Week of 1/13/10 – Conan: Weight of the Crown
Darrick Robertson, the man behind the ‘The Boys’, took on everyone’s favorite barbarian with this Conan one-shot. Shortly after Conan buries the woman he loves he goes looking for blood. And when Conan loses himself in battle it’s bad the other side.
The Weight of the Crown is a story of how Conan comes to sit on his first throne. After battling as a mercenary Conan inherits a King’s crown on the battlefield. Inherits is the wrong word. He takes it from a weak prince. In typical fable fashion Conan lavishes on his throne at the expense of his lands and new people. But as his subjects die and his crops wither he’s forced to face the facts that presidenting is hard. I won’t spoil the ending but obviously his post does not last long.
One of the conditions of telling an entire story in one issue of a standard comic is cramming a lot of story on to each page. As a result we don’t get many of the delicious splash pages that we love so much here at POTW. Dark Horse saw fit to include some concept sketches at the end of the issue. Here we really get to see some pin-up love from Robertson.
He should be the regular Conan Artist.
I would absolutely get down with Robertson as the monthly artist on Conan. Although there is something about Cary Nord’s work on Conan that is such a natural fit. It was my favorite book for a while there.
Agreed, I was never a big Nord fan until he drew Conan. I think he’s perfectly suited for sword and sandel type comics vs. superhero stuff. Love to see him return to Conan.