After concentrating on his contributions to Titan Comics' series The Savage Sword Of Conan, I shifted topics to the latest issue of writer Jim Zub's Conan The Barbarian series. Still, I made a slight detour into Savage Sword along the way! Here's more of my interview with Cimmerian scribe Jim Zub!
David: With Conan The Barbarian #13, it seems like you've gone through cycles where Conan was with Brisa and then his world kind of breaks. He tries to go back to Cimmeria but he couldn't. So, he's goes to Shadizar to start over, and then that situation gets messed up. So now he’s going out into the wilderness on his own.
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| Conan The Barbarian #1 Cover B (Roberto de la Torre) |
Jim: Well, we've jumped to an earlier part of the timeline.
Like with the weird tale stories, we can move around. We don't have to go
linear. So if you look in Conan The Barbarian #1, there's a flashback. It talks
about him fighting at the battle of Venarium, and he's got this bear on his back, and
it talks about him testing his might. Now we're going back and showing that
story.
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| Conan The Barbarian #13 Cover A by Dan Panosian |
We're showing Conan in his youth, questioning his faith,
and wondering what it's all about. Chronologically, Conan The Barbarian #13 to
16 take place between zero [The 2023 Free Comic Book Day issue] and #1.
David: The shape of his sword made me wonder.
Jim: It is the Pict blade that he got at the end of the Free Comic Book Day special.
David: But in Conan The Barbarian #12, he discards it, right?
Jim: Yeah.
David: Okay, because it [the panel] was very small.
Jim: Yeah. No, he does discard it, yeah.
David: I'm going to revise my review then.
Jim: [Laughs] No worries. It's all good.
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| The Savage Sword Of Conan #4 Cover A by David Palumbo |
David: So, [in Savage Sword] you've done a prose story. You've done comics. You've done a poem. Are we going to see a pinup next?
Jim: [Laughs] You know, I am an artist. I was an artist before I became a writer. I'm not sure. I do sketches of Conan and stuff for people, but man! You know Doug [Braithwaite] and Rob [de la Torre] are so phenomenal! I would be extra intimidated to step into the ring. It's not impossible but it's not the current plan, no, but thank you for the compliment. It would be cool, for sure.
David: Yeah, something different.
Jim: Yeah, you’re like, “Are you doing a rock opera next?”
David: [Laughs] So, with your Conan The Barbarian series, you pass over some stories and you kind of blend on others.
Jim: Yeah.
David: Why retell “The Frost Giant’s Daughter’?
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| Conan The Barbarian #13 Cover B by Amanda Conner |
Jim: Good question! So, early on I made it very clear we weren't going to do straight adaptations because they've been done many times in comics. If you're a Conan fan you know “The Frost Giant’s Daughter”. You know the “God in the Bowl”. You know “The Tower Of The Elephant” and “The Queen Of The Black Coast”. So, we can build off those pillars and hopefully surprise you with the ways that we echo the themes or ideas or visuals from those stories, but not just retell them.
Doug [Braithwaite] specifically asked me to do a story set in the frozen north. He loves those [Frank] Frazetta paintings of Conan fighting in the snow, and he's like, “I want something that feels like that!”
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| Conan Legacy Frazetta Cover #1 (Dark Horse Comics) |
There’s only canon story that takes place in the north like that and that's “The Frost Giant’s Daughter”. I said, “I’ve got to think about it,” and I came across this idea of faith and Conan in his youth with wanderlust. Originally, I was going to finish it with him heading into “The Frost Giant's Daughter.” Then I realized thematically we could do something even more expansive.
I don't want to spoil it, but “The Frost Giant’s Daughter” is sort of central to the story now. So, we see before and after [Robert E Howard’s story] and there are some surprises. Even though you've read “The Frost Giant’s Daughter” before, there’s context for why they happen and where. We can give you a different story that is not just the one you've read before. There's more under the hood and I'm really excited for people to see it.
And it’s the 90th anniversary of the original story’s publication so it just seemed like kismet that we could do it and we'd be able to celebrate at the same time.
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| The Cimmerian: The Frost Giant's Daughter #1 Cover A by Peach Momoko |
David: I'm sure it'll be a lot different than Ablaze Comics’ version of “The Frost Giant’s Daughter” [in their series The Cimmerian].
Jim: [Laughs] Yes, I can say that with absolute confidence!
Thanks
again to Jim Zub for speaking with me, Titan Comics for arranging the interview, and the
press office at Comic-Con International for granting me the opportunity
to speak with the author bringing Conan back to comic readers! I'll
share more of this interview soon!
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