John Paul Leon’s CONAN cover, sketch to final

colors by Dave Stewart

A sequence from Conan #4

courtesy me, James Harren, and Dave Stewart.

Conan The Barbarian #2

Two pages of the six being offered up at CBR.  Becky Cloonan, Dave Stewart, Massimo Carnevale, and guest cover artist Leo Fernandez make sense of my script.

Conan The Barbarian #1 Commentary, commentary

(I wrote this originally for the Dark Horse blog, meant to air before the comic was released, which is why it’s only a partial-issue commentary)

THE COMMENTARY TRACK: BRIAN WOOD’S “CONAN THE BARBARIAN” #1

This is primarily about the process of adapting, what to leave in, what to exclude, how to re-work things moving from one medium to another.  In the case of The Queen Of The Black Coast, what I have here is a short story, the original Robert E Howard story, that stands at 27 pages of almost entirely prose, very little dialog.  And comics, obviously, are nothing if not almost entirely dialog.  That was the first, and probably the biggest, challenge.  The first arc of this comic, 66 pages worth of comics, will be adapted from about 9 or 10 pages of the original.

Here’s an excerpt, more in the link:

The section of the original that matches up to this page here is utterly devoid of dialogue, so all of what you see here is gleaned from descriptions. Tito, the bearded fellow, is describing to Conan what Robert E. Howard wrote to his readers, like so:

“Nor did master Tito pull into the broad bay where the Styx river emptied its gigantic flood into the ocean, and the massive black castles of Khemi loomed over the blue waters. Ships did not put unasked into this port, where dusky sorcerers wove awful spells in the murk of sacrificial smoke mounting eternally from blood-stained altars where naked women screamed, and where Set, the Old Serpent, arch-demon of the Hyborians but god of the Stygians, was said to writhe his shining coils among his worshippers.”

You can see how I used it, and also how I didn’t. Early on I was faced with the decision on how to adapt this, and there is an argument to be made (I know because lots of fans made it to me) that the best way is to literally adapt, use no words that aren’t Howard’s, to cut and paste from the original. But the parameters of the job, common sense, and the need to actually put dialogue on these pages made this impossible. It was necessary to take the prose, and rework and reframe it into scenes and conversations. 

Becky and I Talk CONAN

Newsarama:

Nrama: There’s a variety of different breeds of pirate. How’d you go to pinpoint just who Bêlit is and what she’d be like?

Wood: I think its safe to say that Bêlit is in a category of her own. Also, I’m not writing her as any sort of pirate stereotype. There is actually so much information in the first part of the source material, especially when you are poring over every line like a crazy person like I am. Every adjective is a clue, a piece of the puzzle, and there is a huge amount of subtext there. But again, it’s a short story and we have 25 issues to fill, so the real trick is to build Bêlit out from what she is already into something much more well-rounded and complete. It seems like sacrilege to even say such a thing, but it’s true.

In her, you have a pretty cutthroat pirate; you also have a demanding queen, and an incredibly sexual person. She draws a bead on Conan (and to a degree finds a way to fetishize his ethnicity, which is a fascinating thing as a writer to play with) and goes after him hardcore. But that’s just the first step. How do they, as a couple, evolve over some two years? What is it about her that makes him want to stick around for that long, and vice versa?

Cloonan: Bêlit is a little tricky, visually- she’s this tough as nails pirate woman who runs around topless and kills people. At first you think, how can this not be awesome to draw? But she could easily turn into a character who’s only purpose is to be cheesecake, the chick who is clinging to Conan’s leg. I think the real trick with Bêlit is to really show her as the driving force of this story. She is the most feared pirate in the waters surrounding Kush. She is frightening and powerful and sexy, and I’m trying my hardest to make her all of these things. Without Bêlit, this story would be nothing.