelm the words and make for difficult reading, but these moments are few and far between. In general, this is a colorful, visual and clearly laid out guidebook.
Part of my love for comics and my knowledge of a lot of the characters comes from the Marvel Universe and Who’s Who that were published in my youth. While there’s no substitution for reading the actual source material, a well-done guidebook can really spur the reader to seek out that original material and spark a love for characters that were previously unknown. DK Publishing has shown the ability to do top-notch versions of these kind of guidebooks, and with Conan: The Ultimate Guide proving that the DC Encyclopedia was no fluke, I know I’ll be keeping an eye out for future products of these nature. A Marvel Encyclopedia is already on the way, and with any luck we’ll get more volumes, maybe looking at Image or the ’80s color indy boom or who knows what else. If you’re a fan of Conan, or if you’ve always wanted to be one but didn’t know where to start, the Ultimate Guide is probably worth a look.
Conan: The Ultimate Guide to the World’s Most Savage Barbarian is a mostly chronological look at the barbarian, from his days as a young boy in Cimmeria all the way up through his time of king, his journeys to other continents and even a page on what happened to civilization after he passed on. The Ultimate Guide draws from many sources in telling the tales of Conan, from the books to the comics adaptations, and in so doing reveals the rich history that the character has had. Thomas also takes advantage of the different adaptations to give Conan’s stories a mythic spin, making them out as more universal tales of a real figure that have been interpreted different ways in different stories. Conan is presented, quite credibly, as a legendary figure on the level of Robin Hood or King Arthur. Curiously, the death of Conan is never spelled out, but rather left shrouded in mystery, which I found an interesting twist on legendary figures like these, whose death is usually as epic and important as their life itself. Robert E. Howard’s life was cut short, and thus he probably never tired of his character like an Arthur Conan Doyle and decided to kill him off, and I suppose that the writers who followed didn’t want to definitively end a character that they saw as someone else’s.
Interior pages from Conan Ultimate GuideIt wasn’t until I started reading the Dark Horse Conan series that I realized that the character was so much more than a simple muscle-bound sword swinger, and the Ultimate Guide further reinforces the depth of the character. The chapter titles reveal Conan’s life to have gone through transitions, from young barbarian to canny thief, from mercenary to pirate, from rebel to king, among others. Memorable adventures are given one or two-page write-ups decorated with beautiful artwork that evoke all the mystery and danger in Conan’s life. Thomas’s writing style is straightforward, like that found in, well, an encyclopedia, rather than the flowery prose of the Nemedian Chronicles, but it’s a style that works. The sense given in reading the Ultimate guide is reading an archaeologist’s treatise on a legendary find, but like all the narrators of Conan’s tales, this hypothetical archaeologist gets somewhat caught up in the adventure and free spirited nature of Conan.
If you’re like me, a reader whose exposure to Conan is mostly limited to Dark Horse’s new comic series and Marvel reprints, you needn’t worry that reading the sourcebook will spoil future comic stories for you. Like the best kind of sourcebooks, the Ultimate guide’s write-ups usually leave the reader with the urge to see the full version told, rather than a feeling that every bit of life has been wrung out of the stories. This is not to say Thomas’s write-ups are inadequate, but rather that dry words can never quite capture the adventures of Conan the way Howard’s more elaborate prose or the words and pictures of the comics can.
Interior pages from Conan Ultimate GuideAs much as choosing the right writer for the project is key, so too is the proper selection of art, and here again the DK Publishing team proves their worth. The art selection ranges from the black and white work in Savage Sword of Conan to fantasy art by legends like Frank Frazetta to the newest work by Cary Nord and Tim Truman. It all coexists side by side in perfect layouts, so that the black and white, often fading into sepia background tones, never looks out of place, and the old school Marvel art and flashy new colored Dark Horse art looks just fine side by side. There are occasional moments in the layout, mostly in Todd McFarlane’s foreword, when the background images overwhelm the words and make for difficult reading, but these moments are few and far between. In general, this is a colorful, visual and clearly laid out guidebook.
Part of my love for comics and my knowledge of a lot of the characters comes from the Marvel Universe and Who’s Who that were published in my youth. While there’s no substitution for reading the actual source material, a well-done guidebook can really spur the reader to seek out that original material and spark a love for characters that were previously unknown. DK Publishing has shown the ability to do top-notch versions of these kind of guidebooks, and with Conan: The Ultimate Guide proving that the DC Encyclopedia was no fluke, I know I’ll be keeping an eye out for future products of these nature. A Marvel Encyclopedia is already on the way, and with any luck we’ll get more volumes, maybe looking at Image or the ’80s color indy boom or who knows what else. If you’re a fan of Conan, or if you’ve always wanted to be one but didn’t know where to start, the Ultimate Guide is probably worth a look.
krismoon's review against another edition
4.0
The history of Conan is amazing. Perhaps not as extensive as Tolkien's created alter-universe, but definitely more congruent and ... well... interesting.
And for the record, our dear governor was CREATED namely for fulfiling his destiny of being the only man who can/could be Conan
And for the record, our dear governor was CREATED namely for fulfiling his destiny of being the only man who can/could be Conan
terminatee's review
2.0
A real disappointment. While there was plenty of artwork throughout the book, taken from Frazetta, and the Conan comic books, as well as other sources, it was impossible to follow the text, or the thread of Conan's life. I realize that Howard didn't write all the Conan stories with a clear biography in mind. But in trying to pull everything together that's ever been written about Conan, from Howard's work to the comic books to the other books written, it turned out to be just one big hodge-podge that was more trouble to read than it was worth.
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